Den, Mr. Cheermon and feller-sitterzens, if dese be de mos' obdurous intenshuns of dose ruffumlians, duz it not, let me ax, bemoove this loil body to take immejit steps to surcumvalidate, deturrimerate, homswogglemerate, and murder-r-r-- [This expression stuck in the speaker's throat, for, being attracted from the up-stairs of his eloquence by what he at first mistook for an outburst of enthusiasm on the part of his hearers, but was afterwards induced to believe proceeded from some more serious cause, he looked around him upon great waves of panic that lashed the building from side to side--at first converting all obstacles into a causeway for their terror, but at length flowing into currents that beat strongest where the drifts of wrecked and storm-tossed furniture formed artificial banks. Having the organ of comparison well developed among the other faculties, the brain of the statesman took in the situation at once; for, observing with what success doors and windows were swept from their moorings at the heads of the retreating columns, he saw the twenty or more ghostly embodiments that occupied his rear in imagination only, and, hesitating for one instant, he joined the assault on the "imminent breach," ballasting his flight with cries that bore a marvellous resemblance to the changes of which the last word of the "befogoin" is susceptible. Reaching a neighboring window at the end of two vigorous jumps, he passed out into the night--a distance of "eighteen foot in the clur," as he afterwards testified--and regaining his feet and the top of his bent simultaneously, "the startled ear of outer darkness" heard something like the report "murder," at brief intervals of time accommodated to long intervals of space, for about the period employed by an Erie express train in exhausting a winter horizon.] CHAPTER XI. EFFECTS PRODUCED. A PERIOD OF ALARM. Excitement throughout the State--Scenes at the Capitol--Metropolitan Arrests resisted--Secret Police--Government Officials Notified of the Extent of the Disaster--A Quorum of the Legislative or Judicial Bodies not Attainable--No Departures from the City--The K. K. K. Cabal Receiving that Attention from Caucusing Legislators which its Importance Demanded--What the State Judiciary Demanded--A Mob at the State-House--At Sunset the Situation Unchanged--A Sortie from the Capitol--Mobs along the Route--Seeking Refuge from the Excited Populace--Out of Danger--The New Situation--Governor Brownlow Escaping from the Temporary Fortress by an Alley-way--An Ugly Specimen of the Genus Ku-Klux--The Governor Recovers from the Attitude of a Suppliant--An Amusing Episode--"But how many suns, O Man, would look upon the Deed Unavenged?"--A Canard which Grew out of this Affair.