"You didn't want to listen to me a bit ago," he said. "Now you must. Listen and choose. You can't kill that man unless you kill me too.
"TRY IT, IF YOU THINK YOU CAN!"
He reached over and took from the teacher's desk the sheet of paper Will had used to check off the name of each man and how he voted. He held it up in front of him and every man looked at it.
"You know me," he says. "You know I do not break my word. And I promise you that unless you do kill me here tonight--yes, as God is my witness, I THREATEN you--I will spend every dollar I own and every atom of influence I possess to bring each one of you to justice for that man's murder."They knowed, that crowd did, that killing a man like Colonel Buckner--a leader and a big man in that part of the state--was a different proposition from killing a stranger like Doctor Kirby. The sense of what it would mean to kill Colonel Buckner was sinking into 'em, and showing on their faces.
And no one could look at him standing there, with his determination blazing out of him, and not under-stand that unless they did kill him as well as Doctor Kirby he'd do jest what he said.
"I told you," he said, not raising his voice, but dropping it, and making it somehow come creeping nearer to every one by doing that, "I told you the first white man you lynched would lead to other lynchings. Let me show you what you're up against to-night.
"Kill the man and the boy here, and you must kill me. Kill me, and you must kill Old Man Withers, too."Every one turned toward the door as he men-tioned Old Man Withers. He had never been very far into the room.
"Oh, he's gone," said Colonel Tom, as they turned toward the door, and then looked at each other. "Gone home. Gone home with the name of every man present. Don't you see you'd have to kill Old Man Withers too, if you killed me? And then, HIS WIFE! And then--how many more?
"Do you see it widen--that pool of blood? Do you see it spread and spread?"He looked down at the floor, like he really seen it there. He had 'em going now. They showed it.
"If you shed one drop," he went on, "you must shed more. Can't you see it--widening and deep-ening, widening and deepening, till you're wading knee deep in it--till it climbs to your waists--till it climbs to your throats and chokes you?"It was a horrible idea, the way he played that there pool of blood and he shuddered like he felt it climbing up himself. And they felt it. A few men can't kill a hull, dern county and get away with it.
The way he put it that's what they was up against.
"Now," says Colonel Tom, "what man among you wants to start it?"Nobody moved. He waited a minute. Still nobody moved. They all looked at him. It was awful plain jest where they would have to begin.
It was awful plain jest what it would all end up in.
And I guess when they looked at him standing there, so fine and straight and splendid, it jest seemed plumb unpossible to make a move. There was a spirit in him that couldn't be killed. Doctor Kirby said afterward that was what come of being real "quality," which was what Colonel Tom was--it was that in him that licked 'em. It was the best part of their own selves, and the best part of their own country, speaking out of him to them, that done it. Mebby so. Anyhow, after a minute more of that strain, a feller by the door picks up his gun out of the corner with a scrape, and hists it to his shoulder and walks out. And then Colonel Tom says to Will, with his eyebrow going up, and that one-sided grin coming onto his face agin:
"Will, perhaps a motion to adjourn would be in order?"
