a season's victories), without taking Cincinnati and Washington,
and securing this coast, we will go down, finally, when the North
wakes up. Its power is immense. If Europe recognizes us we are
safe. I fear this may not be."

"And you think the Northerners will fight," says Hardin.

"Judge," replies Valois, "you and I are alone. I tell you frankly
we underestimate the Yankees. From the first, on this coast we
have lost sympathy. They come back at us always. Broderick's death
shows us these men have nerve. "Valois continues: "That man is
greater dead than alive. I often think of his last words, 'They
have killed me because I was opposed to a corrupt administration
and the extension of slavery.'"

Hardin finishes his glass. "It seems strange that men like Broderick
and Terry, who sat on the bench of the Supreme Court (a senator and
a great jurist), should open the game. It was unlucky. It lost us
the Northern Democrats. We would have been better off if Dave Terry
had been killed. He would have been a dead hero. It would have
helped us."

Valois shows that, in all the sectional duels and killings on the
coast, the South has steadily lost prestige. The victims were more
dangerous dead than alive. Gilbert, Ferguson, Broderick, and others
were costly sacrifices.

Hardin muses: "I think you are right, Maxime, in the main. Our
people are in the awkward position of fighting the Constitution,
and the old flag is a dead weight against us. We must take the