"HE COULD HEAR THE CRASH, SEE THE GREAT BOW SINKING""HE COULD HEAR THE CRASH, SEE THE GREAT BOW SINKING"
"Where have you been, Nuncky dear?" she inquired most sweetly.
"Looking for you, my dear Marcia."
"For two whole days?"
"Well—er—yesterday I—er—thought you'd better be left alone, and—er—where did you meet that young man?"
"Oh, Bertha Sands introduced him—he's a dear! You came just a minute too late." Miss Dorn laughed and squeezed her uncle's arm. "He'ssoamusing. You'dloveto meet him!"
"That silly ass!" grunted Admiral Paulding. "Not much. He makes my toe itch! I've got a good name for him—'the smoke-room pest.' He's always doing card tricks under your unwilling nose, pretending to sit on somebody's hat, upsetting the dominos! If he can get a laugh out of a waiter, he's perfectly satisfied. I squelched him the other day, I can tell you!"
"What did you do?" Miss Marcia asked the question with mock seriousness.
"Never mind; but I taught him a lesson. Marcia, my dear, you do pick up the most peculiar acquaintances."
"But, really, my dear Nuncky, he's so clever, so quick at repartee—m—m—I'd be afraid! Tell me how you did it."
"Never mind how; but let me tell you this! That young man would never say anything sensible if he could help it, and never do anything useful, even by accident! And I think that you, my dear Marcia——"
"It's been a perfectly lovely day," remarked Miss Dorn abstractedly.
As if in sheer perversity, the weather changed early in the evening, and the night that followed was punctuated regularly by the blast of the fog-whistle. The next day broke thick and damp, with a wall of impenetrable mist shadowing the great vessel to half her length. Over the tall sides the greasy green of the water could just be seen moving by. The masts and funnels disappeared irregularly overhead. The fog clung to everything; it rimed the rugs and capes of the passengers who feared the close air of the 'tween-decks and lay recumbent in the steamer-chairs, and it clung in little pearls to Miss Marcia Dorn's curly front hair, that seemed to curl all the tighter for the wetting.
With Mr. Victor Masterson at her side, she was walking up and down the hurricane-deck. His appearance was not quite so spruce or so comical this morning; he looked as if he had been dipped overboard. He still disdained a hat, and his hair was plastered over his forehead in an uneven, scraggly bang. The weather seemed also to have dampened his spirits. Miss Dorn found it difficult to lead him away from serious subjects; his ideas on mental telepathy did not amuse her, nor the fact that he was a fatalist.
"Oh, I wish you'd do something to make me laugh," she broke in suddenly.
"Are you ticklish?" inquired the Silly Ass quite soberly.
Miss Dorn could not help but titter; she was not at all put out.
"There!" said Mr. Masterson. "Now, you see, I have done it! Please thank me. Now let me go on. You know, there is no doubt that the mind of one person when thinking of——"
"Oh, don't let's think!" Miss Dorn leaned back against the rail, half hidden from the gangway. "Isn't it dreary," she said, "this weather? And look at those people all stretched out. I wish we could do something to wake them up! The whole ship seems to have the glooms—even the captain; he wouldn't speak a word to me at breakfast."
"I could wake 'em up," said Mr. Masterson emphatically. "I could wake the whole ship up, and the captain too, and the lootenant, and the quartermaster, and the squingerneer, and the crew of theNancy Brig, if I wanted to—and your Uncle Admiral Elephant here, asleep in the steamer-chair."
"Why, sure enough, there he is!" cried Miss Dorn. "He's got the glooms, too; he says he always gets 'em in foggy weather at sea." She turned and touched Mr. Masterson lightly on the arm. "Wake him up!" she said, her eyes twinkling.
"I hardly dare."
"Oh, go on! I don't believe you can. How would you do it?"
"How would I do it? Why, just this way." He crumpled his hands together and blew between the knuckles of his thumbs a low, resonant, gruffly humming note.
They were hidden now by the bow of the life-boat and were standing quite close together. They noticed that the figure in the steamer-chair nearest them had suddenly raised itself a little and then had sat bolt upright. The old admiral, the mist in his gray whiskers, turned one ear forward and listened attentively.
The gray wall had grown a little whiter, less opaque; they could see now the whole length of the ship, out to the lifting stern.
"Oh, go on," tempted the girl; "do it again—louder!"
Mr. Masterson looked at her.
"Oh,pleasedo," she pleaded; "real loud. I dare you to!"
He slowly raised his hands, the thumb-knuckles to his lips again. There sounded two deep, long-drawn, half-roaring, thrilling notes, for all the world like steam in the cup of a great metal whistle.
Footsteps, hurried and quick, rushed overhead on the bridge. A hoarse voice shouted orders. The quartermaster spun the wheel. Now:
"Full speed ahead, the starboard engine! Full speed astern, port!"
"Ay, ay, sir!"
There was the clank-clank of the semaphores, and suddenly two bursting, answering blasts that hid the huge funnels in a cloud of feathery white.
The admiral in the steamer-chair threw off his wrappings and leaped to the rail.
A loud, anxious hail from above: "Lookout, there forward! Can you make out anything?"
"Oh, see what I've done!" faltered the Silly Ass in a frightened whisper.
Miss Dorn grasped his shoulder.
There had followed a sudden cry that rose in a diapason of mad fear:
"Vessel ahead!Starboard your helm, sir!Starboard your h-e-l-m!"
The helm was already over; the ship was swinging wide. Another quick order. The second officer leaped again to the semaphores. The huge fabric trembled, racking in every plate, as both engines reversed at full speed, the screws churning and thundering astern. And now a rift came in the encircling fog, as if it had been cut by a mighty sword.
Clear and distinct, not half a cable's length away, wallowed a great black shape. The mighty bow swept veering past her quarter, then her stern, and clear of it by no more than thirty yards!
Only those few on deck outside of the weather-cloth saw the sight, and then for but an instant. Never would they forget it!
Lying low in the water, all awash from the break of her topgallant-forecastle to the lift of her high poop-deck, the green seas running under her bridge and about her superstructure, swayed a great mass of iron and steel of full five thousand tons! Ship without a soul! A wisp of a flag, upside down, still floated in her slackened rigging; swinging falls dangled from her empty davits. Then the fog closed in, and, as a picture on a lantern-slide fades and disappears, she vanished and was gone!
A white-faced boy looked up into Miss Dorn's frightened eyes. His lips moved, but made no sound.
On the bridge, the captain had grasped the second officer by the arm. "My God! Fitzgerald, did you see that? It was theDrachenburg."
"Derelict and abandoned! But, by heaven, sir,she signaled us!"
The captain turned quickly. "Stop those engines!" he ordered hoarsely.
The tearing pulses down below ceased their beating; it was as if a great heart had stopped! The ship, breathless at her own escape, lay calm and quiet in the fog. The only sound was of the greasy waves lapping her high steel flanks. Yet——
Admiral Dorn, still standing beneath the bridge, with both hands grasping the rail, shivered and drew breath. What might have happened if—— He looked forward. He imagined he could hear the crash, see the great bow sinking; he could hear the splintering of the bulk-heads, the screams of the people tumbling up the companionways, the panic and pandemonium, the mad rush for the boats, the horrid, slow subsidence. But it was not to be; the danger had gone by!
Now he remembered having heard that first low whistle before the two that had signaled so plainly: "I have my helm to starboard—passing to starboard of you!" And yet, well did he know that no fires blazed in those dead furnaces, no steam was coming from that rusty, salt-incrusted funnel. It was as if the dead had spoken to warn the living! He shivered once more, and staggered to the bridge-ladder, holding on and listening.
Three, four, five times did theCaronia'ssiren wail out into the stillness.No reply.And then the throbbing pulses took up their beat again.
Down in the corner of the main saloon, filled with chattering people, romping children, and game-playing young folk, who knew not what had passed on deck, sat the Silly Ass, the girl close to him.
"I'll never tell," she whispered. "What is it you're thinking of?"
The round eyes gazed into hers. "It's a long time since I did," he said.
"Did what?"
"Prayed! God made me a fool just to do this some day, I guess." His face showed the expression of a grown-up, sobered man.
On the bridge, the captain and the other officers were talking in low, awe-struck tones.
Thepatwarisalaamed and laid a report on my desk—a thing of maps and figures that brought the sweat to my face. Fifty-seven killed, six hundred square miles of rich rice and sugar country demoralized, communications stopped, crops rotting on the ground, nine villages abandoned, and the shyest of jungle creatures grazing in the market-place! Tiger and tigress—a bad case.
When I told a man once that tigers and cobras, between them, made away with 25,000 human beings in India every year, he thought I was joking. "Why," said he, "surely one fifth of the human race—325,000,000, at any rate—is packed into that triangle! Where can the tigers live?" But I underestimated it; there were just 24,938 killed in 1906 by tigers alone. You can see it yourself in the government records.
Now, as District Officer, I'm the "father" of two million souls, and responsible for all things, from murder to measles. But this was beyond me. It was a Commissioner's job, backed by the Maharaja.
The man-eaters, now propitiated as gods, had taken toll of my villagers for two long years. The people were in abject terror, for none knew the day, hour, or place of the monsters' next leap. Many were already resigned to death. "It's written on our foreheads," they said, with gentle misery. Poor devils! Think of the two hundred millions of them in India oscillating between mere existence and positive starvation; not living, but just strong enough to crawl along on the edge of death!
I called thetahsildar: "Bring me the record of these tigers."
A bulky file of horrors, in truth! Here a goatherd was taken; there it was an old woman gathering sticks in the jungle, or children playing in the village street, or maybe girls going down to the river for water, laughing joyously, unaware of the great green eyes that watched them through the towering stalks of elephant-grass; and last among the victims came some desperate young men who had faced one of the creatures with fish-spears.
"FIRST A MAGNIFICENT YELLOW HEAD EMERGES, THEN THE LONG, LITHE BODY""FIRST A MAGNIFICENT YELLOW HEAD EMERGES, THEN THE LONG, LITHE BODY"
It was a difficult country of limitless forest,broken in places by low hills and by bare sites of the typical village of India. And apparently from all quarters came the same report, with little modification. Here is a specimen:
HOWDAH ELEPHANT TRAINING MADE EASY HE IS FED WITH "GOOR" OR CRUDE SUGAR BEFORE STARTING ON THE TIGER HUNTHOWDAH ELEPHANT TRAINING MADE EASYHE IS FED WITH "GOOR" OR CRUDE SUGAR BEFORE STARTING ON THE TIGER HUNT
HE IS FED WITH "GOOR" OR CRUDE SUGAR BEFORE STARTING ON THE TIGER HUNT
"As I rode into camp at Bussavanpur to-day, I was met by trackers who told me the death wail was 'up' in the village. They brought to me a woman with three small children. Her husband was the latest victim. With tearless Hindu apathy she told her story, and I gave her five rupees. She had to spend half this, according to caste usage, because it was said to be the devil in her that had led the yellow devil to him. The formalities over, she was admitted to the villages of her caste, and then took me to the tragic scene. A solitary tamarind-tree grew on some rocks near the village; no jungle within three hundred yards; a few bushes on the rock crevices. And close by ran the broad cattle-track into the village. The man had been following the cattle home in the evening, and must have stopped to knock down some tamarinds with his stick; for this last, with his black blanket and skin cap, still lay where he was seized. Evidently the tigress had hidden in the rocks, and was upon him in one bound. Dragging her victim to the edge of a rocky plateau, she leaped down into a field and there killed him. The spot was marked by a pool of dried blood. I walked for two hours with the trackers, hoping to come on some traces of the brute or her mate, but without success."
And so on. Some of the deaths were horrible by reason of the eery silence that marked them, others because of the mysterious movements or amazing cunning of the tigers. The comic episodes it were not seemly to dwell upon. But fifty-seven! Nothing for it now but a hurry call to the Commissioner and the Maharaja for elephants and an army of tiger-hunters, a mobilization of the bestshikarisin all India, for a regular campaign against these beasts.
In fourteen days that army was on the spot, and I enlisted under the banner of Colonel Howe of the Tenth Hussars. The staff was made up ofshikaris, and the beaters were of the rankand file. Maps were called for and studied, scouts sent far and wide into the theater of operations; native reports were sifted and their exaggerations discounted with the skill of long practice.
LAST WALL OF DEFENSE THE TIGER-HUNTING ELEPHANTS CLOSE THEIR RANKS TO RECEIVE THE CHARGELAST WALL OF DEFENSETHE TIGER-HUNTING ELEPHANTS CLOSE THEIR RANKS TO RECEIVE THE CHARGE
THE TIGER-HUNTING ELEPHANTS CLOSE THEIR RANKS TO RECEIVE THE CHARGE
Tiger war is a science with axioms of its own. First of all come the weather and the water-supply. It's useless to look for tigers in a dry country, and it's useless to try and find them in the wet season, when there is plenty of water everywhere. "Stripes" must be hunted in hot weather, when great heat and the water distribution limit his wanderings, and when forest leaves have fallen and the dense jungle is thinned out.
And yet, there are all kinds of problems. For instance, Indian weather is so erratic that, while there may be water and cover and tigers one season, all three will be absent the next. Further, there is marked individuality among tigers. One will lie in water all day, and never venture forth till the sun has sunk behind the western hills; another prowls boldly by day. Some prey on forest beasts—chiefly the spotted cheetah and sambur-stag; others, again, mark out domestic animals. And last comes the tigress with clamorous cubs, who suddenly learns by accident or impulse that man, hitherto so feared, is in reality the easiest prey of all.
We had a front of eighty miles. Naturally we needed a big force; we probably mustered three hundred, all told. Our base of operations was a railroad-station twenty miles away, and we doubted at first whether we could live on the country, for the terrified people had abandoned all cultivation, and were living on bamboo-seeds and the fleshy blossoms of the mahwa-tree. This was a serious question—this and our transport. We had seventy-four elephants, and each ate seven hundred pounds of green stuff or sugar-cane every day; and of camels, bullocks, rude carts, and horses we had hundreds, to say nothing of the dozens of buffaloes we carried as live bait for tigers. We should need fodder by the ton, as well as sheep, fowl, goats, game, and milk; grain, too, for thecrowds of camp-followers; and canned foods and medicines—including, not least, the store of carbolic acid for possible tiger-bites and maulings. The water was to be boiled and filtered, then treated with permanganate of potash. It was regular army equipment, you see.
I went out myself with theshikariscouts, inspecting jungle-paths, dry river-beds, and muddy margins of pools. They pointed out to me the first rudiments in nature's book of signs: first of all the tiger "pug," and the difference between the footprints of the tiger and the tigress—the male's square, the female's a clear-cut oval. Here the great tiger had drunk four days ago. The prints were not clear; in places they were obliterated by tracks of bear, deer, and porcupine.
But clearly we were in a favorite haunt of both man-eaters. The male must have passed after dawn, for his tracks overlay those of little quail, which do not emerge until after daybreak. Then yet more signs: muddy pools told mute tales of recent visits; high over the hill that fell sheer to the valley were specks of vultures, hovering over recent kills. Back to camp we went to report the enemy's presence.
The next move was the setting out of the live bait—the buffaloes. Twoscore of the slow, ponderous creatures were led out and staked in a great ring about the tigers, passive outposts about the enemy, inviting their attack—an attack sure to come during the night. Then we went back again to wait.
SLAYER OF SEVENTY-SIX NATIVES LAID LOW AT LAST HE AND HIS MATE RAVAGED A TRACT OF COUNTRY FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SQUARE MILES IN EXTENTSLAYER OF SEVENTY-SIX NATIVES LAID LOW AT LASTHE AND HIS MATE RAVAGED A TRACT OF COUNTRY FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SQUARE MILES IN EXTENT
HE AND HIS MATE RAVAGED A TRACT OF COUNTRY FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SQUARE MILES IN EXTENT
Meanwhile, during the time while scouts were reconnoitering the enemy, the rank and file had been offering sacrifices to their gods. The Moslems were less tiresome than the Hindus in this respect. They merely went in a body to the snow-whitezariat(saint-house) on the hill, and offered up a goat. But the Brahman deity had to be propitiated, lest all our plans go down to defeat. This god dwelt in a jungle, attended by an oldjogismeared with wood-ashes and streaked with paint. Another goat was slain here. The beast was made to bow comically three times before the hideous image in the shrine, and then his throat was cut. Victory was now sure. The pious preliminaries werefinished, and then arrived at last the day of battle—the scenes of which you never forget.
We are up and out at dawn, riding about the wide circle of the tethered buffaloes. A delicate business, this. As we draw near the first one, with infinite caution, we inspect the site through strong binoculars. A flick of the ear, a whisk of the tail because of flies, show that No. 1 is still alive. We water and feed the beast with fresh grass, and then leave him. But our next place of call looks suspicious, even from afar. A crow is cawing in a tree, and looks with beady eyes below. Dark vulture-specks are wheeling in the blue. And see! Tiger-marks in the dust, both square and oval! The dread couple have been here—early in the night, evidently, for over their "pug"-marks lies the trail of porcupines and other nocturnal beasts. Sure enough, the big buffalo is gone, leaving only a broken rope-end, a few splashes of blood, and the labored trail of a heavy body. Strategy is ended now, and tactics begin.
We gallop back to camp and give the alarm. The huge battle-line is ready. Long rows of giant tuskers stand with swaying heads, each with his howdah beside him—towering brutes such as the old kings of Asia rode into battle, to the terror of their enemies. The herds of disdainful camels are kneeling in roaring protest against the camp loads. From all quarters scouts have reported the enemy. Our army, horse and foot, elephants and camels, will march in an hour—as strange a sight and as strange a work as may be witnessed in the world to-day.
Watch each elephant kneel and come prone for his big hunting-tower. There are five men to each elephant, one at his head, four to haul the gear and make fast. The deft skill, the swiftness and silence, show the veteran in the enemy's country. Every man knows his work and knows the officer above him; and each officer, too, knows just what is expected of him—from the lowest up to the colonel himself, a fine figure, tall, erect, white-haired, an adept in tiger-lore, with a hundred and fifty skins in his bungalow.
TIGRESS ALSO IS SLAIN THE BODY BORNE BACK TO CAMP ON ONE OF THE PAD-ELEPHANTSTIGRESS ALSO IS SLAINTHE BODY BORNE BACK TO CAMP ON ONE OF THE PAD-ELEPHANTS
THE BODY BORNE BACK TO CAMP ON ONE OF THE PAD-ELEPHANTS
Twelve mounted sahibs gallop this way andthat, collectingshikarisand beaters. Native officers distribute fire-works and tom-toms, rattles and flint-locks and torches. Themot d'ordreis: "Kick up——at the right time."
There is a brief, businesslike interview in old Howe's tent. "The tigers," he says in a matter-of-fact way, as though dismissing school, "shall be inclosed in a triangle, of which the apex shall be ourselves and the elephants. You will draw lots for positions among yourselves. The bases of the triangle shall be the beaters, and the flanks the stops posted up trees, who shall see that the tigers do not turn and break out of the beat. You will please be alert, with rifles cocked and barrels and cartridges examined beforehand. There must be no undue noise or haste. Remember, the clink of a finger-ring on a barrel or the gleam of the sun on a bright muzzle may turn them. That's all, gentlemen."
We troop out to distribute rifles to the sepoys, who are supposed to protect the unarmed beaters. Some of us ride off for miles into the jungle to the base of the fateful triangle. Others visit the "stops"—keen-eyedshikaris, perched like crows in the big sal-trees.
Then hark—a shot! It travels like fire, and is answered by a faint uproar. The beat has begun. We dismount from our elephants for a steady shot, leaving them behind us in a huge semicircle. Some of them scent danger, and twirl delicate trunks high in the air. They have "been there" before! The mahouts sit motionless as bronze figures—superb fellows, deeply learned in jungle-lore. The triangle's apex and flanks are in absolute silence, but the base is fiendish with uproar. Two hundred men are yelling and cursing, roaring and singing, beating pots and pans, tom-toms and gongs.
Hearts beat a little faster. We look at one another anxiously and whisper, "Is the beat empty?" It would seem so, for the cunning brutes give no sign. Yet they must be driven forward if they are there. Ha! a slender sal-tree to the left shakes with excitement. A turbaned head shoots out of its branches, with a sudden sound of hand-clapping and shouting. One of the stops has seen a stirring in the high yellow grass. The tigers are in the living net!
I call to my side Hyder Ali, my gun-bearer, a lean Pathan from the Khyber Pass.
"You have my .303?"
He nods and smiles. At that moment I hear a heavy footfall, as of some great beast, on the thick dry leaves. The high grass parts. First a magnificent yellow head emerges, infinitely alert; then the long, lithe body, a picture of supple grace and immense strength. A superb spectacle the creature presents, with his lovely coat gleaming in the hot sun. But the din is drawing near. Down goes the massive head; wide, cruel lips draw back, and four long primary fangs are bared in a gruff roar. Then he dashes forward for cover. But too late; I have drawn a bead on his rippling shoulder and fired.
He is down, fighting and biting at he knows not what; and his roars rise high above the wild pandemonium of the beaters.
But my shot has not killed. I give the alarm, and we put scouts up trees to direct the ticklish pursuit along the bloody trail. We drive herds of buffaloes into the long grass and brush to drive out the wounded tiger. Our general himself takes charge, with few words and sure tactics.
"We've got his mate," he says grimly. "I put her on a pad-elephant and sent her back to camp."
It is growing dark. I hear the sambur-stag belling from the mountain-side, and the monotonous call of the coël, or Indian cuckoo. Afar a peacock calls from a ruined tomb, and through all the jungle concert runs the continuous screech of the cicada.
A loud signal from a treed scout suddenly tells us my tiger is located. Relentlessly, foot by foot, the man-eater is tracked. We are guided always by the scouts in the trees; for that terrible bamboo-like grass swallows even elephants, swaying noisily to their moving bulk. At length we emerge in a little clearing; and even as we glance around, the stalks part harshly, and the tiger leaps forth at an unarmed beater, burying fangs in a soundless throat. An awful sight!
A dozen rifles roar too late to save the poor wretch. We pick up victim and tiger and heave them on a pad-elephant. And then back to camp.
Often when, arm in arm with black Double-headed Pete, the Radical Judge went by the paling fence, Hope Carolina said to herself:
"W'en he comes all lonely, jus' by his own self, I'll frow a rock at him. Yes, sholy!"
Unconscious of the danger that lurked in future ambush, the great politician would pass on, the rear view of his little stiff, quickly stepping figure showing a high silk hat and the parted tails of a broadcloth coat, which in front buttoned importantly at the waist. Dressed with exactly the same splendor, even to the waist-buttoning of the coat, the huge negro towered a full head taller than his hated, feared, and brilliant intimate.
In that secret, mysterious way which was a feature of the troublous times, both were recognized targets for other missiles than stones flung by dimpled baby hands.
It was an educating period for small maids of six, that long-ago time of bitter party hatred. Though only a short half-dozen years crowned her fair cropped head, and she lisped still in an adorable baby way, Hope Carolina was very wise—"monstrous wise," the black people said. She did not understand the meaning of "renegade" exactly,—the Radical Judge was a renegade too,—but she knew all about Reconstruction. It was what madethem, the black people, so sassy, and your own darling family wretched.
"'WADICAL!'""'WADICAL!'"
She knew, too, that Radical judges always wore chain shirts under their white ones, because they were afraid; and that they carried knives, oh, mighty big ones, forever up their sleeves, to show in bar-rooms sometimes to Uncle John when anybody talked too loudly of renegades and turn-coats. Then, too, and worst of all, they got rich in a single night and took beautiful homes from dear Prestons and lived in them themselves. The beloved Prestons, so nobly proud in their fallen fortunes,—so right and proper in their politics,—had once owned all the lovely grounds alongside the bald yard that inclosed the child's own hired house; grounds where peacocks were as much at home as in story-books—peacocks with tails more ravishing than fly-brushes; where magnolia-trees flung down big scented petals as fascinating as sheets of letter-paper, and tall poplars stood like angels with half-closed wings against the sky. And with her own tear-filled eyes Hope Carolina had seen the exiled ones depart from this paradise crying, ah, so bitterly; turning back, as the breaking heart turns, for long, last, kissing looks. And now the Radical Judge lived there—the bad Radical Judgewho wentlocked-arms with niggers; lived there with the wife who took things to forget, and the little crippled child who had never walked in her life because somebody had let her fall long ago.
"AN UNTIDY MIDGET FOLLOWING CLOSELY AT HIS HEELS""AN UNTIDY MIDGET FOLLOWING CLOSELY AT HIS HEELS"
Hope Carolina could never go over again and make brown writing marks on the sweet magnolia petals. She could never steal suddenly through the boxwood hedge which hid the paling fence at that side of the hired yard, and frighten the peacocks so that they would spread their tails proudly. Everything belonged to the Radical Judge, even the old yellow satin sofas in the parlor, on which negroes sat now. And besides, no matter how poor they were, Democrat families never had anything to do with Radical families. They only threw "rocks" at them—safely from behind fences.
One day the pile of stones near the broken paling fence seemed splendidly high. They were muddy too, splendidly muddy, for it had rained in the night, and Hope Carolina had gouged the last ones out of the wet dirt with a sharp stick. She had even intentionally kept nice pats of earth around some; and directly, with the enemy approaching in the lonely way desired, there she was "scrouged" behind the paling fence, as Robert Lee Preston scrouged when he threw stones at Radicals. The brisk heels clicked nearer—passed; and then, with a fine sweep of a fat arm, a loud "ooh, ooh, ooh," she let fly the deadly missile.
The effect of it was magical. The enemy leaped as if the long-expected bullet had indeed pierced his chain armor; for the stone, perhaps the tiniest in Democracy's fort, had neatly nipped his stiff back. But the dark frown he turned toward her changed instantly. A slow smile, and then laughter—the doting laughter of the child-lover, to whom even the naughtiest phases are dear—replaced it. And, indeed, Hope Carolina did seem a sweet and comical figure in her low-necked, short-sleeved calico,with her brass toes hitched in the paling fence somehow, and her cropped head rising barely above it. Excitement, too, had lent a warmer pink to her apple cheeks, and her blue eyes were like deep and hating stars.
"Oh, you bad baby!" he called in a moment, plainly ravished with the nature of his would-be assassin. He knew why the stone had come—only too well. "You hateful little Democrat!"
Hope Carolina fired up furiously at that. "Wadical!" she called back, her voice tremulous with rage. And then, deliberately, "Wenegade! Seef!" fell from her pouting baby lips.
A change came over the Radical Judge's face. It did not smile any longer; and yet, somehow—somehow—it did not seem exactly angry. He came a step nearer the paling fence.
"Little girl," he began softly, pleadingly, almost prayerfully. But the thrower of stones waited to hear no more. As he came nearer, almost near enough to touch, holding her with dumb eyes so different from those she had expected, she fired another shot—it seemed just to fly out of her hand—and ran.
As she scrambled up the high house steps, which went rented-fashion in Fairville, from the ground to the second story, she remembered the black splotch it had made on his white shirt; and then she remembered another thing—the chain one underneath, to keep away rocks and bullets and everything. Ah, if he hadn't worn that she might have killed him; and then all the trouble in dear South Carolina would be over forever and ever, amen.
As she sat in her high-chair at supper, eating hot raised corn-bread and sugar-sweet sorghum, it seemed a dreadful thing that she hadn't really done it; and directly, when a blue-eyed, full-breasted goddess, known in the hired house as Ma and Miss Kate, looked meaningly across the table, she sighed profoundly.
The fair lady, whose beauty was clouded by a deep sadness, turned soon to the third sitter at the table, a tall, lank gentleman of perhaps thirty-five, who, with dark, brooding eyes and a serious limp, had just entered. He was the redoubtable Uncle John, of loud and fearless opinion; and, if the bar-room bowie had missed him, a stray Radical bullet had been more successful. A political fight in the railroad turn-table, some months ago, had been the scene of this heartbreaking accident. "And all through the war without a scratch!" Ma had sobbed out to Mrs. Preston when speaking of that bullet, still in the long-booted leg now under the table.
Directly Hope Carolina forgot the reproof of mother eyes anent the table manners of well-brought-up children. She began listening attentively; for that was how, listening when Ma and Uncle John talked, she had acquired all her deep knowledge of men and things. For in this close domestic circle all the lurid happenings of the times were touched upon: more fights in the turn-table; barbecues, black enemy barbecues—at which the bad Radical Judge stood on stumps, with his blacked shoes Close together and his beaver hat off, as if he were talking,truly, to white people; where negroes, poor, pitiful, hungry, corn-field negroes, were bought with scorched beef and bad whisky to vote any which way. Even the price of bacon, the woeful rises in the corn-meal market, were discussed here—all the poignant things, indeed, which, as has been seen, had inspired Hope Carolina's own poignant and beautiful name.
Now they were speaking of Double-headed Pete, sweet, sorry Ma and good Uncle John, who must limp forever because he hadn't worn chain things underneath. Pete was feeling the oats of his new office, Uncle John said, and Ma said back, "To think!" and looked at Uncle John as if she were sorry for him.
Hope Carolina sat very quietly, but she was thinking hard. She knew Pete: he was a bad, bad nigger; and though he locked arms with white Radicals, and got a big, big salary, he could only put crosses instead of names at the bottom of the important papers. It seemed a strange thing that anybody who couldn't write names should get big salaries, when Uncle John, who did heavenly writing, couldn't get any at all. Then, along with everything else, there was Pete's maiden speech on the court-house steps—oh, a terrible maiden speech!
"De white man is had his day."
Whether there was any more of it Hope Carolina did not ask herself. That was enough, for folks looked tiptoe if you only spoke Pete's name.
Directly, thinking over it all, Hope Carolina said earnestly to herself, "Maybe I'd better put 'em back," meaning the two thrown stones. It looked, yes, truly, as if she would have to kill Pete, too; so her arsenal for destruction must not lack ammunition. It must rather flow over than fall short.
But a liberal allowance of hot corn-bread and sorghum are not conducive to murderous zeal. Slowly, almost painfully, the child got down from her high-chair. She went faster down the steep house steps; but as she neared the stone fort by the paling fence she halted, all but paralyzed by the audacity which was being committed under her very eyes.
Somebody was stooping down outside the fence, with a hand through the broken place, putting something—two round, pinky somethings!—on top of the stone fort, putting them exactly where the two spent shots had been.
"HOPE CAROLINA, FROM HER MARVELOUS BED, COULD SEE EVERYTHING THAT WAS GOING ON IN THE RADICAL JUDGE'S GARDEN""HOPE CAROLINA, FROM HER MARVELOUS BED, COULD SEE EVERYTHING THAT WAS GOING ON IN THE RADICAL JUDGE'S GARDEN"
"FOREVER TURNING BACK TO KISS HIM, WITH HER HANDS FULL OF FLOWERS, AND WITH THE PEACOCKS TRAILING BESIDE""FOREVER TURNING BACK TO KISS HIM, WITH HER HANDS FULL OF FLOWERS, AND WITH THE PEACOCKS TRAILING BESIDE"
"Oh!" ejaculated Hope Carolina; and, reaching the fence with a rush, she stared down lovingly. For they were peaches, real, live, human peaches—the kind that you buy for five cents apiece, which was a great price in the hired house.
The form outside the fence straightened up then, and two oldish gray eyes looked over it into hers—the Radical Judge's eyes. "No more stones, please," they seemed to say, with a trace of embarrassment at being caught.
Hope Carolina nodded back with a lovely courtesy, as if to say in return: "Sholy not."
For this was no moment for politics. Besides, something in the watching eyes—a wistful something which spoke louder than words—had awakened all the lady in her; and there was more of it, I can tell you, than you may be inclined to believe.
Silently, with eyes still meeting eyes, they stood there for a moment; the great Radical almost shrinkingly, the fiery little Democrat with a new, sweet feeling which made her seem, for the instant, the bigger, stronger one of the two. Then, still silent, he was gone; and snatching the peaches with another ecstatic "Oh!" Hope Carolina did the thing she had dumbly promised. She kicked down the stone fort.
After she was in bed, she explained the deed to herself; for there, with reflection, had come some of the pangs that must pierce the breast of the traitor in any decent camp. You can't take peaches and throw stones too, no, not even if Democrats would almost want to hang you for not doing it!
She had come to the pits by now, and these, after more rapturous suckings, she put under her pillow for planting; for when you are six you plant everything. She did not know that another and more wonderful seed had already put forth a green shoot in her own so piteously hardened little heart.
Hope Carolina slept in a marvelous bed, almost the only thing of value, in fact, left in the hired house. Ma would not use it herself, she told dear friends, because of its memories; but as the child of the house had no recollections of other times, it seemed to her always a downy and restful nest. There were carved pineapples at the top of the high mahogany posts, and four more at the bottom of them; and when Hope Carolina lay in it in the morning, she could see everything that was going on in the Radical Judge's garden—that lovely paradise of peacocks and poplars and magnolias which had once been the dear Prestons'.
Sometimes, even before the truce of peaches, she had felt a little regret that the decencies barred out all acquaintance with Radical families. For always on the hot mornings—long, long before it was time for her to get up—there were the Radical Judge and the little crippled Grace going about among the shrubs and flowers as if they were the nicest people. And always the little pale, laughing child presented a very pretty picture in the wheeled chair, which her father pushed so patiently; forever turning back to kiss him, with her hands full of flowers, and with the peacocks trailing beside as if they had forgotten the dear Prestons entirely.
Then, the Radical Judge seemed to know bushels and bushels of fairy-stories; and when they came near the boxwood hedge, Hope Carolina would sometimes hear him begin a new one. They always began in the right way, "Once upon a time," and that seemed very remarkable, for how could a Radical Judge know the right sort of fairy-stories?
When they moved away again, the child in the enemy house would feel her throat gulp sometimes. She knew it was wrong, but oh, she would have loved to hear the end!
One morning, weeks and weeks after the peaches, when the peacocks had been gone for days,—they made too much noise, Hope Carolina knew,—when all the empty, sunburned garden seemed to say weepingly, "There will be no more fairy-tales," she woke with the morning star, and, sitting bolt up in bed, blinked wonderingly, a little painfully, in the direction of the Radical Judge's front door. It was too dark to see the knob yet, but she knew the thing must be there, the long, angelically sweet drop of white ribbon and flowers—the poetic and wistful mourning which is only hung for little dead children.
A great doctor had come down from Baltimore and gone again; and the Radical Judge's wife was still taking things to forget.
The heart of six is full of mystery. All that first morning, with a piteous earnestness, a piteous heartlessness, Hope Carolina played funeral in the front yard, in the place where the stone fort had once been and where the peach-pits were now planted. Every now and then she would stop patting the little mounds of earth—mounds of earth covered with sweet flowers, in a place as beautiful as any garden, were the chief thing in her idea of funerals—and, standing tiptoe, she would stare over the paling fence, hoping the Radical Judge wouldcome by. At last, late in the forenoon, her dogged vigilance was rewarded; and in a moment, bonnetless, an untidy midget in low-necked pink calico which even had a hole behind—there she was out of the gate, following closely at his heels. She couldn't tell exactly why she followed him; she only knew she wanted to—perhaps to see if he thought, too, as everybody said, that the little crippled Grace was better off up in the sky. She fancied maybe he didn't, he was so different, somehow—not like the old, fierce Radical Judge at all. And when really nice white gentlemen—Democrats, who had never noticed him before—stood respectfully aside withtheirbeaver hats off, he walked still down the middle of the dirt sidewalk, and did not seem to see them at all.