0233
“We've come after that damned nigger,” said Baker, succinctly, his tone so low in his throat that even an intimate friend would not have recognized it, and as he spoke he raised his coil of rope and tapped the floor of the porch.
Barrett, as many a brave man would have done in his place, stood helplessly bewildered. Presently he drew himself together and said, firmly: “Gentlemen, I'm a sworn officer of the law. I've got a duty to perform and I'm going to do it.” And thereupon they saw the barrel of a revolver which the jailer held in his hand. In the awful stillness that engulfed his words the click of its hammer, as the weapon was cocked, sounded sharp and distinct.
“Too bad, but he's goin' to act ugly, boys,” Pole said, with grim finality. “He is a white manin looks, but he's j'ined forces with the black devils that are bent on rulin' our land. Steady, take aim! If thar's less'n twenty holes in his carcass when he's examined in the mornin' it will stand for some member's eternal disgrace. Aim careful!”
There was a startled scream at the half-open window of the bedroom on the right and the jailer's wife thrust out her head.
“Don't shoot 'im!” she screamed. “Don't! Give 'em the keys, Burt. Are you a fool?”
“He certainly looks it,” was Baker's comment, in a tone of well-assumed only half-bridled rage. “Give 'im ten seconds to drap them keys, boys. I'll count. When I say ten blaze away, an' let a yawnin' hell take 'im.”
“Gentlemen, I—”
“Burt! Burt! what do you mean?” the woman cried again. “Are you plumb crazy?”
“One!” counted Pole—“two!—three—”
“I want to do what's right,” the jailer temporized. “Of course, I'm overpowered, and if—”
“Five!—six!” went on Pole, his voice ringing out clear and piercing.
There was a jingling of steel. The spectators, peering through ragged eye-holes in their white caps, saw the bunch of keys as it emerged from Barrett's pocket and fell to the doorstep.
“Gentlemen, you may live to be sorry for this night's work,” he said.
“What do you care what we're sorry for,” Pole said, grimly, “just so you ain't turned into a two-legged sifter? Now”—as he stooped to pick up the keys—“you git back in thar to yore wife an' children. We simply mean business an' know what we are about. An' look here, Burt Barrett”—Pole nudged Carson, who stood close to him—“thar'll be another gang here in a few minutes on the same business. You kin tell 'em we beat 'em to the hitchin'-post, an', moreover, you kin tell 'em that we said that when we settle this nigger's hash them nor nobody else will ever be able to find hair or hide of 'im. A buryin' to the general run o' niggers is their greatest joy an' pride, but they'll never cut up high jinks over this one.”
“Good, by Heaven!” Garner chuckled, as he recalled Pole's diplomatic suggestion at the store.
Without another word of protest the jailer receded into the house, leaving the door open, and, led by Pole, the others entered the hallway with a firm tread and mounted the stairs to the floor above. All was still here, and so dark that Baker lighted a bit of candle and held it over his head. Knowing the cell in which Pete was confined, Carson led them to its door. As they paused there and Pole was fumbling with-the keys, a low, stifled scream escaped from the prisoner, and then, in the dim, checkered light thrown by the candle through the bars, they saw the negro standing close against the farthest grating. Pole had found the right key and opened the door.
“It's all up with you, Pete Warren,” he said; “you needn't make a row. You've got to take your medicine. Come on.”
“Oh, my God, my God!” cried the negro, as with great, glaring eyes he gazed upon them. “I never done it. I never done it. Don't kill me!”
“Bring 'im on, boys!” Pole produced an artificial oath with difficulty, for he really was deeply moved. “Bring 'im on!”
Two of the spectres seized Pete's hands just as his quaking knees bent under him and he was falling down. He started to pull back, and then, evidently realizing the utter futility of resisting such an overwhelming force, he allowed himself to be led through the door of the cell and down the stairs into the yard.
“I never done it, before God I never done it!” he went on, sobbing like a child. “Don't kill me, white folks. Gi' me one chance. Tek me ter Marse Carson Dwight; he'll tell you I ain't de man.”
“He'll tell us a lot!” growled Baker, with another of his mechanical oaths. “Dry up!”
“Oh, my God have mercy!” For the first time Pete noticed the coil of rope and the sight of it redoubled his terror. On his knees he sank, trying to cover his eyes with his imprisoned hands, and quivering like an aspen. Hardly knowing what he was doing, Carson Dwight impulsively bent over him, but before he had opened his lips the watchful Baker had roughly drawn him back.
“Don't, for God's sake!” the mountaineer whispered, warningly, and he pointed across the street to the houses near by. Indeed, as if to sanction his precaution, a window-sash in the upper story of the nearest house was raised, and a pale, white-haired man looked out. It was the leading Methodist preacher of the place. For one moment he stared down on them, as if struck dumb by the terror of the scene.
“In the name of Christ, our Lord, our Saviour, be merciful, neighbors,” he said, in a voice that shook. “Don't commit this crime against yourselves and the community you live in. Spare him! In the name of God, hand him back to the protection of the law.”
“The law be hanged, parson,” Pole retorted, as part of his rare rôle. “We are looking after that; thar hain't no law in this country that's wuth a hill o' beans.”
“Be merciful—give the man a chance for his life,” the preacher repeated. “Many think he is innocent!”
Hearing that plea in his behalf, Pete screamed out and tried to extend his hands supplicatingly towards his defender, but under Baker's insistent orders he was dragged, now struggling more desperately, farther down the street.
“Ah, Pole, tell the poor—” Keith Gordon began, when the mountaineer sharply commanded: “Dry up! You are disobeyin' orders. Hurry up; bring 'im on. That other gang may hear this racket, and then—come on, I tell you! You violate my leadership and I'll have you court-martialled.”
In some fashion or other they moved on down the street, now taking a more direct way to the store in the fear that they might be met by the expected lynchers and foiled in their purpose. They had traversed the entire length of the street leading from the court-house to the bank building, and were about to turn the corner to reach the rear door of the store, when, in a qualm of fresh despair, Pete's knees actually gave way beneath him and he sank limply to the sidewalk.
“Lord, I reckon we'll have to tote 'im!” Pole said.
“Pick 'im up, boys, and be quick about it. This is a ticklish spot. Let one person see us and the game will be up.”
Pete clearly misunderstood this, and seeing in the words a hint that help or protection was not far away, he suddenly opened his mouth and began to scream.
As quick as a flash Carson, who was immediately behind him, clapped his hand over his lips and said, “Hush, for God's sake, Pete, we are your friends!”
With his mouth still closed by the hand upon it, the negro could only stare into Carson's mask too terrified to grasp more than that he had heard a kindly voice.
“Hush, Pete, not a word! We are trying to save you,” and Carson removed his hand.
“Who dat? Oh, my God, who dat talkin'?” Pete gasped.
“Carson Dwight,” said the young man. “Now hush, and hurry.”
“Thank God it you, Marse Carson—oh, Marse Carson, Marse Carson, you ain't gwine ter let um kill me!”
“No, you are safe, Pete.”
In a rush they now bore him round the corner, and then pausing at the door of the store, to be certain that no extraneous eye was on them, they waited breathlessly for an order from their leader.
“All right, in you go!” presently came from Pole's deep voice, in a great breath of relief. “Open the door, quick!”
The shutter creaked and swung back into the black void of the store, and the throng pressed inward. The door was closed. The darkness was profound.
“Wait; listen!” Pole cautioned. “Thar might be somebody on the sidewalk at the front.”
“Oh, my God, Marse Carson, is you here?” came from the quaking negro.
“Sh!” and Pole imposed silence. For a moment they stood so still that only the rapid panting of the negro was audible.
“All right, we are safe,” Baker said. “But, gosh! it was a close shave! Strike a light an' let's try to ease up this feller. I hated to be rough, but somebody had to do it.”
“Yes, it had to be,” said Dwight. “Pete, you are with friends. Strike a light, Blackburn, the poor boy is scared out of his wits.”
“Oh, Marse Carson, what dis mean? what you-all gwine ter do ter me?”
Blackburn had groped to the lamp on the table and was scratching a match and applying the flame to the wick. The yellow light flashed out, and a strange sight met the bewildered gaze of the negro as kindly faces and familiar forms gradually emerged from the sheeting. Near him stood Dwight, and grasping his hand, Pete clung to it desperately.
“Oh, Marse Carson, what dey gwine ter do ter me?”
“Nothing, Pete, you are all right now,” Carson said, as tenderly as if he were speaking to a hurt child. “The mob was coming and we had to do what we did to save you.” He explained the plan of keeping him hidden in the cellar for a few days, and asked Pete if he would consent to it.
“I'll do anything you say, Marse Carson,” the negro answered. “You know what's best fer me.”
“I've got an old mattress here,” Blackburn spoke up; “boys, let's get it into the cellar. It will make him comfortable.”
And with no sense of the incongruity of their act, considering that as the sons of ex-slave-holders they had never in their lives waited upon a negro, Wade Tingle and Keith Gordon drew the dusty mattress from a dry-goods box in the corner of the room and bore the cumbersome thing through the cellar doorway into the cob webbed darkness beneath. Blackburn followed with a candle, indicating the best-ventilated spot for its placement. Thither Carson led his still benumbed client, who would move only at his bidding, and then like a jerky automaton.
“You won't be afraid to stay here, will you, Pete?” he asked.
The negro stared round him at the encroaching shadows in childlike perturbation.
“You gwine ter lock me in, Marse Carson?” he asked.
Carson explained that in a sense he was still a prisoner, but a prisoner in the hands of friends—friends who had pledged themselves to see that justice was done him. The negro slowly lowered himself to the mattress and stretched out his legs on the stone pavement. An utter droop of despair seemed to settle on him. From the depths of his wide-open eyes came a stare of dejection complete.
“Den Ihain'tfree?” he said.
“No, not wholly, Pete,” Carson returned; “not quite yet.”
“Dry up down thar. Listen!” It was Baker's voice in a guarded tone as he stood in the cellar doorway.
The group around the negro held its breath. The grinding of footsteps on the floor over their heads ceased. Then from the outside came the steady tramp of many feet on the brick sidewalk, the clatter of horses' hoofs in the street.
“Sh! Blow out the light,” Carson said, and Blackburn extinguished it. Profound darkness and stillness filled the long room. Like an army, still voiceless and grimly determined, the human current flowed jailward. It must have numbered several hundred, judged by the time it took to pass. The sound was dying out in the distance when Carson, the last to leave Pete, crept from the cellar, locked the door, and joined the others in the darkness above.
“That mob would hang every man of us if they caught on to our trick,” said Baker, with a queer, exultant chuckle.
Carson moved past him towards the front door.
“Where you goin'?” Pole asked, sharply.
“I want to see how the land lies on the outside,” answered Carson.
“You'll be crazy if you go,” said Blackburn, and the others pressed round Dwight and anxiously joined in the protest.
“No, I must go,” Dwight firmly persisted. “We ought to find out exactly what that crowd thinks to-night, so we'll know what to depend on. If they think a lynching took place they will go home satisfied; if not, as Pole says, they may suspect us, and the most godless riot that ever blackened human history may take place here in this town.”
“He's right,” declared the mountaineer. “Somebody ought to go. I really think I'm the man, by rights, an'—”
“No, I want to satisfy myself,” was Dwight's ultimatum. “Stay here till I come back.”
Blackburn accompanied him to the front door, cautiously looked out, and then let him pass through.
“Knock when you get back—no, here, take the key to the back door and let yourself in. So far, so good, my boy, but this is absolutely the most ticklish job we ever tackled. But I'm with you. I glory in your spunk.”
There was a swelling murmuring, like the onward sweep of a storm from the direction of the courthouse. Voices growing louder and increasing in volume reached their ears.
“Wait for me. Keep the lights out for all you do,” Dwight said, and off he strode in the darkness.
In the gloom and stillness of the store the others waited his return, hardly daring to raise their voices above a whisper. He was gone nearly an hour, and then they heard the key softly turned in the lock and presently he stood in their midst.
“They've about dispersed,” he said, in a tone of intense fatigue. “They lay it to the Hillbend faction, who had some disagreement with them to-day. They seem satisfied.”
“Gentlemen”—it was Garner's voice from his chair at the table—“there's one thing that must be regarded as sacred by us to-night, and that is theabsolutesecrecy of this thing.”
“Good Lord, you don't think any of us would be fool enough to talk about it!” exclaimed Blackburn, in an almost startled tone over the bare suggestion. “If I thought there was a man here who would blab this to a living soul, I'd—”
“Well, I only wanted to impress that on you all,” said Garner. “To all intents and purposes we are law-breakers, and I'm a member of the Georgia bar. Where are you going, Carson?”
“Down to speak to Pete,” answered Dwight. “I want to try to pacify him.”
When he came back a moment later he said: “I've promised to stay here till daylight. Nothing else will satisfy him; he's broken all to pieces, crying like a nervous woman. As soon as I agreed to stay he quieted down.”
“Well, I'll keep you company,” said Keith. “I can sleep like a top on one of the counters.”
“Hold on, there is something else,” Carson said, as they were moving to the rear door. “You know the news will go out in the morning that Pete was taken off somewhere and actually lynched. This will be a terrible blow to his parents, and I want permission from you all to let those two, at least, know that—”
“No!” Garner cried, firmly, even fiercely, as he turned and struck the counter near him with his open hand. “There you go with your eternal sentiment! I tell you this is a grave happening tonight—grave for us and still graver for Pete. Once let that mob find out that they were tricked and they will hang our man or burn this town in the effort.”
“I understand that well enough,” admitted Dwight, “but the Lord knows we could trust his own flesh and blood when they have so much at stake.”
“I am not willing toriskit, if you are,” said Garner, crisply, glancing round at the others for their sanction. “It will be an awful thing for them to hear the current report in the morning, but they'd better stand it for a few days than to spoil the whole thing. A negro is a negro, and if Lewis and Linda knew the truth they would be Shouting instead of weeping and the rest of the darkies would suspect the truth.”
“That's a fact,” Blackburn put in, reluctantly. “Negroes are quick to get at the bottom of things, and with no dead body in sight to substantiate a lynching story they would smell a mouse and hunt for it till they found it. No, Carson,realweeping right now from the mammy and daddy will help us out more than anything else. Yes, they will have to bear it; they will be all the happier in the end.”
“I suppose you are right,” Dwight gave in. “But it's certainly tough.”
9247
T was just at the break of day the following morning. Major Warren, who had not retired until late the night before in his perturbed state of mind over the calamity which hovered in the air, was sleeping lightly, when he was awakened by the almost noiseless presence of some one in his room. Sitting up in bed he stared through the half darkness at a form which towered straight and still between him and the open window through which the first touches of the new day were stealing. “Who's there?” he demanded, sharply.
“It's me, Marse William—Lewis.”
“Oh, you!” The Major put his feet down to the rug at the side of his bed, still not fully awake. “Well, is it time to get up? Anything—wrong? Oh, I remember now—Pete!”
A groan from the great chest of the negro set the air to vibrating, but he said nothing, and the old gentleman saw the bald pate suddenly sink.
“Oh, Lewis, I hope—” Major Warren paused, unable to continue, so vast and grewsome were the fears his servant's attitude had inspired. The old negro took a step or two forward and then said: “Oh, marster, dey done tuck 'im out las' night—dey tuck my po' boy—” A great sob rose in old Lewis's breast and burst on his lips.
“Really, you don't mean it—you can't, after—”
“Yasser, yasser; he daid, marster. Pete done gone! Dey killed 'im las' night, Marse William.”
“But—but how do you know?”
“I des dis minute seed Jake Tobines; he slipped up ter my house en called me out. Jake lives back 'hind de jail, Marse William, en when de mob come him en his wife heard de racket en slipped out in de co'n-patch ter hide. He seed de gang, marster, wid his own eyes, en heard um ax fer de boy. At fus Marse Barrett refused ter give 'im up, but dey ordered fire on 'im en he let um have de keys. Jake seed um fetch Pete out, en heard 'im beggin' um ter spar' his life, but dey drug 'im off.”
There was silence broken only by the old negro's sobs and the smothered effort he was making to restrain his emotion.
“And mammy,” the Major began, presently; “has she heard?”
“Not yit, marster, but she is awake—she been awake all night long—on her knees prayin' most er de time fer mercy—she was awake when Jake come en she knowed I went out ter speak ter 'im, en when I come back in de house, marster, she went in de kitchen. I know what she done dat fur—she didn't want ter know, suh, fer certain, ef I'd heard bad news or not. I wanted ter let 'er know, but I was afeared ter tell 'er, en come away. I loves my wife, marster—I—I loves her mo' now dat Pete's gone dan ever befo'. I loves 'er mo' since she been had ter suffer dis way, en, marster, dis gwine ter kill 'er. It gwine ter kill Lindy, Marse William.”
“What's the matter, father?” It was Helen Warren's voice, and with a look of growing terror on her face she stood peering through the open doorway. The Major ejaculated a hurried and broken explanation, and with little, intermittent gasps of horror the young lady advanced to the old negro.
“Does Mam' Linda know?” she asked, her face ghastly and set in sculptural rigidity.
“Not yet, missy, not yet—it gwine ter kill yo' ol' mammy, child.”
“Yes, it may,” Helen said, an odd, alien quality of resignation in her voice. “I suppose I'd better go and break it to her. Father, Pete was innocent, absolutely innocent. Carson Dwight assured me of it. He was innocent, and yet—oh!”
With a shudder she turned back to her room across the hall. In the stillness the sound of the match she struck to light her lamp was raspingly audible. Without another word, and wringing the extended hand of his wordless master, Lewis crept down the stairs and out into the pale light of early morning. Like an old tree fiercely beaten by a storm, he leaned towards the earth. He looked about him absently for a moment, and then sat down on the edge of the veranda floor and lowered his head to his brown, sinewy hands.
A negro woman with a milk-pail on her arm came up the walk from the gate and started round the house to the kitchen door, but seeing him she stopped and leaned over him. “Is what Jake done say de trufe?” she asked.
“Yassum, yassum, it done over, Mary Lou—done over,” Lewis said, looking up at her from his blearing eyes; “but ef you see Lindy don't let on ter her yit. Young miss gwine ter tell 'er fust.”
“Oh, my Lawd, it done over, den!” the woman said, shudderingly; “it gwine ter go hard with Mam' Lindy, Unc' Lewis.”
“It gwine terkill'er, Mary Lou; she won't live dis week out. I know 'er. She had ernough dis life wid all she been thoo fur 'erself en her white folks, in bondage en out, en' dis gwine ter settle 'er. I don't blame 'er. I'm done thoo myse'f. Ef de Lawd had spar' my child, I wouldn't er ax mo', but, Mary Lou, I hope I ain't gwine ter stay long. I'll hear dat po' boy beggin' fer mercy every minute while I live, en what I want mo' of it fur? Shucks! no, I'm raidy—en, 'fo' God, I wish dey had er tuck us all three at once. Dat ud 'a' been some comfort, but fer Pete ter be by hisse'f beggin' um ter spar' 'im—all by hisse'f, en me 'n his mammy—”
The old man's head went down and his body shook with sobs. The woman looked at him a moment, and then, wiping her eyes on her apron, she went on her way.
A few minutes later, just as the red sun was rising in a clear sky and turning the night's moisture into dazzling gems on the grass and leaves of trees and shrubbery, like the beneficent smile of God upon a pleasing world, Helen descended the stairs. She had the sweet, pale face of a suffering nun as she paused, looked down on the old servant, and caught his piteous and yet grateful, upturned glance.
“I'm going to her now, Uncle Lewis,” she said. “I want to be the first to tell her.”
“Yes, you mus' be de one,” Lewis sighed, as he rose stiffly; “you de onliest one.”
He shambled along in her wake, his old hat, out of respect for her presence, grasped in his tense hand. As they drew near the little sagging gate at the cottage there was a sound of moving feet within, and Linda stood in the doorway shading her eyes from the rays of the sun with her fat hand. To the end of her life Helen had the memory of the old woman's face stamped on her brain. It was a yellow mask, which might have belonged to a dead as well as a living creature, behind which the lights of hope and shadows of despair were vying with each other for supremacy. In no thing pertaining to the situation did the pathos so piteously lie as in the fact that Linda was deliberately playing a part—fiercely acting a rôle that would fit itself to that for which the agony of her soul was pleading. She was trying to smile away the shadows her inward fears, her racial intuition were casting on her face.
“Mighty early fer you ter come, honey,” she said; “but I reckon you is worried 'bout yo' ol' mammy.”
“Yes, it's early for me to be up,” Helen said, avoiding the wavering glance that seemed in reality to be avoiding the revelation of hers. “But I saw Uncle Lewis and thought I'd come back with him.”
“You hain't had yo' breakfast yit, honey, I know,” said Linda, reaching for a chair half-heartedly and placing it for her young mistress, and then her eyes fell on her husband's bareheaded, bowed attitude as he stood at the gate, and something in it, through her sense of sight, gave her a deadening blow. For an instant she almost reeled; she drew a deep breath, a breath that swelled out her great, motherly bosom, then with her hands hanging limply at her side, she stood in front of Helen. For a moment she did not speak, and then, with her face on fire, her great, somnolent eyes ablaze, she suddenly bent down and put her hands on Helen's knees and said: “Looky here, honey, I've been afraid of it all night long, an' I've fit it off an' fit it off, an' I got up dis mawnin' fightin' it off, but ef you come here so early 'ca'se—ef you come here ter tell me dat my child—ef you come here—ef you come here—gre't God on high, it ain't so! it cayn't be dat way! Look me in de eyes, honey, I'm raidy en waitin' fer you ter give it de lie.”
For one moment she glared at Helen as the girl sat white and quivering, her glance on the floor, and then she uttered a piercing scream like that of a frightened beast, and grasping the hand of her husband, who was now by her side, she pointed a finger of stone at Helen. “Look! Look, Lewis; my Gawd, sheain't lookin' at me!Look at me, honey chile; look at me! D' you hear me say—” She stood firmly for an instant and then she reeled into her husband's arms.
“She daid; whut I tol you? Missy, yo' ol' mammy daid,” and lifting his wife in his arms he bore her to the bed in the corner of the room. “Yes, she done daid,” he groaned, as he straightened up.
“No, she's only fainted,” said Helen; “bring me the camphor, quick!”
9253
HAT morning at the usual hour the store-keepers opened their dingy houses in the main street and placed along the narrow brick sidewalks the dusty, stock-worn samples of their wares. The clerks and porters as they swept the floors would pause to discuss the happening of the night just gone. Old Uncle Lewis and Mammy Linda Warren's boy had been summarily dealt with, that was all. The longer word just used had of late years become a part of the narrowest vocabulary, suggesting to crude minds many meanings not thought of by lexicographers, not the least of which was something pertaining to justice far-reaching, grim, and unfailing in these days of bribery and graft. Only a few of the more analytical and philosophical ventured to ask themselves if, after all, the boy might have been innocent. If they put the question to the average citizen it was tossed off with a shrug and a “Well, what's the difference? It's such talk as he was guilty of that is at the bottom of all the black crimes throughout the South.” Such venom as Pete's was the very muscle of the black claws that were everywhere reaching out for helpless white throats. Dead? Yes, he was dead. What of it? How else was the black, constantly increasing torrent to be dammed?
And yet by ten o'clock that morning even these tongues were silenced, for news strange and startling began to steal in from the mountains. The party who had been in pursuit of the desperado Sam Dudlow had overtaken him—found him hiding in a bam, covered with hay. He was unarmed and made no resistance, laughing as if the whole thing were a joke. He frankly told them that he would have given himself up earlier, but he had hoped to live long enough to get even with the other leader of the mob that had whipped him at Darley, a certain Dan Willis. He confessed in detail exactly how he had murdered the Johnsons and that he had done it alone. Pete Warren was in no way implicated in it. The lynchers, to get the whole truth, threatened him; they tortured him; they tied him to a tree and piled pine fagots about him, but he still stuck to his statement, and when they had mercifully riddled him with bullets, just as his clothing was igniting, they left him hanging by the road-side, a grewsome scarecrow as a warning to his kind, and, led by Jabe Parsons, they made all haste to reach the faction on Pete Warren's track to tell them that the boy was innocent.
Jabe Parsons, carrying a load on his mind, remembering his wife's valiant stand in behalf of the younger accused, rode faster than his tired fellows, and near his own farm met the lynchers returning from Darley. “Too late,” they told him, in response to his news, the Hillbend boys had done away with the Darley jailbird and mysteriously hidden the body to inspire fear among the negroes.
At Darley consternation swept the place as story after story of Aunt Linda's prostration passed from house to house. “Poor, faithful old woman! Poor old Uncle Lewis!” was heard on every side.
About half-past ten o'clock Helen, accompanied by Sanders, came down-town. At the door of Carson's office they parted and Helen came in. Carson happened to be alone. He rose suddenly from his seat and came towards her, shocked by the sight of her wan face and dejected mien.
“Why, Helen!” he cried, “surely you don't think—” and then he checked himself as he hastened to get a chair for her.
“I've just left mammy,” she began, in a voice that was husky with emotion. “Oh, Carson, you can't imagine it! It is simply heart-rending, awful! She is lying there at death's door staring up at the ceiling, simply benumbed.”
Carson sat down at his desk and leaned his head on his hand. Could he keep back the truth under such pressure? It was at this juncture that Garner came in. Casting a hurried glance at the two, and seeing Helen's grief-stricken attitude, he simply bowed.
“Excuse me, Miss Helen, just a moment,” he said. “Carson, I left a paper in your pigeon-hole,” and as he bent and extracted a blank envelope from the desk he whispered, warningly: “Remember, not one word of this! Don't forget the agreement! Not a soul is to know!” And putting the envelope into his pocket he went out of the room, casting back from the threshold a warning, almost threatening glance.
“I've been with her since sunup,” Helen went on.
“She fainted at first, and when she came to—oh, Carson, you love her as I do, and it would have broken your heart to have heard her! Oh, such pitiful wailing and begging God to put her out of pain!”
“Awful, awful!” Dwight said; “but, Helen—” Again he checked himself. Before his mind's eye rose the faces of the faithful group who had stood by him the night before. He had pledged himself to them to keep the thing secret, and no matter what his own faith in Helen's discretion was he had no right, even under stress of her grief, to betray what had occurred. No, he couldn't enlighten her—not just then, at all events.
“I was there when Uncle Lewis came in to tell her that proof had come of Pete's absolute innocence,” Helen went on, “but instead of comforting her it seemed to drive her the more frantic. She—but I simply can't describe it, and I won't try. You will be glad to know, Carson, that the only thing in the shape of comfort she has had was your brave efforts in her behalf. Over and over she called your name. Carson, she used to pray to God; she never mentions Him now. You, and you alone, represent all that is good and self-sacrificing to her. She sent me to you. That's why I am here.”
“She sent you?” Carson was avoiding her eyes, fearful that she might read in his own a hint of the burning thing he was trying to withhold.
“Yes, you see the report has reached her about what the lynchers said in regard to hiding Pete's body. You know how superstitious the negroes are, and she is simply crazy to recover the—the remains. She wants to bury her boy, Carson, and she refuses to believe that some one can't find him and bring him home. She seems to think you can.”
“She wants me to—” He went no further.
“If it is possible, Carson. The whole thing is so awful that it has driven me nearly wild. You will know, perhaps, if anything can be done, but, of course, if it is wholly out of the question—”
“Helen”—in his desperation he had formulated a plan—“there is something that you ought to know. You have every right to know it, and yet I'm bound in honor not to let it out to any one. Last night,” he went on, modestly, “in the hope of formulating some plan to avert the coming trouble, I asked Keith to get a number of my best friends together. We met at Blackburn's store. No positive, sworn vows were made. It was only the sacred understanding between men that the matter was to be held inviolate, owing to the personal interests of every man who had committed himself. You see, they came at my suggestion, as friends of mine true and loyal, and it seems to me that I'd have a moral right, even now, to take another into the body—another whom I trust as thoroughly and wholly as any one of them. Do you understand, Helen?”
“No, I'm in the dark, Carson,” she said, with a feeble smile.
“You see, I want to speak freely to you,” he continued. “I want to tell you some things you ought to know, and yet I am not free to do so unless—unless you will tacitly join us. Helen, do you understand? Are you willing to become one of us so far as absolute secrecy is concerned?”
“I am willing to do anything you'd advise, Carson,” the girl replied, groping for his possible meaning through the cloud of mystery his queer words had thrown around him. “If something took place that I ought to know, and you are willing to confide it to me, I assure you I can be trusted. I'd die rather than betray it.”
“Then, as one of us, I'll tell you,” Carson said, impressively. “Helen, Pete, is not dead.”
“Not dead?” She stared at him incredulously from her great, beautiful eyes. Slowly her white hand went out till it rested on his, and remained there, quivering.
“No, he's alive and so far in safe keeping, free from harm at present, anyway.”
Her fingers tightened on his hand, her sweet, appealing face drew nearer to his; she took a deep breath. “Oh, Carson, don't say that unless you arequitesure.”
“I am absolutely sure,” he said; and then, as they sat, her hand still lingering unconsciously on his, he explained it all, leaving the part he had taken out of the recital as much as possible, and giving the chief credit to his supporters. She sat spellbound, her sympathetic soul melting and flowing into the warm current of his own while he talked as it seemed to her no human being had ever talked before.
When he had concluded she drew away her hand and sat erect, her bosom heaving, her eyes glistening.
“Oh, Carson,” she cried; “I never was so happy in my life! It actually pains me.” She pressed her hand to her breast. “Mammy will be so—but you say she must not—must not yet—”
“That's the trouble,” Dwight said, regretfully.
“I'm sure I could put her and Lewis on their guard so that they would act with discretion, but Blackburn and Garner—in fact, all the rest—are afraid to risk them, just now anyway. You see, they think Linda and Lewis might betray it in their emotions—their very happiness—and so undo everything we have accomplished.”
“Surely, now that the report of Sam Dudlow's confession has gone out, they would let Pete alone,” Helen said.
“I wouldn't like to risk it quite yet,” said Dwight. “Right now, while they are under the impression that an innocent negro has been lynched, they seem inclined to quiet down, but once let the news go out that a few town men, through trickery, had freed the prisoner, and they would rise more furious than ever. No, we must be careful. And, Helen, you must remember your promise. Don't let even your sympathy for Linda draw it out of you.”
“I can keep it, and I really shall,” Helen said.
“But you must release me as soon as you possibly can.”
“I'll do that,” he promised, as she rose to go.
“I'll keep it,” she repeated, when she had reached the door; “but to do so I'll have to stay away from mammy. The sight of her agony would wring it from me.”
“Then don't go near her till I see you,” Dwight cautioned her. “I'll meet all the others to-day and put the matter before them. Perhaps they may give in on that point.”
9260
T the corner of the street Helen encountered Sanders, who was waiting for her. At the sight of him standing on the edge of the sidewalk, impatiently tapping the toe of his neatly shod foot with the ferrule of his tightly rolled silk umbrella, she experienced a shock which would have eluded analysis. He had been so completely out of her thoughts, and her present mood was of such an entrancing nature that she felt a desire to indulge it undisturbed. The bare thought of the platitudes she would have to exchange with any one ignorant of her dazzling discovery was unpleasant. After all, what was it about Sanders that vaguely incited her growing disapproval? This morning could it possibly be his very faultlessness of attire, his spick-and-span air of ownership in her body and soul because of their undefined understanding as to his suit, or was it because—because he had, although through no fault of his own, taken no part in the thing which today, for Helen, somehow, held more weight than all other earthly happenings? Indeed, fate was not using the Darley visitor kindly. He was unwittingly like a healthy soldier on a furlough making himself useful in the drawing-room while news of victory was pouring in from his comrades at the front.
“You see I waited for you,” he said, gracefully raising his hat; “but, Helen, what has happened? Why, what is the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said; “nothing at all.”
“But,” he went on, frowning in perplexity as he suited his step to hers, “I never saw any one in my life change so suddenly. Why, when you went into that office you were simply a picture of despair, but now you look as if you were bursting with happiness. Your face is flushed, your eyes are fairly dancing. Helen, if I thought—”
He paused, his own color rising, a deeper frown darkening his brow.
“If you thought what?” she asked, with a little irritation.
“Oh”—he knocked a stone out of his way with his umbrella—“what's the use denying it! I'm simply jealous. I'm only a natural human being, and I suppose I'm jealous.”
“You have no cause to be,” she said, and then she bit her lip with vexation at the slip of the tongue. Why should she defend herself to him? She had never said she loved him. She had not yet consented to marry him. Besides, she was in no mood to gratify his vanity. She wanted simply to be alone with the boundless delight she was allowed to share with no one but—Carson—Carson!—the one who had, forher sake, made the sharing of it possible.
“Well, I am uneasy, and I can't help it,” Sanders went on, gloomily. “How can I help it? You left me so sad and depressed that you had hardly a word for me, and after seeing this Mr. Dwight you come out looking—do you know,” he broke off, “that you were there alone with that fellow nearly an hour?”
“Oh no, it couldn't have been so long,” she said, further irritated by his open defence of what he erroneously considered his rights.
“But it was, for I timed you,” Sanders affirmed. “Heaven knows I counted the actual minutes. There is a lot about this whole thing I don't like, but I hardly know what it is.”
“You are not only jealous but suspicious,” Helen said, sharply. “Those are things I don't like in any man.”
“I've offended you, but I didn't mean to,” Sanders said, with a sudden turn towards precaution. “You'll forgive me, won't you, Helen?”
“Oh yes, it's all right.” She had suddenly softened. “Really, I am sorry you feel hurt. Don't think any more about it. I have a reason which I can't explain for feeling rather cheerful just now.” They had reached the next street corner and she patised. “I want to go by Cousin Ida's. She lives down this way.”
“And you'd rather I didn't go along?”
“I have something particular to say to her.”
“Oh, I see. Then may I come as usual this afternoon?”
Her wavering, half-repentant glance fell. “Not this afternoon,” she said. “I ought to be with mammy. Couldn't you call this evening?”
“It will seem a long time to wait in this dreary place, with nothing to occupy me,” he said; “but I shall be well repaid. So I may come this evening?”
“Oh yes, I shall expect you then,” and Helen turned and left him.
In the front garden of the Tarpley house she found her cousin watering the flowers. Observing Helen at the gate, Miss Tarpley hastily put down the tin sprinkling-pot and hurried to her.
“I was just going up to see mammy,” Ida said. “I know I can be of no use and yet I wanted to try. Oh, the poor thing must be suffering terribly! She had enough to bear as it was, but that last night—oh!”
“Yes—yes,” Helen said. “It is hard on her.”
Ida Tarpley rested her two hands on the tops of the white palings of the fence and stared inquiringly into Helen's face.
“Why do you say it in that tone?” she asked; “and with that queer, almost smiling look in your eyes? Why, I expected to see you prostrated, and—well, I don't think—I actually don't think I ever saw you looking better in my life. What's happened, Helen?”
“Oh, nothing.” Helen was now making a strong effort to disguise her feelings, and she succeeded to some extent, for Miss Tarpley's thoughts took another trend.
“And poor, dear Carson,” she said, sympathetically. “The news must have nearly killed him. He came by here last night making all haste to get down-town, as he said, to see if something couldn't be done. He was terribly wrought up, and I never saw such a look of determination on a human face. 'Somethinghasto be done,' he said; 'somethingmustbe done! The boy is innocent and shall not die like a dog. It would kill his mother, and she is a good, faithful old woman. No, he shall not die!' And with those words he hurried on. Oh, Helen, that is sad, too. It is sad to see as noble a young spirit as he has fail in such a laudable undertaking. Think of how he stood up before that surging mob and let them shoot at him while he shouted defiance in their teeth, till they cowered down and slunk away! Think of a triumph like that, and then, after all, to meet with such galling defeat as overtook him last night! When I heard of the lynching I actually cried. I think I felt for him as much as I did for Mam' Linda. Poor, dear boy! You know why he wanted to do it so much—you know that as well as I do.”
“Why he wanted to do it!” Helen echoed, almost hungry for the sweet confirmation of Dwight's fidelity to her cause.
“Yes, you know—you know that his whole young soul was set on it because it was your wish, because you were so troubled over it. I've seen that in his eyes ever since the matter came up. I saw it there last night, and it seemed to me that his very heart was burning up within him. Oh, I get mad at you—to think you'd let that Augusta man, even if you do intend some day to marry him—that you'd let him be here at such a time, as if Carson hadn't enough to bear without that. Ah, Helen, no other human being will ever love you as Carson Dwight does—never, never while the sun shines.”
With a misleading smile of denial on her face Helen turned homeward. He loved her—Carson Dwight—that manof all men—still loved her. Her body felt imponderable as she strode blithely on her way. In her hands she carried a human life—the life of the poor boy Carson had so wonderfully struggled for and intrusted to her keeping. To his mother and father Pete was dead, but to her and Carson, her first sweetheart, he still lived. The secret was theirs to hold between their throbbing hearts. Old Linda's grief was but a dream. Helen and Carson could draw aside the black curtain and tell her to look and see the truth.
Standing with bowed head at the front gate when she arrived home, she saw old Uncle Lewis, his bald pate bared to the sunshine.
“Mam' Lindy axin' 'bout you, missy,” he said, pitifully. “She say you went down-town ter see Marse Carson, en she seem mighty nigh crazy ter know ef you found whar de—de body er de po' boy is at. Dat all she's beggin' en pleadin' fer now, missy, en ef dem white mens refuse it, de Lawd only know what she gwine ter do.”
Helen gazed at him helplessly. Her whole young being was wrung with the desire to let him know the truth, and yet how could she tell him what had been revealed to her in such strict confidence?
“I'll go see mammy now,” she said. “I've no news yet, Uncle Lewis—no news that I can give you. I'm looking for Carson to come up soon.”
As she neared the cottage the motley group of negroes, serious-faced men and women, bland-eyed persons in their teens, and half-clad children, around the door intuitively and respectfully drew aside and she entered the cottage unaccompanied and unannounced. Linda was not in the sitting-room, where she expected to find her, and so, wonderingly, Helen turned into the kitchen adjoining. Here the general aspect of things added to her growing surprise, for the old woman had drawn close the curtains of the little, small-paned windows, and before a small fire in the chimney she sat prone on the ash-covered hearth. That alone might not have been so surprising, but Linda had covered her body with several old tow sacks upon which she had plentifully sprinkled ashes. The grayish powder was in her short hair, on her face and bare arms, and filled her lap. There was one thing in the world that the old woman prized above all else—a big, leather-bound family Bible which she had owned since she first learned to read under the instruction of Helen's mother, and this, also ash-covered, lay open by her side.
“Is I gwine ter bury my chile?” she demanded, as she glared up at her mistress. “What young marster say? Is I, or is I never ter lay eyes on 'im ergin? Is I de only nigger mother dat ever lived on dis yeth, bound er free, dat cayn't have dat much? Tell me. Ef dey gwine ter le' me see 'im Marse Carson ud know it. What he say?”
Rendered fairly speechless by the predicament she was in, Helen could only stand staring helplessly. Presently, however, she bent, and lifting the Bible from the floor she laid it on the table. With her massive elbows on her knees, her fat hands over her face and almost touching the flames, Linda rocked back and forth.
“Dey ain't no God!” she cried; “ef dey is one He's es black es de back er dat chimbley. Dat book is er lie. Dey ain't no love en mercy anywhars dis side de blinkin', grinnin' stars. Don't tell me er nigger's prayers is answered. Didn't I pray las' night till my tongue was swelled in my mouf fer um ter spare my boy? En what in de name er all created was de answer? When de day broke wid de same sun shinin' dat was shinin' when he laid de fus time on my breas', de news was fetch me dat my baby chile was dragged out wid er rope rounst his neck, prayin' ter men whilst I was prayin' ter God. Look lak dat enough, hein? But no, nex' come de news dat ef he'd er lived one short hour longer dey might er let 'im go 'ca'se dey foun' de right one. Look lak dat enough, too, hein? But nex' come de word, en de las' message: innocent or no, right one or wrong one, my chile wasn't goin' ter have a common bury in'-place—not even in de Potter's Fiel' dis book tell erbout so big. Don't talk ter me! Ef prayers fum niggers is answered mine was heard in hell, en old Scratch en all his imps er darkness was managin' it. Don't come near me! I might lay han's on you. I ain't myself. I heard er low trash white man say once dat niggers was des baboons. I may be one, en er wild one fer all I know—oh, honey, don't pay no 'tention ter me. Yo' ol' mammy is bein' burnt at de stake en she ain't 'sponsible. She love you, honey—she love you even in 'er gre't trouble.”
“I understand, mammy,” and Helen put her arms around the old woman's neck. An almost overpowering impulse had risen in her to tell the old sufferer the truth, but thinking that some of the negroes might be listening, and remembering her promise, she restrained herself.
“I'm going to write a note to Carson to come up at once,” she said. “He'll have something to tell you, mammy.”
And passing the negroes about the door she went to the house, and hastening into the library she wrote and forwarded by a servant the following note:
“Dear Carson,—Come at once, and come prepared to tell her. I can't stand it any longer. Do, do come.
“Helen.”