9139
FTER an almost sleepless night, spent for the greater part in despondent reflections over his failure in the things to which he had directed his hopes and energies, Carson rose about seven o'clock, went into his mother's room to ask how she had rested through the night, and then descended, to breakfast. It was eight o'clock when he arrived at the office. Garner was there in a cloud of dust, sweeping a pile of torn papers into the already filled fireplace.
“I'm going to touch a match to this the first rainy day—if I think of it,” he said. “It's liable to set the roof on fire when it's dry as it is now.”
“Any news from the mountains?” Carson asked, as he sat down at his desk.
“Yes; Pole Baker was in here just now.” Garner leaned his broom-handle against the mantel-piece, and stood critically eying his partner's worn face and dejected mien. “He said the mob, or mobs, for there are twenty factions of them, had certainly hemmed Pete in. He was hiding somewhere on Elk Knob, and they hadn't then located him. Pole left there long before day and said they had already set in afresh. I reckon it will be over soon. He told me to keep you here if I had to swear out a writ of dangerous lunacy against you. He says you have not only killed your own political chances, but that you couldn't save the boy if you were the daddy of every man in the chase. They've smelled blood and they want to taste it.”
“You needn't worry about me,” Carson said, dejectedly. “I realize how helpless I was yesterday, and am still. There was only one thing that might have been done if we had acted quickly, and that was to telegraph the Governor for troops.”
“But you wouldn't sanction that; you know you wouldn't,” said Garner. “You know every mother's son of those white men is acting according to the purest dictates of his inner soul. They think they are right. They believe in law, and while I am a member of the bar, by Heaven! I say to you that our whole legal system is rotten to the core. Politics will clear a criminal at the drop of a hat. A dozen voters can jerk a man from life imprisonment to the streets of this town by a single telegram. No, you know those sturdy men over there think they are right, and you would not be the cause of armed men shooting them down like rabbits in a fence corner.”
“No, they think they are right,” Carson said. “And they were my friends till this came up. Any mail?”
“I haven't been to the post-office. I wish you'd go. You need exercise; you are off color—you are as yellow as a new saddle. Drop this thing. The Lord Himself can't make water run up-hill. Quit thinking about it.”
Carson went out into the quiet street and walked along to the post-office. At the intersection of the streets near the Johnston House, on any ordinary day, a dozen drays and hacks in the care of negro drivers would have been seen, and on the drays and about the hacks stood, as a rule, many idle negro men and boys; but this morning the spot was significantly vacant. At the negro barber-shop, kept by Buck Black, a mulatto of marked dignity and intelligence for one of his race, only the black barbers might be seen, and they were not lounging about the door, but stood at their chairs, their faces grave, their tongues unusually silent. They might be asking themselves questions as to the possible extent of the fires of race-hatred just now raging—if the capture and death of Pete Warren would quench the conflagration, or if it would roll on towards them like the licking flames of a burning prairie—they might, I say, askthemselvessuch questions, but to the patrons of their trade they kept discreet silence. And no white man who went near them that day would ask them what they believed or what they felt, for the blacks are not a people who give much thought even to their own social problems. They had leaned for many generations upon white guidance, and, with childlike, hereditary instinct, they were leaning still.
Finding no letters of importance in the little glass-faced and numbered box at the post-office, Carson, sick at heart and utterly discouraged, went up to the Club. Here, idly knocking the balls about on a billiard-table, a cigar in his mouth, was Keith Gordon.
“Want to play a game of pool?” he asked.
“Not this morning, old man,” Carson answered.
“Well, I don't either,” said Keith. “I went to the bank and tried to add up some figures for the old man, but my thinker wouldn't work. It's out of whack. That blasted nigger Pete is the prime cause of my being upset. I came by Major Warren's this morning. Sister feels awfully sorry for Mam' Linda, and asked me to take her a jar of jelly. You know old colored people love little attentions like that from white people, when they are sick or in trouble. Well”—Keith held up his hands, the palms outward—“I don't want any more in mine. I've been to death-bed scenes, funerals, wrecks on railroads, and all sorts of horrors, but that was simply too much. It simply beggars description—to see that old woman bowed there in her door like a dumb brute with its tongue tied to a stake. It made me ashamed of myself, though, for not at least trying to do something. I glory in you, old man. You failed, but youtried. By-the-way, that's the only comfort Mam' Linda has had—the only thing. Helen was there, the dear girl—and to think her visit home has to be like this!—she was there trying to soothe the old woman, but nothing that was said could produce anything but that awful groaning of hers till Lewis said something about your going over there yesterday, and that stirred her up. She rose in her chair and walked to the gate and folded her big arms across her breast.
“'I thank God young marster felt fer me dat way,' she said. 'He's de best young man on de face o' de earth. I'll go down ter my grave blessing 'im fer dis. He's got ersoulin 'im. He knows how old Mammy Lindy feels en he was tryin' ter help her, God bless 'im! He couldn't do nothin', but he tried—he tried, dough everybody was holdin' 'im back en sayin' it would spile his 'lection. Well, if itdoharm 'im, it will show dat Gawd done turn ergin white en black bofe.' I came away,” Keith finished, after a pause, in which Carson said nothing. “I couldn't stand it. Helen was crying like a child, her face wet with tears, and she wasn't trying to hide it. I was looking for some one to come every minute with the final news, and I didn't want to face that. Good God, old man, what are we coming to? Historians, Northern ones, seem to think the days of slavery were benighted, but God knows such things as this never happened then. Now, did it?”
“No; it's terrible,” Carson agreed, and he stepped to a window and looked out over the roofs of the near-by stores to the wagon-yard beyond.
“Well, the great and only, the truly accepted one,” Keith went on, in a lighter tone, “the man who did us all up brown, Mr. Earle Sanders, of Augusta, has unwittingly chosen a gloomy date for his visit. He's here, installed in the bridal-chamber of the Hotel de Johnston. Helen got a note from him just as I was leaving. On my soul, old man—maybe it's because I want to see it that way—but, really, it didn't seem to me that she looked exactly elated, you know, like I imagined she would, from the way the local gossips pile it on. You know, the idea struck me that maybe she is notreally engaged, after all.”
“She is worried; she is not herself to-day,” Carson said, coldly, though in truth his blood was surging hotly through his veins. It had come at last. The man who was to rob him of all he cared for in life was at hand. Turning from Keith, he pretended to be looking over some of the dog-eared magazines in the reading-room, and then feeling an overwhelming desire to be alone with the dull pain in his breast, he waved a careless signal to Keith and went down to the street. In front of the hotel stood a pair of sleek, restive bays harnessed to a new top-buggy. They were held by the owner of the best livery-stable in the town, a rough ex-mountaineer.
“Say, Carson,” the man called out, proudly, “you'll have to git up early in the morning to produce a better yoke of thorough-breds than these. Never been driven over these roads before. I didn't intend to let 'em out fer public use right now, but a big, rich fellow from Augusta is here sparkin', and he wanted the best I had and wouldn't touch anything else. Money wasn't any object. He turned up his nose at all my other stock. Gee! look at them trim legs and thighs—a dead match as two black-eyed peas.”
“Yes, they are all right.” Carson walked on and went into Blackburn's store, for no other reason than that he wanted to avoid meeting people and discussing the trouble Pete Warren was in, or hearing further comments on the stranger's visit. He might have chosen a better retreat, however, for in a group at the window nearest the hotel he found Blackburn, Garner, Bob Smith, and Wade Tingle, all peering stealthily out through the dingy glass at the team Carson had just inspected.
“He'll be out in a minute,” Wade was saying, in an undertone. “Quit pushing me, Bob! They say he's got dead loads of money.”
“You bet he has,” Bob declared; “he had a wad of it in big bills large enough to stuff a sofa-pillow with. Ike, the porter, who trucked his trunk up, said he got a dollar tip. The head waiter is expecting to buy a farm after he leaves. Gee! there he comes! Say, Garner,youought to know; is that a brandy-and-soda complexion?”
“No, he doesn't drink a drop,” answered Garner. “Well, he looks all right, as well as I can see through this immaculate window with my eyes full of spiderwebs. My, what clothes! Say, Bob, is that style of derby the thing now? It looks like an inverted milk-bucket. Come here, Carson, and take a peep at the conqueror. If Keith were here we'd have a quomm. By George, there's Keith now! He's watching at the window of the barber-shop. Call him over, Blackburn. Let's have him here; we need more pall-bearers.”
“Seems to me you boys are the corpses,” Blackburn jested. “I'd be ashamed to let a clothing-store dummy like that beat me to the tank.”
Carson had heard enough. In his mood and frame of mind their open frivolity cut him to the quick. Going out, unnoticed by the others, he went to his office. In the little, dusty consultation-room in the rear there was an old leather couch. On this he threw himself. There had been moments in his life when he had worn the crown of misery, notably the day Albert Warren was buried, when, on approaching Helen to offer her his sympathies, she had turned from him with a shudder. That had been a gloomy hour, butthis—he covered his face with his hands and lay still. On that day a faint hope had vaguely fluttered within him—a hope of reformation; a hope of making a worthy place for himself in life and of ultimately winning her favor and forgiveness. But now it was all over. He had actually seen with his own eyes the man who was to be her husband. He was sure now that the report was true. The visit at such a grave crisis confirmed all that had been said. Helen had telegraphed him of her trouble, and Sanders had made all haste to reach her side.
9147
EHIND the dashing bays the newcomer drove down to Warren's. On the seat beside him sat a negro boy sent from the livery-stable to hold the horses. Sanders was dressed in the height of fashion, was young, of the blond type, and considered handsome. A better figure no man need have desired. The people living in the Warren neighborhood, who peered curiously out of windows, not having Dwight's affairs at heart, indulged in small wonder over the report that Helen was about to accept such a specimen of city manhood in preference to Carson or any of “the home boys.”
Alighting at the front gate, Sanders went to the door and rang. He was admitted by a colored maid and shown into the quaint old parlor with its tall, gilt-framed, pier-glass mirrors and carved mahogany furniture. The wide front, lace-curtained windows, which opened on a level with the veranda floor, let in a cooling breeze which was most agreeable in contrast to the beating heat out-of-doors.
He had only a few minutes to wait, for Helen had just returned from a visit to Linda's cottage and was in the library across the hall. He heard her coming and stood up, flushing expectantly, an eager light flashing in his eyes.
“I am taking you by surprise,” he said, as he grasped her extended hand and held it for an instant.
“Well, you know you told me when I left,” Helen said, “that it would be impossible for you to get away from business till after the first of next month, so I naturally supposed—”
“The trouble was”—he laughed as he stood courteously waiting for her to sit before doing so himself—“the trouble was that I didn't know myself then as I do now. I thought I could wait like any sensible man of my age, but I simply couldn't, Helen. After you left, the town was simply unbearable. I seemed not to want to go anywhere but to the places to which we went together, and there I suffered a regular agony of the blues. The truth is, I'm killing two birds with one stone. We were about to send our lawyer to Chattanooga to settle up a legal matter there, and I persuaded my partner to let me do it. So you see, after all, I shall not be wholly idle. I can run up there from here and back, I believe, in the same day.”
“Yes, it is not far,” Helen answered. “We often go up there to do shopping.”
“I'm going to confess something else,” Sanders said, flushing slightly. “Helen, you may not forgive me for it, but I've been uneasy.”
“Uneasy?” Helen leaned as far back in her chair as she could, for he had bent forward till his wide, hungry eyes were close to hers.
“Yes, I've fought the feeling every day and night since you left. At times my very common-sense would seem to conquer and I'd feel a little better about it, but it would only be a short time till I'd be down in the dregs again.”
“Why, what is the matter?” Helen asked, half fearfully.
“It was your letters, Helen,” he said, his handsome face very grave as he leaned towards her.
“My letters? Why, I wrote as often—even often-er—than I promised,” the girl said.
“Oh, don't think me over-exacting,” Sanders implored her with eyes and voice. “I know you did all you agreed to do, but somehow—well, you know you seemed so much like one of us down there that I had become accustomed to thinking of you as almost belonging to Augusta; but your letters showed how very dear Darley and its people are to you, and I was obliged to—well, face the grim fact that we have a strong rival here in the mountains.”
“I thought you knew that I adore my old home,” she said, simply.
“Oh yes, I know—most people do—but, Helen, the letter you wrote about the dance your friends—your 'boys,' as you used to call them—gave you at that quaint club, why, it is simply a piece of literature. I've read it over and over time after time.”
“Oh, I only wrote as I felt, out of a full heart,” the girl said. “When you meet them, and know them as I do, you will not wonder at my fidelity—at my enthusiasm over that particular tribute.”
Sanders laughed. “Well, I suppose I am simply jealous—jealous not alone for myself, but for Augusta. Why, you can't imagine how you are missed. A party of the old crowd went around to your aunt's as usual the Wednesday following your departure, but we were so blue we could hardly talk to one another. Helen, the spirit of our old gatherings was gone. Your aunt actually cried, and your uncle really drank too much brandy and soda.”
“Well, you mustn't think I don't miss them all,” Helen said, deeply touched. “I think of them every day. It was only that I had been away so long that it was glorious to get back home—to my real home again. I love it down there; it is beautiful; you were all so lovely to me, but this here is different.”
“That's what I felt in reading your letters,” Sanders said. “A tone of restful content and happiness was in every line you wrote. Somehow, I wanted you, in my selfish heart, to be homesick for us so that you would”—the visitor drew a deep breath—“be all the more likely to—to consent to live there, you know,some day, permanently.” Helen made no reply, and Sanders, flushing deeply, wisely turned the subject, as he rose and went to a window and drew the curtain aside.
“Do you see those horses?” he asked, with a smile. “I brought them thinking I might prevail on you to take a drive with me this morning. I have set my heart on seeing some of the country around the town, and I want to do it with you. I hope you can go.”
“Oh, not to-day! I couldn't think of it to-day!” Helen cried, impulsively.
“Not to-day?” he said, crestfallen.
“No. Haven't you heard about Mam' Linda's awful trouble?”
“Oh, that isherson!” Sanders said. “I heard something of it at the hotel. I see. She really must be troubled.”
“It is a wonder it hasn't killed her,” Helen answered. “I have never seen a human being under such frightful torture.”
“And can nothing be done?” Sanders asked. “I'd really like to be of use—to help, you know, insomeway.”
“There is nothing to be done—nothing thatcanbe done,” Helen said. “She knows that, and is simply waiting for the end.”
“It's too bad,” Sanders remarked, awkwardly. “Might I go to see her?”
“I think you'd better not,” said the girl. “I don't believe she would care to see any but very old friends. I used to think I could comfort her, but even I fail now. She is insensible to anything but that one haunting horror. She has tried a dozen times to go over to the mountains, but my father and Uncle Lewis have prevented it. That mob, angry as they are, might really kill her, for she would fight for her young like a tigress, and people wrought up like those are mad enough to do anything.”
“And some people think the negro may not really be guilty, do they not?” Sanders asked.
“I am sure he is not,” Helen sighed. “I feel it; I know it.”
There was the sound of a closing gate, and Helen looked out.
“It is my father,” she said. “Perhaps he has heard something.”
Leaving her guest, she went out to the steps. “Whose turn-out?” the Major asked, with admiring curiosity, indicating the horses and buggy.
“Mr. Sanders has come,” she said, simply. “He's in the parlor. Is there any news?”
“Nothing.” The old man removed his hat and wiped his perspiring brow. “Nothing except that Carson Dwight has gone over there on a fast horse. Linda sent him a message, begging him to make one more effort, and he went. All his friends tried to stop him, but he dashed out of town like a madman. He won't accomplish a thing, and it may cost him his life, but he's the right sort, daughter. He's got a heart in him as big as all out-of-doors. Blackburn told him Dan Willis was over there, a raging demon in human shape, but it only made Carson the more determined. His father saw him and ordered him back, and was speechless with fury when Carson simply waved his hand and rode on. Go back to the parlor. I'll join you in a minute.”
“Have you heard anything?” Sanders asked, as Helen re-entered the room and stood white and distraught before him.
She hesitated, her shifting glance on the floor, and then she stared at him almost as one in a dream. “He has heard nothing except—except that Carson Dwight has gone over there. He has gone. Mam' Linda begged him to make one other effort and he couldn't resist her. She—she was good to his mother and to him when he was a child, and he feels grateful. She thinks he is the only one that can help. She told me last night that she believed in him as she once believed in God. He can do nothing, but he knew it would comfort her for him to try.”
“This Mr. Dwight is one of your—your old friends, is he not?”
Sanders' face was the playground of conflicting emotions as he stood staring at her.
“Yes,” Helen answered; “one of my best and truest.”
“He has undertaken a dangerous thing, has he not?” Sanders managed to say.
“Dangerous?” Helen shuddered. “He has an enemy there who is now seeking his life. They are sure to meet. They have already quarrelled, and—about this very thing.”
She sat down in the chair she had just left and Sanders stood near her. There was a voice in the hall. It was the Major ordering a servant to bring in mint julep, and the next moment he was in the parlor hospitably introducing himself to the visitor.
Seeing her opportunity, Helen rose and left them together. She went up to her room, with heavy, dragging footsteps, and stood at the window overlooking the Dwight garden and lawn.
Carson knew that Sanders was in town, she told herself, in gloomy self-reproach. He knew his rival was with her, and right now as the poor boy was speeding on to—his death, he thought Sanders was making love to her. Helen bit her quivering lip and clinched her fingers. “Poor boy!” she thought, almost with a sob, “he deserves better treatment than that.”
9154
N his escape from the sheriff and his deputy, Pete Warren ran with the speed of a deer-hound through the near-by woods. Thinking his pursuers were close behind him, he did not stop even to listen to their footsteps. Through dell and fen, up hill and down, over rocks and through tangled undergrowth he forged his way, his tongue lolling from the corner of his gaping mouth. The thorns and briers had tom gashes in his cheeks, neck, and hands, and left his clothing in strips. The wild glare of a hunted beast was in his eyes. The land was gradually sloping upward. He was getting upon the mountain. For a moment the distraught creature paused, bent his ear to listen and try to decide, rationally, calmly, which was the better plan, to hide in the caverns and craggy recesses of the frowning heights above or speed onward over more level ground. For a moment the drumlike pounding of his heart was all the sound he heard, and then the blast of a hunter's horn broke the stillness, not two hundred yards away, and was thrown back in reverberating echoes from the mountain-side. This was followed by a far-off answering shout, the report of a signal-gun, and then the mellow, terrifying baying of blood-hounds fell upon his ears. Pete stood erect, his knees quivering. No thought of prayer passed through his brain. Prayer, to his mind, was only a series of empty vocal sounds heard chiefly in churches where black men and women stood or knelt in their best clothes, and certainly not for emergencies like this, where granite heavens were closing upon stony earth and he was caught between.
Suddenly bending lower, and fresher for the second wind he had got, he sped onward again, choosing the valley rather than the steeper mountain-side. Shouts, gun reports, horn-blasts, and the baying of the hounds now followed him. Presently he came to a clear mountain creek about twenty feet wide and not deeper anywhere than his waist, and in many places barely covering the slimy brown stones over which it flowed. Here, as if by inspiration, came the remembrance of some story he had heard about a pursued negro managing to elude the scent of blood-hounds by taking to water, and into the icy stream Pete plunged, and, slipping, stumbling, falling, he made his way onward.
But his reason told him this slow method really would not benefit him, for his pursuers would soon catch up and see him from the banks. He had waded up the stream about a quarter of a mile, when he came to a spot where the stout branches of a sturdy leaning beech hung down within his reach. The idea which came to him was worthy of a white man's brain, for, pulling on the bough and finding it firm, he decided upon the original plan of getting out of the water there, where his trail would be lost to sight or scent, and climbing into the dense foliage above. His pursuers might not think to look upward at exactly that spot, and the hounds, bent on catching the scent from the ground where he landed, would speed onward, farther and farther away. At all events it was worth the trial.
With quivering hands he drew the bough down till its leaves sank under the water. It bore his weight well and from it he climbed to the massive trunk and higher upward, till, in a fork of the tree, he rested, noticing, with a throb of relief, that the bough had righted itself and hung as before above the surface of the stream. On came the dogs; he could not hear them now, for, intent upon their work, they made no sound, but the hoarse, maddened voices of men under their guidance reached his ears. The swish through the undergrowth, the patter, as of rain on dry leaves, as their claws hurled the ground behind them, the snuffing and sneezing—that was the hounds. Closer and closer Pete hugged the tree, hardly breathing, fearing now that the water dripping from his clothing or the bruised leaves of the bough might betray his presence. But the hounds, one on either side of the stream, their noses to the earth, dashed on. Pete caught only a gleam of their sleek, dim coats and they were gone. Behind them, panting, followed a dozen men. In his fear of being seen, Pete dared not even look at their inflamed faces. With closed eyes pressed against his wet coat-sleeve, he clung to his place, a hunted thing, neither fish, fowl, nor beast, and yet, like them all, a creature of the wilderness, endowed with the instinct of self-preservation.
“They will run 'im down!” he heard a man say. “Them dogs never have failed. The black devil thought he'd throw 'em off by taking to water. He didn't know we had one for each bank.”
On ran the men, the sound of their progress becoming less and less audible as they receded. Was he safe now? Pete's slow intelligence answered no. He was still fully alive to his danger. He might stay there for awhile, but not for long. Already, perhaps owing to his desperate running, he had an almost maddening thirst, a thirst which the sheer sight of the cool stream so near tantalized. Should he descend, satisfy his desire, and attempt to regain his place of hiding? No, for he might not seclude himself so successfully the next time. Then, with his face resting on his arm, he began to feel drowsy. Twisting his body about, he finally found himself in a position in which he could recline still close to the tree and rest a little, though his feet and legs, surcharged with blood, were painfully weighted downward. The forest about him was very quiet. Some bluebirds above his head were singing merrily. A gray squirrel with a fuzzy tail was perched inquiringly on the brown bough of a near-by pine. Pete reclined thus for several minutes, and then the objects about him appeared to be in a blur. The far off shouts, horn-blasts, and gun reports beat less insistently on his tired brain, and then he found himself playing with a kitten—the queerest, most amusing kitten—in the sunlight in front of his mother's door.
He must have slept for hours, for when he opened his eyes the sun was sinking behind the top of a distant hill. He tried to draw his aching legs up higher and felt stinging pricks of pain from his hips to his toes, as his blood leaped into circulation again. After several efforts he succeeded in standing on the bough. To his pangs of thirst were now added those of hunger. For hours he stood thus. He saw the light of day die out, first on the landscape and later from the clear sky. Now, he told himself, under cover of night, he would escape, but something happened to prevent the attempt. Through the darkness he saw the flitting lights off many pine torches. They passed to and fro under the trees, sometimes quite near him, and as far as he could see up the mountain-sides they flickered like the sinister night-eyes of his doom. He stood till he felt as if he could do so no longer, and then he got down on the bough as before, and after hours of conscious hunger and thirst and cramping pains he slept again. Thus he passed that night, and when the golden rays of sunlight came piercing the gray mountain mists and flooding the landscape with its warm glory, Pete Warren, hearing the voices of sleepless revenge, now more numerous and harsh and packed with hate—hearing them on all sides from far and near—dared not stir. He remained perched in his leafy nook like some half-knowing, primeval thing, avoiding the flint-tipped arrows of the high-cheeked, straight-haired men lurking beneath.
9159
ARSON DWIGHT remained two days in the vicinity of his farm waiting gloomily for the discovery and arrest of Pete Warren, his sole hope being that at the last grewsome moment he might prevail on the distraught man-hunters to listen to a final appeal for law and order. He was forced, however, to return to Darley, feeling sure, as did the others, that Pete was hiding in some undiscovered place in the mountains, or shrewd and deft enough to avoid the approach of man or hound. But it would not be for long, the hunters told themselves, for the entire spot was surrounded and well guarded and they would starve him out.
“The gang” breathed more freely when they saw Carson appear in the doorway of the den on the night of his return, and learned that through some miracle he had failed to meet Dan Willis, though not one of them was favorably impressed by the outward appearance of their leader. His eyes, in their darkened sockets, gleamed like despondent fires; on his tanned cheeks hectic flushes had appeared and his hands quivered as if from nervous exhaustion. Not a man among them dared reproach him for the further and futile political mistake he had made. He was a ruined man, and yet they admired him the more as they looked down on him, begrimed with the dregs of his failure. Garner's opinion, to himself expressed, was that Dwight was a failure only on the surface, but that it was the surface which counted everywhere except in heaven, and there no one knew what sort of coin would be current. Garner loved him. He loved him for his hopeless fidelity to Helen, for his firm-jawed clinging to a mere principle, such as trying to keep an old negro woman who had faith in him from breaking her heart, for his risking death itself to obtain full justice-for the black boy who was his servant. Yes, Garner mused, Carson certainly deserved a better deal all round, but deserving a thing according to the highest ethics, and getting it according to the lowest were different.
I The following night there was a queer, secret meeting of negroes in the town. Stealthily they left their cabins and ramshackle homes, and one by one they glided through the darkest streets and alleys to the house of one Neb Wynn, a man who had acquired his physical being and crudely unique personality from the confluence of three distinct streams of blood—the white, the Cherokee Indian, and the negro. He owned and drove a dray on the streets of the town, and being economical he had accumulated enough means to build the two-story frame (not yet painted) house in which he lived. The lower floor was used as a negro restaurant, which Neb's wife managed, the upper was devoted to the family bedroom, a guest-chamber for any one who wished to spend the night, and a fair-sized “hall,” with windows on the street, which was rented to colored people for any purpose, such as dances, lodge meetings or church sociables.
It was in this room, where no light burned, that the negroes assembled. Indeed, no sort of illumination was used below, and when a negro who had been secretly summoned reached the spot, he assured himself that no one was in sight, and then he approached the restaurant door on tiptoe, rapped twice with his knuckles, paused a moment, and then rapped three times. Thereupon Neb, with his ear to the key-hole on the inside, cautiously opened the door and drew the applicant within, and, closing the shutter softly, asked, “What is the password?”
“Mercy,” was the whispered reply.
“What's the countersign?”
“Peace an' good-will to all men. Thy will be done. Amen.”
“All right, I know you,” Neb would say. “Go up ter de hall en set down, but mind you, don't speakoneword!”
And thus they gathered—the men who were considered the most substantial colored citizens of the town. About ten o'clock Neb crept cautiously up the narrow stairs, entered the room, and sat down.
“We are all here,” he announced. “Brother Hard-castle, I'm done wid my part. I ain't no public speaker; I'll leave de rest ter you.”
A figure in one of the comers rose. He was the leading negro minister of the place. He cleared his throat and then said: “I would open with prayer, but to pray we ought to stand or kneel, and either thing would make too much disturbance. We can only ask God in our hearts, brothers, to be with us here in the darkness, and help lead us out of our trouble; help us to decide if we can, singly or in a body, what course to pursue in the grave matter that faces our race. We are being sorely tried, tried almost past endurance, but the God of the white man is the God of the black. Through a dark skin the light of a pure heart shines as far in an appeal for help towards the throne of Heaven as through a white. I'm not prepared to make a speech. I can't. I am too full of sorrow and alarm. I have just left the mother of the accused boy and the sight of her suffering has upset me. I have no harsh words, either, for the white men of this town. Every self-respecting colored citizen has nothing but words of praise for the good white men of the South, and in my heart, I can't much blame the men of the mountains who are bent on revenge, for the crime perpetrated by one of our race was horrible enough to justify their rage. It is only that we want to see full justice done and the absolutely innocent protected. I have been talking to Brother Black to-day, and I feel—”
He broke off, for a hiss of warning as low as the rattle of a hidden snake escaped Neb Wynn's lips. On the brick sidewalk below the steps of some solitary passer-by rang crisply on the still night air. It died away in the distance and again all was quiet.
“Now you kin go on,” Neb said. “We des got to be careful, gen'men. Ef a meetin' lak dis was knowed ter be on tap de last one of us would be in trouble, en dey would pull my house down fust. You all know dat.”
“You are certainly right,” the preacher resumed. “I was only going to call on Brother Black to say something in a line with the-talk I had with him today. He's got the right idea.”
“I'm not a speaker,” Buck Black began, as he stood up. “A man who runs a barber-shop don't have any too much time ter read and study, but I've giv' dis subject a lot o' thought fust an' last. I almost giv' up after dat big trouble in Atlanta; I 'lowed dar wasn't no way out of we-alls' plight, but I think diffunt now. Awhiteman made me see it. I read some'n' yesterday in the biggest paper in dis State. It was written by de editor an' er big owner in it. Gen'men, it was de fust thing I've seed dat seemed ter me ter come fum on high as straight as a bolt of lightnin'. Brother black men, dat editor said dat de white race had tried de whip-lash, de rope, en de firebrand fer forty years en de situation was still as bad as ever. He said de question never would be plumb settled till de superior race extend a kind, helpful hand ter de ignorant black an' lead 'im out er his darkness en sin en crime. Gen'men, dem words went thoo en thoo me. I knowed dat man myself, when I lived in Atlanta; I've seed his honest face en know he meant what he said. He said it was time ter blaze er new trail, er trail dat hain't been blazed befo'—er trail of love en forgiveness en pity, er trail de Lord Jesus Christ would blaze ef he was here in de midst o' dis struggle.”
“Dat so, dat so!” Neb Wynn exclaimed, in a rasping whisper. “Gawd know dat de trufe.”
“An' I'm here ter-night,” Buck Black continued, “ter say ter you all dat I'm ready ter join fo'ces wid white men like dat. De old time white man was de darky's best friend; he owned 'im, but he helped 'im. In de old slave days black crimes lak our race is guilty of ter-day was never heard of—never nowhar! Dar's er young white man here in dis town, too, dat I love,” Black continued, after a pause. “I needn't mention his name; I bound you it is writ on every heart in dis room. You all know what he did yesterday an' day befo'—in spite er all de argument en persuasions of his friends dat is backin' 'im in politics, he went out dar ter de mountains in de thick o' it. I got it straight. I seed er man fum dar yesterday, en he said Marse Carson Dwight was out 'mongst dem men pleadin' wid 'em ter turn Pete over ter him en de law. He promised ter give er bond dat was big enough ter wipe out all he owned on earth, ef dey'd only spare de boy's life en give 'im a trial. Dey say Dan Willis wanted ter shoot 'im, but Willis's own friends wouldn't let 'im git nigh 'im. I was in my shop last night when he come in town an' axed me ter shave 'im up so he could go home en pacify his mother. She was sick en anxious about him. He got in my chair. Gen'men, I used ter brag beca'se I shaved General John B. Gordon once, when he was up here speakin', but fum now on my boast will be shavin' Marse Carson Dwight. He got in de chair an' laid back so tired he looked lak er dyin' man. He was all spattered fum head ter foot wid mud dat he'd walked an' rid thoo. I was so sorry fer 'im I could hardly do my work. I was cryin' half de time, dough he didn't see it, 'ca'se he jes layed dar wid his eyes closed. Hate de white race lak some say we do?” Black's voice rose higher and quivered. “No, suh, I'll never hate de race dat fetched dat white man in dis world. When he got out de chair de fus thing he ax was ef I'd heard how Mam' Lindy was. I told 'im she was pretty bad off, worried in her mind lak she was; den he turn fum de glass whar he was tyin' his necktie wid shaky fingers en said: 'I thought I might fetch 'er some hope, Buck, but I done give up. Ef I only had Pete in my charge safe in er good reliable jail I could free 'im, fer I don't believe he killed dem folks.'”
Buck Black paused. It was plain that his hearers were much affected, though no sound at all escaped them. The speaker was about to resume, when he was prevented by a sharp rapping on the stair below.
“Hush!” Neb Wynn commanded, in a warning whisper. He crept on tiptoe across the carpetless room, out into the hallway, and leaned over the baluster.
“Who dat?” he asked, in a calm, raised voice.
“It's me, Neb. I want ter see you. Come down!”
“It's my wife>” Neb informed the breathless room. “Sounds lak she's scared 'bout some'n'. Don't say er word till I git back. Mind, you folks got ter be careful ter-night.”
He descended the creaking stairs to the landing below. They caught the low mumbling of his voice intermingled with the perturbed tones of his wife, and then he crept back to them, strangely silent they thought, for after he had resumed his seat against the wall in the dark human circle, they heard only his heavy breathing. Fully five minutes passed, and then he sighed as if throwing something off his mind, some weight of perplexing indecision.
“Well, go on wid what you was sayin', Brother Black,” he said. “I reckon our meetin' won't be 'sturbed.”
“I almost got to what I was coming to,” Buck Black continued, rising and leaning momentously on the back of his chair. “I was leadin' up to a gre't surprise, gen'men. I'm goin' to tell you faithful friends a secret, a secret which, ef it was out dat we knowed it, might hang us all. So far it rests wid des me an' a black 'oman dat kin be trusted, my wife. Gen'men, I know whar Pete Warren is. I kin lay my hands on 'im any time. He's right here in dis town ter-night.”
A subdued burst of surprise rose from the dark room, then all was still, so still that the speaker's grasp of his chair gave forth a harsh, rasping sound.
“Yes, my wife seed 'im in de ol' lumber-yard back o' our house, en he was sech er sight ter look at dat she mighty nigh went out'n 'er senses. He was all cut in de face, en his clothes en shoes was des hangin' ter 'im by strings, en his eyes was 'most poppin' out'n his head. He was starvin' ter death—hadn't had a bite t' eat since he run off. When she seed 'im it was about a hour by sun, en he begged 'er to fetch 'im some victuals. Gen'men, he was so hungry dat she say he licked her han's lak er dog, en cried en tuck on powerful. She come home en told me, en ax me what ter do. Gen'men, 'fo' God on high I want ter do my duty ter my race en also to de white, but I couldn't see any safe way ter meddle. De white folks, some of 'em, anyway, say dat we aid en encourage crimes 'mongst our people, en while my heart was bleedin' fer dat boy en his folks, I couldn't underhanded he'p 'im widout goin' ter de men in power accordin' ter law.”
“And you did right,” spoke up the minister. “As much as I pity the boy, I would have acted as you have done. He is accused of murder and is an escaped prisoner. To decide that he was innocent and help him escape is exactly what we are blaming his pursuers for doing—taking the law into hands not sanctioned by authority. There is only one thing that can decide the matter, and that is the decision of a judge and jury.”
“Dat's exactly de way I looked at it,” said Black, “en so I tol' my wife not ter go nigh 'im ergin. I knowed dis meetin' was up fer ter-night, en I des thought I'd fetch it here en lay it 'fo' you all en take er vote on it.”
“A good idea,” said the minister from his chair. “And, brethren, it seems to me we, as a body of representative negroes of this town, have now a golden opportunity to prove our actual sincerity to the white race. As you say, Brother Black, we have been accused of remaining inactive when a criminal was being pursued for crimes against the white people. If we can agree on it to a unit, and can turn the prisoner over now that all efforts of the whites to apprehend him have failed, our act will be flashed all round the civilized world and give the lie to the charge in question. Do you think, Brother Black, that Pete Warren is still hiding near your house?”
“Yes, I do,” answered the barber. “He would be afeard ter leave dat place, en I reckon he's waitin' dar now fer my wife ter fetch 'im some'n' ter eat.”
“Well, then, all we've got to do is to see if we can thoroughly agree on the plan proposed. I suppose one of the first things, if we do agree to turn him over to the law, is to consult with Mr. Carson Dwight and see if he can devise a way of acting with perfect safety to the prisoner and all concerned. If he can, our duty is clear.”
“Yes, he's de man, God knows dat,” Black said, enthusiastically. “He won't let us run no risk.”
“Well, then,” said the minister, who had the floor, “let us put it to a vote. Of course, it must be unanimous. We can't act on a thing as dangerous as this without a thorough agreement. Now, you have all heard the plan proposed. Those in favor make it known by standing up as quietly as you possibly can, so that I may count you.”
Very quietly, for so many acting in concert, men on all sides of the hall stood up. The minister then began to grope round the room, touching with his hands the standing voters.
“Who's this?” he suddenly exclaimed, when he reached Neb Wynn's chair and lowered his hands to the drayman, who was the only one not standing. “It's me,” Neb answered; “me, dat's who—me!”
“Oh!” There was an astonished pause.
“Yes, it's me. I ain't votin' yo' way,” Neb said. “You all kin act fer yo'selves. I know what I'm about.”
“But what's de matter wid you?” Buck Black demanded, rather sharply. “All dis time you been de most anxious one ter do some'n', en now when we got er chance ter act wid judgment en caution, all in a body, en, as Brother Hardcastle say, ter de honor of ou' race, why you up en—”
“Hold on, des keep yo' shirt on!” said Neb, in a queer, tremulous voice. “Gen'men, I ain't placed des zactly de same es you-all is. I don't want ter tek de whole 'sponsibility on my shoulders, en I don't intend to.”
“You are not taking it all on your shoulders, brother,” said the minister, calmly; “we are acting in a body.”
“No, it's all onme,” Neb said. “You said, Buck Black, dat Pete was in de lumber-yard 'hind yo' house. He ain't. You might search ever' stack o' planks en ever' dry-kiln dar, but you wouldn't fin' 'im. He's a cousin er my wife's, en me'n dat boy was good, true friends, en so he come here des now, when you heard my wife call me, an' th'owed hisse'f on my mercy. He's out at my stable now, up in de hay-loft, waitin' fer me ter fetch 'im suppin ter eat, as soon as you all go off. My wife say he's de most pitiful thing dat God ever made, en, gen'men, I'm sorry fer 'im. Law or no law, I'm sorryfer'im. It's all well enough fer you ter set here in yo' good clothes wid good meals er victuals inside o' you, en know you got er good safe baid ter go ter—it's all well enough fer you ter vote on what is ter be done, but ef youdovote fer it en clap 'im 'hind de bars en he's hung—hung by de neck till he's as stiff es a bone, you'll be helpin' ter do it. Law is one thing when it's law, it's another thing when it ain't fit ter spit on. You all talkjestice, jestice, en you think it would be er powerful fine thing ter prove ter de worl' how honest you all is by handin' dat po' yaller dog over to de law. Put yo'selves in Pete's shoes an' you wouldn't be so easy ter vote yo'selves 'hind de bars. You'd say de bird in de han' is wuth three in de bush, en you'd stay away firm de white man's court-house. De white men say deirselves dat dar ain't no jestice, en dey's right. Carson Dwight is er good lawyer, en he'd fight till he drapped in his tracks, but de State solicitor would rake up enough agin Pete Warren to keep de jury's blood b'ilin'. Whar'd dey git a jury but fum de ranks o' de very men dat's chasin' Pete lak er rabbit now? Whar'd dey git a jury dat ud believe in his innocence when dey kin prove dat he done threatened de daid man? No whar in dis State. No innocent nigger's ever been hung, hein? No innocent nigger's in de chain gang, hein? Huh, dey as thick dar es fleas.”
When Neb had ceased speaking not a voice broke the stillness of the room for several minutes, then the minister said, with a deep-drawn breath: “Well, there is really no harm in looking at all sides of the question. The very view you have taken, Brother Wynn, may be the one that has really kept colored people from being more active in the legal punishment of their race. But it seems to me that it would only be fair, since you say Pete Warren is near, for him to be told of the situation and left to decide for himself.”
“I'm willin' ter do dat, God knows,” said Neb, “en ef y'all say so, I'll fetch 'im here en you kin splain it ter 'im.”
“I'm sure that will be best,” said Hardcastle. “Hurry up. To save time, you might bring his food here—that is, if your wife has not taken it to him.”
“No, she was afeard ter go out dar. I'll mek 'er fetch it up here while I go after him. It may tek time, fer he may be afeard to come in. But ef I tell 'im de grub's here, I bound you he'll come a-hustlin'.”
They heard Neb's voice below giving instructions to his wife, and then the outer door in the rear was opened and closed. Presently a step was heard on the stair, and they held their breaths expectantly, but it was only Neb's wife with a tray of food. Gropingly she placed it on a little table, which she softly dragged from a corner into the centre of the room, and without a word retired. A door below creaked on its hinges; steps shambling and unsteady resounded hollowly from the floor beneath, and Neb's urgent, pacific voice rose to the tense ears of the listeners, “Come on; don't be a baby, Pete!” they heard Neb say. “Dey all yo' friends en want ter he'p you out 'n yo' trouble ef dey kin.”
“Whar dat meat? whar it? oh, God! whar it?” It was the voice of the pursued boy, and it had a queer, uncanny sound that all but struck terror to the hearts of the listeners.
“She lef' it up dar whar dey all is,” Neb said; “come on! I'll give it to you!”
That seemed to settle the matter, for the clambering steps drew nearer; and then two figures slightly denser than the darkness came into the room.
“Wait; let me git you er chair,” Neb said.
“Whar it? whar it? my God! whar dat meat?” Pete cried, in a harsh, rasping voice.
“Whar'd she put it?” Neb asked. “Hanged ef I know.”
“On the table,” said Hardcastle.
Neb reached out for the tray and had barely touched it, when Pete sprang at him with a sound like the snarl of an angry dog. The tray fell with a crash to the floor and the food with it.
“There!” Neb exclaimed; “you did it.”
Then the spectators witnessed a pitiful, even repulsive scene, for the boy was on the floor, a big bone of ham in his clutch. For a moment nothing was heard except the snuffling, gulping, crunching sound that issued from Pete's nose, mouth, and jaws. Then a noise was heard below. It was a sharp rapping on the outer door.
“Sh!” Neb hissed, warmingly; but there was no cessation of the ravenous eating of the starving negro. Neb cautiously looked out of the window, allowing only his head to protrude over the windowsill. “Who dar?” he called out.
“Me, Neb; Jim Lincum,” answered the negro below. “You told me ef I heard any news over my way ter let you know.”
“Oh yes,” said Neb.
“Folks think Pete done lef de woods, Neb. De mob done scattered ter hunt all round de country. A gang of 'em was headed dis way at sundown.”
“Oh, dat so?” Neb said; “well we done gone ter baid, Jim, or I'd open de do' en let you have er place ter sleep.”
“Don't want no place ter sleep, Neb,” was the answer, in a half-humorous tone. “Don't want ter sleep nowhar 'cep' on my laigs sech times as dese. Er crowd er white men tried ter nab me while I was in my cotton-patch at work dis mawnin' but I made myse'f scarce. Dey hot en heavy after Sam Dudlow; some think he had er hand in de killin'. Dey cayn't find dat nigger, dough.”
“Well, good-night, Jim. I got ter git some rest,” and Neb drew his head back and lowered the window-sash.
“Jim's all right,” he said, “but I couldn't tek 'im in here. Dem men may 'a' been followin' 'im on de sly.”
He advanced to the middle of the room and stood over the crouching figure still noisily eating on the floor.
“Pete, Brother Hardcastle got suppin ter 'pose ter you, en we 'ain't got any too much time. We goin' ter tell you 'bout it an leave it ter you. One thing certain, you ain't safe hidin' out like you is, en nobody ain't safe dat he'ps hide you, so I say suppin got ter be done in yo' case.”
“I want y'all ter sen' fer Marse Carson,” Pete mumbled, between his gulps. “He kin fix me ef anybody kin.”
“That's what we were about to propose, Pete,” said the preacher. “You see—”
“Sh!” It was Neb's warning hiss again. All was silence in the room; even Pete paused to listen. It was the low drone of human voices, and many in number, immediately below. A light from a suddenly exposed lantern flashed 'on the walls. Neb approached the window, but afraid even cautiously to raise the sash, he stood breathless. Then through his closed teeth came the words: “We are caught; gen'men, we in fer it certain en sho! Dey done tracked us down!”
There was a loud rapping on the door below, a stifled scream from Neb's wife at the foot of the stairs, and then a sharp, commanding voice sounded outside.
“Open up, Neb Wynn!” it said. “We are onto your game. Some devilment is in the wind and we are going to know what it is.”
Neb suddenly and boldly threw up the sash and looked out. “All right, gen'men, don't bre'k my new lock. I'll be down dar in er minute.” Then quickly turning to Pete, he bent and drew him up. “Mak' er bre'k fer dat winder back dar, slide down de shed-roof, en run fer yo' life. Run!”
There was a great clatter of chairs and feet in the group of men, a crashing of a thin window-sash in the rear, a heavy, thumping sound on a roof outside, and a loud shout from lusty throats below.
“There he goes! Catch 'im! Head 'im off! Shoot 'im!”
Then darkness, chaos, and terror reigned.