"Be tolerant, General," admonished Adjaha in his mellow voice. "Many of you in the West are not aware of it, but Africa has been struggling back to civilization in the Twentieth Century. And, while most of its people have been content to strive toward the young ways of the West, a few of us have sought in our ancestral traditions a path to the old knowledge. Not entirely in vain. Look."

Like a conjuror, he produced from somewhere in his clothing a small carved figure. About six inches high, it was cut from some gleaming black stone in the attenuated form so common to African sculpture. It dangled from Adjaha's fingers on a string and turned slowly, then more swiftly.

As it spun, the light from the chandelier flashed from its planes and curves in a silvery, bewildering pattern. Beauregard felt his eyes drawn to it, into it, his very brain drawn into it.

Beauregard stood there, staring at the twirling image. His eyes were wide open and slightly glazed. Piquette gave a little, frightened cry.

"It's all right, my dear," said Adjaha. "He's just under hypnosis. Your General Beauregard is the key that can unlock the past and the future for us."

There was an insistent command beating against Beauregard's brain: "Go back ... go back ... go back...."

It was a sunny summer morning in Memphis. Beauregard Courtney, Nashville attorney and adjutant general of Tennessee, stepped out of the elevator of the Peabody Hotel and walked across the wide, columned lobby to the newsstand. He did not go by the desk; Beauregard preferred to keep his room key in his pocket when he stayed in a hotel.

He bought a copy of The Commercial Appeal and dropped onto one of the sofas nearby to read the headlines. As he had suspected, the story in which he was involved took top play.

SOUTHERN GOVERNORS GATHER HERE TODAY TO DISCUSS 'REVOLT.'

It was a three-column head at the right of the page. The Commercial wasn't as conservative as it had been when he was a boy, but it still didn't go in for the bold black streamers, he thought approvingly.

He glanced at the other front page headlines: MERIDIAN QUIET UNDER FEDERAL REGIME ... NEHRU BLASTS RACE UNREST IN MISSISSIPPI ... PRESIDENT URGES SOUTH: 'ABIDE BY LAW'....

Beauregard sighed. He was caught up in the vortex of great 

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