The Colonel had no difficulty in finding a friend who advanced for him the amount of the fine and he sought the carpet bagger Laflin to ask his protection against future indignities. The name Laflin stank in the nostrils of an outraged people. This free rover of reconstruction was shameless and conscienceless; the marplot of every conservative sentiment conceived for the betterment of the people; a human ogre with but one eye that fixed its stare upon the dollar whether enveloped in a tattered rag or a silken purse. The Colonel saw this man as he was coming out of a low groggery arm in arm with negroes. "Can I speak to you sir?" he replied. Laflin turned fiercely upon him with the interrogatory. "Who are you sir, and what is your business?" "I am Mr. Seymour, and my business is to ask your protection." "Ah indeed, you are the rebel who has been giving our people so much trouble." the brute replied. "I am sure you do not wish to annoy an old man who is trying to live peaceably at home." "Yes. I do sir, and I will hear nothing more from an infamous villain like you." "My people white and black have my authority to do as they will; to insult and assault rebels and to make reprisals whenever they think proper." Thus day by day the uncrowned satraps were collecting material for the coming carnival of vice and crime. CHAPTER XIII. A KNIGHT OF THE WHITE CAMELIA. At early dawn in the language of the excited servant, "Dere is sich a flustration agwine on outen old misses flower gyarden as I never seed in my born days." With this exclamation her young mistress was aroused from her slumber by the old negro as she knocked violently at the door of her bed chamber in a state of great perturbation. "Fur de land sake! Miss Alice if yu wants to see a sho nuff harricane run outen here as peart as yer ken. De stracted niggers big und leetle has finely tuck de plantashun. Oh my sole, de heabens and de yearth has cum togedder!" Alice rushed to the window and was horrified at the sight before her. She heard a jargon of boisterous defiant noises graduated from inarticulate sounds to higher and varying keys with occasional snatches of a disgusting song in falsetto. "We de bosses is er gwine to be, Kase ole Lincum dun set us free, In de year of Jubilo." She saw to her disgust and mortification a score or two of negro children romping like cattle through her sainted mother's flower garden. They were plucking the dahlias and roses and other varieties of flowers with ruthless hands, and blowing their petals hither and thither with their vile breath into the air. Such desecration was never dreamed of by Alice and she spoke angrily to the disgusting little vagrants and attempted to drive them from the premises. "Yer jes shet yer ole mouf, dats what, ole po white trash. Us yung uns haint eben er studdin you. Is us Maria?"