The leader of the Klan was now but ten feet away, towering tall, white and terrible, with an apparently interminable procession of mounted ghosts behind him.
The Clansman leader lifted his hand, and the shrill scream of his whistle rang three times, and each white figure answered with a long piercing cry.
The police cordon broke into scurrying fragments and melted into the throngs on the sidewalks, while the procession of white and scarlet horsemen, without a pause, passed slowly on amid shouts of laughter from the people who had witnessed the fiasco.
“Well, I’ll be d------! excuse me, Miss Stella!”
Suggs cried in a stupor of blank amazement, his round little figure suddenly collapsing like a punctured balloon.
“You can’t help admiring such men, Captain!” the girl laughed.
Suggs who had lost the power of speech wandered among the crowd in search of his commanding officer.
As the parade passed the Judge’s gate, Stella stood wide-eyed, tense with excitement, watching the tall horseman with two scarlet crosses on his breast who led the procession.
“The spirit of some daring knight of the middle ages come back to earth again!” she cried. “Superb! Superb! I could surrender to such a man!”
A lace handkerchief fluttered from her bosom and waved a moment above her head. The tall figure turned in astonishment, bowed, tipped his spiked helmet, and without realising it suddenly reined his horse to a stand--and the whole line halted.
The leader whispered to a tall figure by his side, apparently his orderly, who turned to the line behind and shouted.
“Boys! three cheers for the little gal at the gate! She’s all right! _The purtiest little gal in the countee--oh!_”
A ripple of sweet girlish laughter broke the silence which followed, the lace handkerchief fluttered again and the line moved slowly on.
“Only forty men. And they dared a regiment!” With another laugh, she deserted Suggs and disappeared in the flowers and shrubbery toward the house as the last echoes of the raiders died away in the distance.
The Clansmen descended a hill, turned sharply to the right toward the river and broke into a quick gallop. Within thirty minutes they entered a forest on the river bank, and down its dim aisles, lit by moonbeams, slowly wound their way to their old rendezvous.