I believe the time has come when the niggers can be of use to me--look what Turner did back in Virginia three years ago! If he'd had any real purpose he could have laid the country waste, but he hadn't brains enough to engineer a general uprising." Ware was probably as remote from any emotion that even vaguely approximated right feeling as any man could well be, but Murrell's words jarred his dull conscience, or his fear, into giving signs of life.
"Don't you talk of that business, we want nothing of that sort out here.
You let the niggers alone!" he said, but he could scarcely bring himself to believe that Murrell had spoken in earnest.

Yet even if he jested, this was a forbidden subject.
"White brains will have to think for them, if it's to be more than a flash in the pan," said Murrell unheeding him.
"You let the niggers alone, don't you tamper with them," said Ware.
He possessed a profound belief in Murrell's capacity.

He knew how the latter had shaped the uneasy population that foregathered on the edge of civilization to his own ends, and that what he had christened the Clan had become an elaborate organization, disciplined and flexible to his ruthless will.
"Look here, what do you think I have been working for--to steal a few niggers ?" "A few--you've been sending 'em south by the boatload! You ought to be a rich man, Murrell.

If you're not it's your own fault." "That furnishes us with money, but you can push the trade too hard and too far, and we've about done that.

The planters are uneasy in the sections we've worked over, there's talk of getting together to clean out everybody who can't give a good account of himself.