"Has your--ah--society approached General Johnson?"
"Not yet--they're a little afraid of him."
Alice Windham thought a moment. "When is your next meeting?"
"Tomorrow. We are called by word of mouth. I've just received my summons."
"Well, then," Alice told him, "make a motion--or whatever you call it--that the General be approached, sounded. They'll appoint a committee. They'll put you on it, of course. Thus you can apprise him of the plot without violating your oath. I don't believe he will aid you, for that means betraying his trust.... But if he should--come back to me. We will have to act quickly."
A fortnight passed. Alice had learned by adroit questioning that the federal army was a purely negligible defensive force.
An attack would result in the easy plundering of this storehouse as well as the militia armories of San Francisco. Thus equipped, an army could be organized out of California's Southern sympathizers, who would beat down all resistance, loot the treasury of its gold and perhaps align the State with Slavery's Cause.
Rebellion, civil warfare loomed with all its horrors. If the plot that Waters had described were carried through there would be bloodshed in the city. Her husband had gone to Sacramento on business. Suppose it came tonight!
Anxiously Alice hovered near the cot where ten-year Robert slept.