“Not yet,” said Kenrick. “My friend, Slavery is no worse to-day than it was yesterday. You have known for the last three months that these minions and hirelings of the slave aristocracy were hounding, hanging, and torturing men throughout Slavedom, for the crime of being true to their country’s flag.”
“I knew it, Kenrick; but my heart was hardened, and therefore have God’s hammers smitten it thrice,—nay, four times, terribly! I saw these things, but turned away from them! Idle and false to say, Slavery is not responsible for them! They are the very spawn of its filthy loins. I know it,—I, who have been behind the scenes, know what the leaders say as to the means of treading out every spark of Union fire. And I—heedless idiot that I was!—never once thought that the bloody instructions might return to plague me,—that my own father’s family might be among the foremost victims! I acknowledge the hand of God in this stroke! A voice cries to me, as of old to Saul, ‘Why persecutest thou me?’ And now there fall from my eyes as it were scales, and I arise and am baptized!”
“My dear friend,” said Kenrick, “I want your conversion to be, not the result of mere passion, but of calm conviction. I have been asking myself, What if a party of Unionists should outrage and murder those who are nearest and dearest to myself,—would I, therefore, embrace the pro-slavery cause? And from the very depths of my soul, I can cry No! Not through passion,—though I have enough of that,—but through the persuasion of my intellect, added to the affirmation of my heart, do I array myself against this hideous Moloch of slavery. By a terrible law of affinity, wrongs and crimes cannot stand alone. They must summon other wrongs and crimes to their support; and so does murder as naturally follow in the train of slavery, as the little parasite fish follows the shark. It is fallacy to say that the best men among slaveholders do not approve of these outrages; for these outrages are now the necessary and inseparable attendants of the system.”
“I believe it,” said Onslow. “O the wickedness of my apostasy from my father’s faith! O the sin, and O the punishment! It needed a terrible blow to reach me, and it has come. Kenrick, do not withhold your hand. Trust me, my conversion is radical. The ‘institution’ shall henceforth find in me its deadliest foe. ‘Delenda est!’ is now and henceforth my motto!”
Kenrick clasped his proffered hand, and, looking up, said, “So prosper us, Almighty Disposer, as we are true to the promises of this hour!”
“Charles,” said Onslow, “I did not think that Perdita would so soon have her prayer granted.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her last words to me were, ‘May this arm never be lifted except in the cause of right!’ I feel that God has heard her.”
It jarred on Kenrick’s heart for the moment to see that Onslow, in the midst of his troubles, still thought of Perdita; but soon, stilling the selfish tremor, he said: “What we would do we must do quickly. Will you go North with me and join the armies of the Union?”
“Yes, the first opportunity.”