“I saw him about an hour ago. He had then just got it.”
“It’s splendid! Splendid!” she ejaculated. “But I have something, too!”
“Yes?” queried the old man.
“Something even better.” And as they hurried on she told him of Doctor Sherman’s confession.
Old Hosie burst into excited congratulations, but she quickly checked him.
“We’ve no time now to rejoice,” she said. “We must think how we are going to use these statements—how we are going to get this information before the people, get it before them at once, and get it before them so they must believe it.”
They walked on in silent thought. From the moment they had left the Shermans’ gate the two had heard a tremendous cheering from the direction of the Square, and had seen a steady, up-reaching glow, at intervals brilliantly bespangled by rockets and roman candles. Now, as they came into Main Street, they saw that the Court House yard was jammed with an uproarious multitude. Within the speakers’ stand was throned the Westville Brass Band; enclosing the stand in an imposing semicircle was massed the Blake Marching Club, in uniforms, their flaring torches adding to the illumination of the festoons of incandescent bulbs; and spreading fanwise from this uniformed nucleus it seemed that all of Westville was assembled—at least all of Westville that did not watch at fevered bedsides.
At the moment that Katherine and Old Hosie, walking along the southern side of Main Street, came opposite the stand, the first speaker concluded his peroration and resumed his seat. There was an outburst of “Blake! Blake! Blake!” from the enthusiastic thousands; but the Westville Brass Band broke in with the chorus of “Marching Through Georgia.” The stirring thunder of the band had hardly died away, when the thousands of voices again rose in cries of “Blake! Blake! Blake!”
The chairman with difficulty quieted the crowd, and urged them to have patience, as all the candidates were going to speak, and Blake was not to speak till toward the last. Kennedy was the next orator, and he told the multitude, with much flinging heavenward of loose-jointed arms, what an unparalleled administration the officers to be elected on the morrow would give the city, and how first and foremost it would be their purpose to settle the problem of the water-works in such a manner as to free the city forever from the dangers of another epidemic such as they were now experiencing. As supreme climax to his speech, he lauded the ability, character and public spirit of Blake till superlatives could mount no higher.
When he sat down the crowd went well-nigh mad. But amid the cheering for the city’s favourite, some one shouted the name of Doctor West and with it coupled a vile epithet. At once Doctor West’s name swept through the crowd, hissed, jeered, cursed. This outbreak made clear one ominous fact. The enthusiasm of the multitude was not just ordinary, election-time enthusiasm. Beneath it was smouldering a desire of revenge for the ills they had suffered and were suffering—a desire which at a moment might flame up into the uncontrollable fury of a mob.