Brown gained their support by this carefully concealed appeal to their subconscious natures. As the crowd of eager faces bent close to catch, the details of his scheme, the burning eyes of the leader were suddenly half closed. Silence followed and they watched the two pin points of light in vain.
Each pious man present caught the smell of human blood. Yet each pious man carefully concealed this from himself and his neighbor until it would be approved by all. Had the bald facts behind the enterprise been told in plain English, religion and culture would have called a halt. The elemental impulse of the Beast must therefore be carefully concealed.
Every man present knew that they were sending Brown on a man-hunt. They knew that the results might mean bloodshed. They knew, as individuals, exactly what was being said and what was being planned. Its details they did not wish to know. The moral significance—the big moral significance of the deed was something apart from the bloody details. The Great Deed could be justified by the Higher Law, the Greater Glory of God. They were twisting the moral universe into accord with the elemental impulse of the brute that sleeps beneath every human skin.
The Great Deed about to be done would be glorious, its actors heroes and martyrs of a Divine Cause. They knelt in prayer and their Chosen Leader invoked the blessings of the Lord of Hosts upon them and upon his disciples in the Divine Cause.
The hour of Action was now swiftly approaching. Cook had become a book agent. With his pretty Virginia wife his figure became familiar to every farm, in the county. He visited every house where a slave was to be found. He sold maps as well as books. He also sketched maps in secret when he reached the quiet of his home while his happy little bride sang at her work.
He carefully compiled a census of slaves at the Ferry and in the surrounding country. So sure had he become of the success of the blow when it should fall, that he begged his Chief to permit him to begin to whisper the promise of the uprising to a few chosen men among the slaves.
The old man's eyes; flamed with anger.
"You have not done this already?" he growled.
"No—no."
"You swear it?"