Wrought up to frenzy, the negroes fairly shook the house; the chairman made sincere efforts to bring the meeting to order. The young white Secretary of the National Political Aid Society arose and said: "Mr. Speaker, you may tell the people of Massachusetts that the coloured people of Richmond are determined to go into any bar-room, theatre, hotel, or car they wish to enter." "Yes, you tell 'em dat! We will! We will!" Next morning, our war lord brought Hayward up in short order. The meeting had come to his notice through Cowardin's report in the "Dispatch." The hearing was rich, a cluster of bright newspaper men being present, among them the "New York Herald" reporter, who endorsed Mr. Cowardin's account, and declared Hayward's speech inflammatory. It developed that negroes had been petitioning to Washington for General Schofield's removal, a compliment paid all his predecessors. The idle and excitable negroes must not be accepted as fully representative of their race. Those not heard from were the worthy ones, remaining at the houses of their white employers or in their own homes, and performing faithfully their regular duties. They were in the minority, but I believe the race would prefer now that these humble toilers should be considered representative rather than the other class. Lending neither aid nor encouragement to insurrectionary methods, they yet dared not openly oppose the incendiary spirit which, had it been carried far enough, might have swept them, too, off their feet as their kindred became involved. Negroes stick together and conceal each other's defections; this does not proceed altogether from race loyalty; they fear each other; dread covert acts of vengeance and being "conjured." Mysterious afflictions overtake the "conjured" or bewitched. THE PRISONER FREE CHAPTER XXI THE PRISONER FREE On a beautiful May afternoon, two years after Mr. Davis' capture, the "John Sylvester" swung to the wharf at Rocketts and the prisoner walked forth, smiling quietly upon the people who, on the other side of the blue cordon of sentinels, watched the gangway, crying, "It is he! it is he!" Always slender, he was shadowy now, worn and thin to emaciation. He did not carry himself like a martyr. Only his attenuation, the sharpness of his features, the care-worn, haggard appearance of the face, the hair nearly all gray, the general indications of having aged ten years in two, made any appeal for sympathy. With him were his wife, Judge Ould, and Mr. James Lyons, Dr. Cooper, Mr. Burton Harrison, and General Burton, General Miles' successor, whose prisoner he yet was, but whose attitude was more that of friend than custodian.