"Sssame ffframe of mind," the general had said, while the senator pressed as straight on as the Votaress.
As far as the interests involved were private to this boat, he said, her officers and owners were entitled to keep them so and to be let alone in the management of them. But when that management became by its nature a vital part of an acute public problem—a national political issue—he felt bound, both as the Courteneys' private well-wisher and as a public servant, to urge such treatment of the matter as its national importance demanded. A spark, he said, might burn a city! A question of private ownership not worth a garnishee might set a whole nation afire! The arrival of Gilmore at the bell threw him into a sudden heat:
"My God! Mr. Courteney—Mr. clerk—I shan't offer to lay hands on any man; not I. All I ask is that you take yours off—of three. My dear sirs, equally as your true friend and as a lover of our troubled country I beg you to liberate those citizens of the sovereign State of Arkansas whom you hold in unlawful duress, and to hear before witnesses the plea they regard as righteous and of national concern."
The sight of Ned joining Gilmore heated him again: "Gentlemen, if you will do that, now, at once, you will save the fortunes of this superb boat, her honored owners, and their fleet. If you don't you wreck them forever before this day dawns. And you may—great heavens, gentlemen, you may see the first bloodshed of sectional strife."
"K-'tional ssstrife!" growled the general.
The clerk smiled. "Why, senator, those men don't go beyond Helena. They leave us there, before sun-up."
"Precisely, sir! And if they're not set free before you enter Helena Reach, or even pass Friar's Point, you may as well not free them at all."
Hugh glanced at the clerk as if to speak. The clerk nodded and in the pilot-house they saw Hugh begin:
"Mr. Senator, suppose we do that?"
"You would do me honor, sir, and yourselves more."