“And are you any relation?” The man’s face was broken veined. He had milky eyes and no front teeth. A dribble of tobacco juice ran down his chin and into his brown beard. He tightened the grip on Starbuck’s neck. “Any relation, cuffee?”

Again it could not be denied. There was a letter from Starbuck’s father in the pocket book and the letter must be found soon, and so Starbuck did not wait for the revelation, but just nodded assent. “I’m his son.”

The man let go of Starbuck’s tie and yelped like a stage red Indian. “It’s Starbuck’s son!” He screamed his victory to the mob. “We got ourselves Starbuck’s son!”

“Oh, Christ in his holy heaven,” the dentist muttered, “but you are in trouble.”

And Starbuck was in trouble, for there were few names more calculated to incense a southern mob. Abraham Lincoln’s name would have done it well enough, and John Brown’s and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s would have sufficed to inflame a crowd, but lacking those luminaries the name of the Reverend Elial Joseph Starbuck was next best calculated to ignite a blaze of southern rage.

For the Reverend Elial Starbuck was a famous enemy of southern aspirations. He had devoted his life to the extirpation of slavery, and his sermons, like his editorials, ruthlessly savaged the South’s slavocracy: mocking its pretensions, flaying its morals, and scorning its arguments. The Reverend Elial’s eloquence in the cause of Negro liberty had made his name famous, not just in America, but wherever Christian men read their journals and prayed to their God, and now, on a day when the news of Fort Sumter’s capture had so inspired the South, a mob in Richmond, Virginia, had taken hold of one of the Reverend Elial Starbuck’s sons.

In truth Nathaniel Starbuck detested his father. He wanted nothing more to do with his father ever again, but the crowd could not know that, nor would they have believed Starbuck if he had told them. This crowd’s mood had turned dark as they demanded revenge on the Reverend Elial Starbuck. They were screaming for that revenge, baying for it. The crowd was also growing as people in the city heard the news about Fort Sumter’s fall and came to join the commotion that celebrated southern liberty and triumph.

“String him up!” a man called.

“He’s a spy!”

“Nigger lover!” A hunk of horse dung sailed toward the prisoners, missing Starbuck, but hitting the dentist on the shoulder.

“Why couldn’t you have stayed in Boston?” the dentist complained.