On the surface only was the Great Deed a failure. Not a single pike hadbeen thrust into a white man\'s breast by his slave. Not a single torchhad been applied to a Southern home. His chosen Captains never passedthe sentinel peak into Fauquier county. The Black Bees had not swarmed.
But the keen ear of the old man had heard the rumble of the swarming oftwenty million white hornets in the North.
The moment he had lifted his head a prisoner in the hands of hiscourteous captor, he foresaw the power which the role of martyrdom wouldgive to his cause. Instantly he assumed the part and played it withgenius to the last breath of his indomitable body.
He had stained the soil of Virginia with the blood of innocent andunoffending citizens. He had raised the Blood Feud at the right moment,a few months before a Presidential campaign. He had raised it at theright spot in a mountain gorge that looked southward to the Capitol atWashington and northward to the beating hearts of the millions, who hadbeen prepared for this event by the long years of the Abolition Crusadewhich had culminated in _Uncle Tom\'s Cabin_.
A wave of horror for a moment swept the nation, North and South.
Frederick Douglas fled to Europe. Sanborn, the treasurer and manager ofthe conspiracy, hurried across the border into Canada. Howe and Stearnshid. Theodore Parker was already in Europe.
Poor, old, gentle, generous Gerrit Smith collapsed and was led to theinsane asylum at Ithaca, New York.
Two men alone of the conspirators realized the tremendous thing thathad been done--John Brown in jail at Charlestown, and Thomas WentworthHigginson, the militant preacher of Massachusetts.
To Brown, life had been an unbroken horror. His tragic Puritan soul hadever faced it with scorn--scorn for himself and the world. He was usedto failure and disaster. They had been his meat and drink. Bankruptcy,imprisonment, flight from justice and the death of half his children hadbeen mere incidents of life.
He had cast scarcely a glance at his dying sons in the Engine House. Hehad not tried to minister to them. His hand was tightly gripped on hiscarbine.
His grim soul now rose to its first long flight of religious ecstasy.
He saw that the Southerner\'s reverence for Law and Order would make hisexecution inevitable. His dark spirit shouted for joy. His own blood, ifhe could succeed in playing the role of martyr, would raise the BloodFeud to its highest power. No statesman, no leader, no poet, no seercould calm the spirit of the archaic beast in man, which this martyrdomwould raise if skillfully played. He was sure he could play the rolewith success.
The one man in the North who saw with clear vision the thing whichBrown\'s failure had done was the Worcester clergyman.
Higginson was a preacher by accident. He was a born soldier. From thefirst meeting with Brown his fighting spirit had answered his cry forblood with a shout of approval. Higginson not only refused to run, butalso groaned with shame at the fears of his fellow conspirators. Hisfirst utterance was characteristic of his spirit.
"I am overwhelmed with remorse that the men who gave him money and armscould not have been by his side when he fell."He stood his ground in Worcester and dared arrest. He did not proclaimhis guilt from the housetop. But his friends and neighbors knew and hewalked the streets with head erect.
He did more. He joined with John W. LeBarnes and immediately organized aplot to liberate Brown by force. He raised the money and engaged GeorgeH. Hoyt to go to Harper\'s Ferry, ostensibly to appear as his attorney atthe trial, in reality to act as a spy, discover the strength of thejail and find whether it could be stormed and taken by a company ofdetermined men.
At his first interview with Brown the spy revealed his purpose.
"I have come from Boston to rescue you," he whispered.
The old man\'s face was convulsed with anger. He spoke in the tones offinal command which had always closed argument with friend or foe.
"Never will I consent to such a scheme.""But listen--""You listen to me, young man. The bare mention of this thing again and Ishall re............