“We will do it, sir,” cried Kline. “Let me say, men,” said the Preacher, “that I heartily endorse the plan of your chief. See that the work is done thoroughly and it will be done for all time. In a sense this is fraud. But it is the fraud of war. The spy is a fraud, but we must use him when we fight. Is war justifiable? “It is too late now for us to discuss that question. We are in a war, the most ghastly and hellish ever waged, a war on women and children, the starving and the wounded, and that with sharpened swords. The Turk and Saracen once waged such a war. We must face it and fight it out. Shall we flinch?” “No! no!” came the passionate answer from every man. “You are asked to violate for the moment a statutory law. There is a higher law. You are the sworn officers of that higher law.” The group of leaders left the church with enthusiasm and on the following night they carried out their instructions to the letter. The election was remarkably quiet. Thousands of soldiers were used at the polls by Hogg’s orders. But they seemed to make no impression on the determined men who marched up between their files and put the ballots in the box. Legree’s ticket was buried beneath an avalanche. The new “Conservative” party carried every county in the state save twelve and elected one hundred and six members of the new Legislature out of a total of one hundred and twenty. The next day hundreds of carpet-bagger thieves fled to the North, and Legree led the procession. Legree had on deposit in New York two millions of dollars, and the total amount of his part of the thefts he had engineered reached five millions. He opened an office on Wall Street, bought a seat in the Stock Exchange, and became one of the most daring and successful of a group of robbers who preyed on the industries of the nation. The new Legislature appointed a Fraud Commission which uncovered the infamies of the Legree régime, but every thief had escaped. They promptly impeached the Governor and removed him from office, and the old commonwealth once more lifted up her head and took her place in the ranks of civilised communities. CHAPTER XXI--THE OLD AND THE NEW NEGRO NELSE was elated over the defeat and dissolution of the Leagues that had persecuted him with such malignant hatred. When the news of the election came he was still in bed suffering from his wounds. He had received an internal injury that threatened to prove fatal. “Dar now!” he cried, sitting up in bed, “Ain’t I done tole you no kinky-headed niggers gwine ter run dis gov’ment!” “Keep still dar, ole man, you’ll be faintin’ ergin,” worried Aunt Eve. “Na honey, I’se feelin’ better. Gwine ter git up and meander down town en ax dem niggers how’s de Ku Kluxes comin’ on dese days.”