Men’s hearts had grown bitter in that struggle, but with it all he had been calm, and he had been one of the few who had seen beneath the waves the deep current of the ocean that was bearing both North and South to a common danger. He knew how the hearts of men had been changed, and how soldiers who had come South at first, being reproached, would reply: “We came to save the Union; damn the niggers!” But the government and some of the people, grown bitter from suffering loss, would not array black against white, and back the African with Union bayonets. Long ago, led by the foresight of the departed Petigru, he had seen the danger to the white race of a Union victory. Ah, Petigru! On whose grave was written the words: “Unawed by opinion; unseduced by flattery; undismayed by disaster!” He could see him now, swinging his green bag full of books, on his way to the courtroom. And now, just as clearly, he knew that above all things else the North and South must be one; that the bickering jars of discord must be stopped forever; that white, hand in hand with white, might look upon the impending danger without malice and without reproach. So he asked himself that night: “What is a man’s part?” He had loved the Union and he had loved the Confederacy, and he had loved them both because they had both loved liberty, for the basal passions of each soul are made as distinct as the shades of the blackjack leaves when the autumn of their lives has come, and in some hearts, as often as may be seen on one gum tree, the colors vary widely—half the leaves are of a bright, yellow color, and half a dark purple—but the branch that bears the yellow and the limb that lifts the purple are but parts of the trunk of life. But more than either Confederacy or Union, he loved his race; and as he sat there looking into the shadowy faces of the coming years, he saw a new thing in history; as he saw it he shuddered, and the cold sweat stood out in beads on his brow. A mulatto people! Good God, it must not be so! “They have saved the Union; now they must help us save the race.” Then, as though there were a ring in the words that might mean something to coming generations, he repeated softly: “We saved the Union, now save the race.” So, his heart still bursting with bitter sadness, he walked out in the cool air toward the Battery. It was the night Fort Sumter was to be evacuated, and he could see the lights of the transports bearing the heavy-hearted garrison to the mainland. Surely the end had come at last. Then he looked toward the west. Was the sun rising again as though he would come back to watch what men would do that night? Then why was that glow, deep, red, sullen in the land of the sunset, and this full ten o’clock in the night? Then suddenly, as if a poisoned arrow had pierced his bosom, his heart quivered with pain. “Camellia!”