Читать книгу The Traitor - Thomas Jr. Dixon - Страница 8

“Boys, I thank you. You have helped me do a painful thing. But it is best. Our work is done. We have rescued our state from Negro rule. We dissolve this powerful secret order in time to save you from persecution, exile, imprisonment and death. The National Government is getting ready to strike. When the blow falls it will be on the vanished shadow of a ghost. There’s a time to fight, and a time to retreat. We retreat from a field of victory.

“I should have dissolved the Klan a month ago. I confess to you a secret. I waited because I meant to strike with it a blow at a personal enemy. I realise now that I stood as your leader on the brink of the precipice of social anarchy. Forgive me for the wrong I might have done, had you followed me. As Grand Dragon of the Empire I declare this order dissolved forever in the state of North Carolina!”

He seized a shovel and covered with earth and leaves the ashes of the burned regalia.

Steve Hoyle stepped quickly in front of his rival. The veins on his massive neck stood out like cords and his eyes shone ominously in the moonlight. The slender figure of John Graham instinctively stiffened at the threat of his movement as the two men faced each other.

“The Klan is now a thing of the past?” asked Steve.

“Yes.”

“As though it had never been?”

“As though it had never existed.”

“Then your authority is at an end?”

“As an officer of the Klan, yes. As a leader of men, no.”

“The officer only interests me—Boys!” Steve’s angry voice rang with defiance.

The men gathered closer.

“The Invisible Empire is no more. Its officers are as dead as the ashes of its ritual. Meet me here to-morrow night at eleven o’clock to organise a new order of patriots! Will you come?”

“Yes!”

“You bet your life!”

The answers seemed to leap from every throat at the same moment.

John Graham’s face went white for a moment and his fist closed.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Steve Hoyle,” he said with slow emphasis.

“And traitors pose as moral leaders,” was the retort.

“Time will show which of us is a traitor. Will you dare thus to defy me and reorganise this Klan?”

“Wait and see!”

John Graham stepped close to his rival, and, in a low voice unheard save by the man to whom he spoke, said:

“Take back that order and tell those men to go home and stay there.”

“I’ll see you in hell first!” came the answer in a growl.

Scarcely had the words passed his lips when John Graham’s fist shot into his rival’s face.

The blow was delivered so quickly Steve’s heavy form struck the ground before the astonished men could interfere.

In a moment a dozen men sprang between them and John said with quiet emphasis, glaring at his enemy:

“I’ll be in my office at ten o’clock to-morrow morning, to receive any communication you may wish to make—you understand!”

And deliberately mounting his horse, he rode away into the night alone.