The voice was familiar and the man who spoke was coming toward him, his long hair streaming in the wind. He came nearer.
“Ah! friend, have you heard the news? They have killed every man in the South. We showed them how to cut off their necks, a million at a time. Then said I, ‘Behold victory on a white horse, and his rider is black!’”
It was Sam Tillett, who had borne the flag when General Anderson surrendered Sumter.
“Poor fellow,” said the colonel sadly, passing him by. “A raving lunatic.” And in the darkness the man ran on, shouting:
“Victory! Victory! We have slain! We have slain! Behold victory on a white horse, and his rider is black—black—black!”
“And yet,” the colonel added, “it is as he says.”
Then the editor went back to the office and sat long and lonely in the darkness. Automatically, he took a sheet of writing paper and wrote the heading for to-morrow’s editorial:
A MAN’S PART.
And all night long he sat and thought, only somehow the charge at Churubusco would come back, and the violets of Sudbury, and a face that he had long ago told himself that he must never think of again, but which had a way of coming in moments like this, like the scent of roses from some far-off garden of joy. Once he was on the point of laying down the pen and giving all up forever, but when he saw the headlines of his editorial he began again to ponder. The face came back, the face he loved, and smiled at him from behind the Stars and Bars.