The polling place was under a great oak that grew in the Square beside the Court House. A space had been roped off to guard the approach to the boxes. Since sunrise this space had been packed solid with a living wall of white men. Occasionally a well-known old negro of good character was allowed to pass through and vote and then the lines closed up in solid ranks.
One by one a new white man was allowed to take his place in this wall and gradually he was moved up to the tables on which the boxes rested, voted, and slowly, like the movement of a glacier, the line crowded on in its endless circle.
The outer part of this wall of defense which the white race had erected around the polling place was held throughout the day by the same men—twenty or thirty big, stolid, dogged countrymen, who said nothing, but every now and then winked at each other.
When Andy received the Governor's message he decided to distinguish himself. It was late in the day, but not too late perhaps to win by a successful assault. He picked out twenty of his strongest buck negroes, moved them quietly to a good position near the polls, formed them into a flying wedge, and, leading the assault in person with a loud good-natured laugh, he hurled them against the outer line of whites.
To Andy's surprise the double line opened and yielded to his onset. He had forced a dozen negroes into the ranks when to his surprise the white walls suddenly closed on the blacks and held them as in a steel trap.
And then, quick as a flash, something happened. It was a month before the negroes found out exactly what it was. They didn't see it, they couldn't hear it, but they knew it happened. They felt it.
And the silent swiftness with which it happened was appalling. Every negro who had penetrated the white wall suddenly leaped into the air with a yell of terror. The white line opened quickly and to a man the negro wedge broke and ran for life, each black hand clasped in agony on the same spot.
Andy's voice rang full and clear above his men's:
"Dey shot us, man!" screamed a negro.