"
"Yet you couldn't have made the whites in Hayti believe that,"
said Murrell, with a sinister smile.
"Because they were no-account trash themselves!" returned Ware,
shaking his head. "We'll all go down in this muss you're fixing
for!" he added.
"No, you won't, Tom. I'll look out for my friends. You'll be
warned in time."
"A hell of a lot of good a warning will do!" growled Ware.
"The business will be engineered so that you, and those like you,
will not be disturbed. Maybe the niggers will have control of
the country for a day or two in the thickly settled parts near
the towns; longer, of course, where the towns and plantations are
scattering. The end will come in the swamps and cane-brakes, and
the members of the Clan who don't get rich while the trouble is
at its worst, will have to stay poor. As for the niggers, I
expect nothing else than that they will be pretty well
exterminated. But look what that will do for men like yourself,
Tom, who will have been able to hold on to their slaves!"
"I'd like to have some guarantee that I'd be able to; do that!
No, sir, the devils will all go whooping off to raise hell."
Ware shivered at the picture his mind had conjured up. "Well,
thank God, they're not my niggers!" he added.
"You'd better come with me, Tom," said Murrell.
"With you?"
"Yes, I'm going to keep New Orleans for myself; that's a plum I'm
going to pick with the help of a few friends, and I'd cheerfully
hang for it afterward if I could destroy the city Old Hickory
saved--but I expect to quit the country in good time; with a
river full of ships I shan't lack for means of escape.
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