As it proceeded her face
alternately flushed and paled, and her heart pounded heavily. All around
rose the tumult of unbridled applause. Men flung up their hats and yelled
themselves hoarse. A speech of that sort from a young fellow like Tom
Bannister was something to create irrepressible enthusiasm. It ended in
such a din that when General John Duff Tolliver arose to introduce Colonel
Sommerton he had to wait some time to be heard.
The situation was one that absolutely appalled, though it did not quite
paralyze, the older candidate, who, even after he had gained his feet and
stalked to the front of the rude rostrum, was as empty of thought as he was
full of despair. This sudden and unexpected appropriation of his great
speech had sapped and stupefied his intellect. He slowly swept the crowd
with his dazed eyes, and by some accident the only countenance clearly
visible to him was that of old Barnaby, who now sat far back on a stump,
looking for all the world like a mightily mystified baboon. The negro
winked and grimaced, and scratched his flat nose in sheer vacant stupidity.
Colonel Sommerton saw this, and it added an enfeebling increment to his
mental torpor.
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