CHAPTER XX.
PERSONAL .-- (Berl Trout) I was a member of the Imperium that ordered Belton to be slain.

It fell to my lot to be one of the five who fired the fatal shots and I saw him fall.

Oh! that I could have died in his stead! When he fell, the spirit of conservatism in the Negro race, fell with him.

He was the last of that peculiar type of Negro heroes that could so fondly kiss the smiting hand.
His influence, which alone had just snatched us from the edge of the precipice of internecine war, from whose steep heights we had, in our rage, decided to leap into the dark gulf beneath, was now gone; his restraining hand was to be felt no more.
Henceforth Bernard Belgrave's influence would be supreme.

Born of distinguished parents, reared in luxury, gratified as to every whim, successful in every undertaking, idolized by the people, proud, brilliant, aspiring, deeming nothing impossible of achievement, with Viola's tiny hand protruding from the grave pointing him to move forward, Bernard Belgrave, President of the Imperium In Imperio, was a man to be feared.
As Bernard stood by the side of Belton's grave and saw the stiffened form of his dearest friend lowered to its last resting place, his grief was of a kind too galling for tears.