"If in your opinion my language bears that construction, you may proceed," said the Colonel.
"Eggzactly so," replied the regulator. "I may percede with another percession and a funeral at the tail eend of it. Eight o'clock, sharp!" reiterated the regulator, and waving his hand backwards at the old man in the verandah, cried back, "I will be thar or thar abouts," took his leave.
Clarissa tried to sick "ole Jube" on the regulator as he passed through the gate, but the old dog looked sheepishly into Clarissa's face and wagged his tail, as much as to say, "Ef yer wants enybody sicked on dat white man, jes sick yersef."
Nero never planned the destruction of Rome, nor Titus the destruction of Jerusalem with a more implacable spirit then did the regulator the destruction of the upper abutment of the wooden bridge on the Ingleside plantation. As the bold man stood upon the bridge contemplating the work to be done, and then upon the cold full orbed moon bathing its face in light, cumulus clouds, and then on the cold waters, he said to himself; "A soldier boy that can climb the elements in the Crater fight and butt his head agin the stars, aint pestered by little diffikilties when it comes to drownin niggers."
He threw off his coat, took up the crowbar and went to work. The apron was then propped up upon skids too weak to bear the weight of a carriage, but so skillfully as to ward off suspicion in case the structure or any part of it should fall. At 7:30 sharp the work was done and completely done, the pitfall was laid, and well laid, and at 7:40 a black cavalcade, noisy and ruffianly, were galloping on the way to take by force actual possession of Ingleside, against the emphatic protest of its owner and against the law of the land. They were marching with their trombones and their flags, flags striped and starred, just like the one that laughed in the faces of the starved negroes that marched in platoons, desperately hungry, out of the back doors of the Commissariat. Just like the one ruffian Laflin wrapped about his beastly person when he said to poor oppressed Seymour, "My freedmen may make reprisals whenever they please in this accursed country." Just like the flag that waved from the stern sheets of the batteau, that cold sleety night, when Washington was cutting the ice out of his way upon the Delaware. Just like the "Old Glory" that Ethan Allen wound around his head at Ticonderoga. Just like the flag that thrilled every heart, that Philip Barton Key immortalized in the first battle hymn of the Republic.
"Tis the Star Spangled Banner long may it wave,
Over the land of the free and the home of the brave."
"Ah, no," the Southern patriot would say "Our hot sun has tarnished its bright stars, has made black and dingy the blue field, and see! it is blushing ever so red, as it is made to accentuate the horrors of reconstruction." But the flags were coming, so were the horses, and so were the negroes, and so were the trombones, and so was death, each in a vain attempt to bridge the chasm before 8 o'clock sharp. Ah, that crash, that shriek, that doom! The affrightened horses break from the descending carriage and scamper like zebras into the open fields of Ingleside. The uniformed escort turn their horses heads and scamper toward the town, even the trombones have ceased to sound now, but there are echoing hoofs, and there are the wails of the dying, coming up from the darkened abyss, and the moon is still bathing its face in the watery clouds overhead. What! art thou a prophetess, Clarissa, that thou shouldst have said "I specks when dat time cums yer will be ded and gone rate strait to torment?"