MIRIAM COOPER AS MARGARET CAMERON.
MIRIAM COOPER AS MARGARET CAMERON.
“It was a mad impulse, in my defence as well as his own.”
“Impulse, yes! But back of it lay banked the fires of cruelty and race hatred! The Nation cannot live with such barbarism rotting its heart out.”
“But this is war, sir—a war of races, and this an accident of war—besides, his life had been attempted by them twice before.”
“So I’ve heard, and yet the negro always happens to be the victim——”
Margaret leaped to her feet and glared at the old man for a moment in uncontrollable anger.
“Are you a fiend?” she fairly shrieked.
Old Stoneman merely pursed his lips.
The girl came a step closer, and extended her hand again in mute appeal.
“No, I was foolish. You are not cruel. I have heard of a hundred acts of charity you have done among our poor. Come, this is horrible! It is impossible! You cannot consent to the death of your son——”
Stoneman looked up sharply:
“Thank God, he hasn’t married my daughter yet——”
“Your daughter!” gasped Margaret. “I’ve told you it was Phil who killed the negro! He took Ben’s place just before the guards were exchanged——”
“Phil!—Phil?” shrieked the old man, staggering to his club foot and stumbling toward Margaret with dilated eyes and whitening face; “My boy—Phil?—why—why, are you crazy?—Phil? Did you say—Phil?”
“Yes. Ben persuaded him to go to Charlotte untilthe excitement passed to avoid trouble. Come, come, sir, we must be quick! We may be too late!”
She seized and pulled him toward the door.
“Yes. Yes, we must hurry,” he said in a laboured whisper, looking around dazed. “You will show me the way, my child—you love him—yes, we will go quickly—quickly! my boy—my boy!”
Margaret called the landlord, and while they hitched Queen to the buggy, the old man stood helplessly wringing and fumbling his big ugly hands, muttering incoherently, and tugging at his collar as though about to suffocate.
As they dashed away, old Stoneman laid a trembling hand on Margaret’s arm.
“Your horse is a good one, my child?”
“Yes; the one Marion saved—the finest in the county.”
“And you know the way?”
“Every foot of it. Phil and I have driven it often.”
“Yes, yes—you love him,” he sighed, pressing her hand.
Through the long reckless drive, as the mare flew over the rough hills, every nerve and muscle of her fine body at its utmost tension, the father sat silent. He braced his club foot against the iron bar of the dashboard and gripped the sides of the buggy to steady his feeble body. Margaret leaned forward intently watching the road to avoid an accident. The old man’s strange colourless eyes stared straight in front, wide open, and seeing nothing, as if the soul had already fled through them into eternity.
CHAPTER IX“Vengeance Is Mine”
It was dark long before Margaret and Stoneman reached Piedmont. A mile out of town a horse neighed in the woods, and, tired as she was, Queen threw her head high and answered the call.
The old man did not notice it, but Margaret knew a squadron of white-and-scarlet horsemen stood in those woods, and her heart gave a bound of joy.
As they passed the Presbyterian church, she saw through the open window her father standing at his Elder’s seat leading in prayer. They were holding a watch service, asking God for victory in the eventful struggle of the day.
Margaret attempted to drive straight to the jail, and a sentinel stopped them.
“I am Stoneman, sir—the real commander of these troops,” said the old man, with authority.
“Orders is orders, and I don’t take ’em from you,” was the answer.
“Then tell your commander that Mr. Stoneman has just arrived from Spartanburg and asks to see him at the hotel immediately.”
He hobbled into the parlour and waited in agony whileMargaret tied the mare. Ben, her mother and father, and every servant were gone.
In a few moments the second officer hurried to Stoneman, saluted, and said:
“We’ve pulled it off in good shape, sir. They’ve tried to fool us with a dozen tricks, and a whole regiment has been lying in wait for us all day. But at dark the Captain outwitted them, took his prisoner with a squad of picked cavalry, and escaped their pickets. They’ve been gone an hour, and ought to be back with the body——”
Old Stoneman sprang on him with the sudden fury of a madman, clutching at his throat.
“If you’ve killed my son,” he gasped—“go—go! Follow them with a swift messenger and stop them! It’s a mistake—you’re killing the wrong man—you’re killing my boy—quick—my God, quick—don’t stand there staring at me!”
The officer rushed to obey his order as Margaret entered.
The old man seized her arm, and said with laboured breath:
“Your father, my child, ask him to come to me quickly.”
Margaret hurried to the church, and an usher called the doctor to the door.
He read the question trembling on the girl’s lips.
“Nothing has happened yet, my daughter. Your brother has held a regiment of his men in readiness every moment of the day.”
“Mr. Stoneman is at the hotel and asks to see you immediately,” she whispered.
“God grant he may prevent bloodshed,” said the father. “Go inside and stay with your mother.”
When Doctor Cameron entered the parlour Stoneman hobbled painfully to meet him, his face ashen, and his breath rattling in his throat as if his soul were being strangled.
“You are my enemy, Doctor,” he said, taking his hand, “but you are a pious man. I have been called an infidel—I am only a wilful sinner—I have slain my own son, unless God Almighty, who can raise the dead, shall save him! You are the man at whom I aimed the blow that has fallen on my head. I wish to confess to you and set myself right before God. He may hear my cry, and have mercy on me.”
He gasped for breath, sank into his seat, looked around, and said:
“Will you close the door?”
The doctor complied with his request and returned.
“We all wear masks, Doctor,” began the trembling voice. “Beneath lie the secrets of love and hate from which actions move. My will alone forged the chains of negro rule. Three forces moved me—party success, a vicious woman, and the quenchless desire for personal vengeance. When I first fell a victim to the wiles of the yellow vampire who kept my house, I dreamed of lifting her to my level. And when I felt myself sinking into the black abyss of animalism, I, whose soul had learned the pathway of the stars and held high converse with the great spirits of the ages——”
He paused, looked up in terror, and whispered:
“What’s that noise? Isn’t it the distant beat of horses’ hoofs?”
“No,” said the doctor, listening; “it’s the roar of the falls we hear, from a sudden change of the wind.”
“I’m done now,” Stoneman went on, slowly fumbling his hands. “My life has been a failure. The dice of God are always loaded.”
His great head drooped lower, and he continued:
“Mightiest of all was my motive of revenge. Fierce business and political feuds wrecked my iron mills. I shouldered their vast debts, and paid the last mortgage of a hundred thousand dollars the week before Lee invaded my State. I stood on the hill in the darkness, cried, raved, cursed, while I watched the troops lay those mills in ashes. Then and there I swore that I’d live until I ground the South beneath my heel! When I got back to my house they had buried a Confederate soldier in the field. I dug his body up, carted it to the woods, and threw it into a ditch——”
The hand of the white-haired Southerner suddenly gripped old Stoneman’s throat—and then relaxed. His head sank on his breast, and he cried in anguish:
“God be merciful to me a sinner! Would I, too, seek revenge!”
Stoneman looked at the doctor, dazed by his sudden onslaught and collapse.
“Yes, he was somebody’s boy down here,” he went on, “who was loved perhaps even as I love—I don’t blame you. See, in the inside pocket next to my heart I carry the pictures of Phil and Elsie taken from babyhood up,all set in a little book. They don’t know this—nor does the world dream I’ve been so soft-hearted——”
He drew a miniature album from his pocket and fumbled it aimlessly:
“You know Phil was my first-born——”
His voice broke, and he looked at the doctor helplessly.
The Southerner slipped his arm around the old man’s shoulders and began a tender and reverent prayer.
The sudden thunder of a squad of cavalry with clanking sabres swept by the hotel toward the jail.
Stoneman scrambled to his feet, staggered, and caught a chair.
“It’s no use,” he groaned, “—they’ve come with his body—I’m slipping down—the lights are going out—I haven’t a friend! It’s dark and cold—I’m alone, and lost—God—has—hidden—His—face—from—me!”
Voices were heard without, and the tramp of heavy feet on the steps.
Stoneman clutched the doctor’s arm in agony:
“Stop them!—Stop them! Don’t let them bring him in here!”
He sank limp into the chair and stared at the door as it swung open and Phil walked in, with Ben and Elsie by his side, in full clansman disguise.
The old man leaped to his feet and gasped:
“The Klan!—The Klan! No? Yes! It’s true—glory to God, they’ve saved my boy—Phil—Phil!”
“How did you rescue him?” Doctor Cameron asked Ben.
“Had a squadron lying in wait on every road that ledfrom town. The Captain thought a thousand men were on him, and surrendered without a shot.”
At twelve o’clock Ben stood at the gate with Elsie.
“Your fate hangs in the balance of this election to-night,” she said. “I’ll share it with you, success or failure, life or death.”
“Success, not failure,” he answered firmly. “The Grand Dragons of six States have already wired victory. Look at our lights on the mountains! They are ablaze—range on range our signals gleam until the Fiery Cross is lost among the stars!”
“What does it mean?” she whispered.
“That I am a successful revolutionist—that Civilization has been saved, and the South redeemed from shame.”
THE END
THE END