The situation was one that absolutely appalled, though it did not quite paralyze, the older candidate, who, even after he had gained his feet and stalked to the front of the rude rostrum, was as empty of thought as he was full of despair. This sudden and unexpected appropriation of his great speech had sapped and stupefied his intellect. He slowly swept the crowd with his dazed eyes, and by some accident the only countenance clearly visible to him was that of old Barnaby, who now sat far back on a stump, looking for all the world like a mightily mystified baboon. The negro winked and grimaced, and scratched his flat nose in sheer vacant stupidity. Colonel Sommerton saw this, and it added an enfeebling increment to his mental torpor.
“Fellow-citizens,” he presently roared, in his melodious bass voice, “I am proud of this honor.” He was not sure of another word as he stood, with bagging trousers and sweat-beaded face, but he made a superhuman effort to call up his comatose wits. “I should be ungrateful were I not proud of this great demonstration.” Just then his gaze fell upon the face of his daughter. Their eyes met with a mutual flash of restrospection. They were remembering the bargain. The Colonel was not aware of it, but the deliberateness and vocal volume of his opening phrases made them very impressive. “I assure you,” he went on, fumbling for something to say, “that my heart is brimming with gratitude so that my lips find it hard to utter the words that crowd into my mind.” At this point some kindly friend in the audience gingerly set going a ripple of applause, which, though evidently forced, was like wine to the old man's intellect; it flung a glow through his imagination.
“The speech you have heard the youthful lamb of law declaim is a very good one, a very eloquent one indeed. If it were his own, I should not hesitate to say right here that I ought to stand aside and let him be nominated; but, fellow-citizens, that speech belongs to another and far more distinguished and eligible man than Tom Bannister.” Here he paused again, and stood silent for a moment. Then, lifting his voice to a clarion pitch, he added:
“Fellow-citizens, I wrote that speech, intending to deliver it here to-day. I was called to Canton on business early in the week, and during my absence Tom Bannister went to my house and got my manuscript and learned it by heart. To prove to you what I say is true, I will now read.”
At this point the Colonel, after deliberately wiping his glasses, drew from his capacious coat-pocket the manuscript of his address, and proceeded to read it word for word, just as Bannister had declaimed it. The audience listened in silence, quite unable to comprehend the situation. There was no applause. Evidently sentiment was dormant, or it was still with Tom. Colonel Sommerton, feeling the desperation of the moment, reached forth at random, and seeing Barnaby's old black face, it amused him, and he chanced to grab a thought as if out of the expression he saw there.
“Fellow-citizens,” he added, “there is one thing I desired to say upon this important occasion. Whatever you do, be sure not to nominate to-day a man who would, if elected, ally himself with the niggers. I don't pretend to hint that my young opponent, Tom Bannister, would favor nigger rule, but I do say—do you hear me, fellow-citizens?—I do say that every nigger in this county is a Bannister man! How do I know?? I will tell you. Last Saturday night the niggers had a meeting in an old stable on my premises. Wishing to know what they were up to, I stole slyly to where I could overhear their proceedings. My old nigger, Barnaby—yonder he sits, and he can't deny it—was presiding, and the question before the meeting was, 'Which of the two candidates, Tom Bannister and Colonel Sommerton, shall we niggers support? On this question there was some debate and difference of opinion, until old Bob Warmus arose and said, 'Mistah Pres'dent, dey's no use er talkin'; I likes Colonel Sommerton mighty well; he's a berry good man; dey's not a bit er niggah in 'im. On t' odder han', Mistah Pres'dent, Mistah Tom Bannistah is er white man too, jes de same; but I kin say fo' Mistah Bannistah 'at he's mo' like er niggah an' any white man 'at I ebber seed afore!”'
Here the Colonel paused to wait for the shouting and the hat-throwing to subside. Meantime the face of old Barnaby was drawn into one indescribable pucker of amazement. He could not believe his eyes or his ears. Surely that was not Colonel Sommerton standing up there telling such an enormous falsehood on him! He shook his woolly head dolefully, and gnawed a little splinter that he had plucked from the stump.
“Of course, fellow-citizens,” the Colonel went on, “that settled the matter, and the niggers endorsed Tom Bannister unanimously by a rising vote!”
The yell that went up when the speaker, bowing profoundly, took his seat, made it seem certain that Bannister would be beaten; but when the ballot was taken it was found that he had been chosen by one vote majority.
Colonel Mobley Sommerton's face turned as white as his hair. The iron of defeat went home to his proud heart with terrible effect, and as he tried to rise, the features of the hundreds of countenances below him swam and blended confusedly in his vision. The sedentary bubbles on the knees of his trousers fluttered with sympathetic violence.