"Noseworth, for mercy's sake!" cried Randolph St. Cosmo, who had been glancing anxiously out at the robed and hooded figures at the perimeter of the camp, the blazing torches they carried lighting each fold and wrinkle of their rude drapery with almost theatrical precision and casting weird shadows among the tupelo, cypress, and hickory.
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Anybody who has ever carried a torch while with at least one other person also carrying a torch was either chasing down a living monster, LARPing, or being a huge racist. You're declaring something quite specific when you go out in public with a bunch of other people and carry torches. It's a kind of intimidation that doesn't warrant the President of the United States declaring you might be "very good people." Unless, of course, what he meant to say was, "You're one of the kinds of people I like and I admire what you're doing."
But going out in a mob and carrying torches is the kind of thing you can do without consequence in a society that refuses to understand the things they don't want to understand. There's an American history of torchbearers which can only be ignored if you choose to ignore it and choosing to ignore it is as clear a message as carrying torches in a mob in public.
Pynchon paints an unavoidable picture of who these people are in this line. The theatrical precision shows they know what they're doing; they've choreographed the intimidation and terror. The torch-based lighting throws up disorienting and strange shadows, making them appear larger and more monstrous while also highlighting their anonymity by playing across the folds and wrinkles of their "rude drapery." These people are a menace. It's the whole point of it. To menace and to intimidate and to suppress the freedom of movement of those they despise for no logical reason at all.
And Randolph makes sure Lindsay knows this is no time for a lesson on language. These KKK, these despicable men, have close ties with (and often are they themselves) local people of power. They can get away with whatever they want. The Chums are in a dangerous situation and so is this boy Chick. The Prime Directive, or, um, "Charter" be damned; morality and humanity trump it. They must help the boy.
