“That is Agricola,” whispered Aurora, with lifted head and eyes dilated and askance, as one deep-chested voice roared above all others.

Agricola stormed.

“Uncle,” Aurora by and by heard Honore say, “shall I leave my own counting-room?”

At that moment Joseph Frowenfeld entered, pausing with one hand on the outer rail.  No one noticed him but Honore, who was watching for him, and who, by a silent motion, directed him into the private office.

“H-whe shake its dust from our feet!” said Agricola, gathering some young retainers by a sweep of his glance and going out down the stair in the arched way, unmoved by the fragrance of warm bread.  On the banquette he harangued his followers.

He said that in such times as these every lover of liberty should go armed; that the age of trickery had come; that by trickery Louisianians had been sold, like cattle, to a nation of parvenues, to be dragged before juries for asserting the human right of free trade or ridding the earth of sneaks in the pay of the government; that laws, so-called, had been forged into thumbscrews, and a Congress which had bound itself to give them all the rights of American citizens—­sorry boon!—­was preparing to slip their birthright acres from under their feet, and leave them hanging, a bait to the vultures of the Americain immigration.  Yes; the age of trickery!  Its apostles, he said, were even then at work among their fellow-citizens, warping, distorting, blasting, corrupting, poisoning the noble, unsuspecting, confiding Creole mind.  For months the devilish work had been allowed, by a patient, peace-loving people, to go on.  But shall it go on forever? (Cries of “No!” “No!”) The smell of white blood comes on the south breeze.  Dessalines and Christophe had recommenced their hellish work.  Virginia, too, trembles for the safety of her fair mothers and daughters.  We know not what is being plotted in the canebrakes of Louisiana.  But we know that in the face of these things the prelates of trickery are sitting in Washington allowing throats to go unthrottled that talked tenderly about the “negro slave;” we know worse:  we know that mixed blood has asked for equal rights from a son of the Louisiana noblesse, and that those sacred rights have been treacherously, pusillanimously surrendered into its possession.  Why did we not rise yesterday, when the public heart was stirred?  The forbearance of this people would be absurd if it were not saintly.  But the time has, come when Louisiana must protect herself!  If there is one here who will not strike for his lands, his rights and the purity of his race, let him speak! (Cries of “We will rise now!” “Give us a leader!” “Lead the way!”)

“Kinsmen, friends,” continued Agricola, “meet me at nightfall before the house of this too-long-spared mulatto.  Come armed.  Bring a few feet of stout rope.  By morning the gentlemen of color will know their places better than they do to-day; h-whe shall understand each other!  H-whe shall set the negrophiles to meditating.”