“We can't wait, man!” the General shouted from the walk outside. “Hurry!”
“All right, I'm ready!” and Galt strode rapidly down the stairs, sliding his hand on the walnut railing.
“Why, what is the matter with you?” Sylvester peered at him anxiously in the moonlight as he emerged from the doorway. “You look white and worried. You've done too much in Atlanta, with all those receptions and banquets. Let's call a halt on the social end of the business till we have clinched the thing good and tight. Put this New York deal through, and we can dance and sing and cut the pigeon-wing as much as we please. But you will pull it through, my boy, my prince of promoters, with that wonderful say-little air you have. You are the man to make that crowd of Yankees think we are granting _them_ favors instead of _asking_ for them. If you don't miss connection and get there on time, you will win as sure as you are a foot high.”
The General was pushing him into the carriage, and John Dilk, with whip poised in the air, and a tight, wide-awake grip on the reins showed readiness for his best speed record.
“Now, John,” Sylvester cried, “miss that train, and I'll break every bone in your black hide!”
The negro laughed good-naturedly. It was exactly the sort of command he loved to get from the old man who had done him a hundred services.
“You watch me, Marse Gineral,” he said, with a chuckle; “but you better keep yo' mouf closed. Ef you don't, dis hoss in de lead will fill it wid clay. He's de beatenes' animal ter fling mud I ever driv.”
On they sped, cutting the warm, still air into a sharp, steady current against them. The General babbled on enthusiastically, but Galt failed to catch half he was saying. To all outward appearances, he was being hurtled on to triumph; in reality, he was leaving the just-filled grave of his manhood. Before his humiliated sight stood a wonderful face written full of knowledge of himself--a knowledge more penetrating than that of the world-wise men who bowed before his prowess; a face, the beauty and tenderness of which were ever to remain stamped on his memory; a face wrung by a storm of agony, contempt, and--martyrdom! And he was striking it! The pleading eyes, scornful nose, quivering, drooping mouth were receiving the brunt of all his physical force! He knew the cost, and was going to abide by it. A believer in the eternal existence of the human soul might have paused, but Galt had always contended that nothing lay beyond a man's short material life. And that being his view, how could he suffer material glories like these to slip through his fingers for the sake of a mere principle--a transient dream of the senses? Yes, yes; and yet the pain, the crushing agony, the maddened thing within him which all but tempted him to clutch the chattering old tempter at his side by the neck and hurl him to the earth!