They rendered the masterpieces of all the ages. The music continued hour after hour, day after day, and night after night.
The grand chorus within the Coliseum was accompanied by the ringing of bells in the city, and the firing of cannon on the common, discharged in perfect time with the melody that rolled upward from those twelve thousand voices and broke against the gates of Heaven! When every voice was in full cry, and every instrument of music that man had ever devised, throbbed in harmony, and a hundred anvils were ringing a chorus of steel in perfect time, Parepa Rosa stepped forward on the great stage, and in a voice that rang its splendid note of triumph over all like the trumpet of the archangel, sang the Star Spangled Banner!
Men and women fainted, and one woman died, unable to endure the strain. The Preacher turned his head away and looked out of the window. A soft wind was blowing from the South. On its wings were borne to his heart the cry of the widow and orphan, the hungry and the dying still being trampled to death by a war more terrible than the first, because it was waged against the unarmed, women and children, the wounded, the starving and the defenceless! He tried in vain to keep back the tears. Bending low, he put his face in his hands and cried like a child.
“God forgive them! They know not what they do!” he moaned.
The kindly old man by his side said nothing, supposing he was overcome by the grandeur of the music.
CHAPTER XIX—THE RALLY OF THE CLANSMEN
WHEN the Preacher took the train in Boston for the South, his friendly merchant, a deacon, was by his side.
“Now, you put my name and address down in your note book, William Crane. And don’t forget about us.”