There had been no movement, no sound, only that tense, fateful silence.
“Will you permit this thing? Will you continue to allow your town and your county to rest under this dreadful thing? You can stop it to-night. You can wipe it out forever.... Let me tell you what I know.”
She spoke rapidly, eloquently. In that moment she was no longer a young woman, but a leader, a prophet, one sent to deliver a message, and she delivered it fittingly. Her words descended upon those upturned faces, compelling belief. There could be no doubt.... She described the plot against herself as Bangs had recited it tauntingly—how she was to have been made a thing to scorn and to turn aside from; how that part of her which was more valuable to her than life itself was to have been murdered. At the recital the faces moved again, became audible again in a murmur which held kinship with a snarl.... Gibeon was awakening.
Point by point, fact by fact, she drove home to them the conditions among which they had been living, but one name she withheld until the moment should come for its utterance.... She described the activities of the whisky smugglers, the workings of their organization, its power—the intelligence which directed it.
“Will you endure this, men of Gibeon?... No time may be lost. At this instant a man stands under the shadow of death! What are you going to do? Will you let him die?”
In the hall a man arose. “What is the name of this man—the man who is to blame for all this?” he demanded.
“His name,” said Carmel, “is Abner Fownes!”
It was as if they had expected it; there was no demonstration, no confusion. The men of Gibeon were strangely unmoved, strangely silent, strangely stern. It was as if they were moved by a common impulse, a common determination. They were not many individuals, but a single entity.... They had been molded into solidity—and that solidity was Gibeon.
The faces were faces no longer, but human beings, men standing erect as if waiting for a signal.... Among them Carmel saw Jared Whitefield. His eyes encountered hers, and he nodded....
“Will you come with me?” she cried. “Will you follow me?... Those who will follow—come!...”