"'You are a maniac to-night.'""'You are a maniac to-night.'"
The old Governor had made a correct guess on the line of action his little Scalawag successor in high office would take when confronted by the crisis of the morning.
The Clansmen had left the two beams projecting through the windows of the north and south wings of the Capitol. A hangman's noose swung from each beam's end.
When His Excellency drove into town next morning and received the news of the startling events of the night, he ordered a double guard of troops for his office and another for his house.
Old Governor Carteret called at ten o'clock and was ushered immediately into the executive office. No more striking contrast could be imagined between two men of equal stature. Their weight and height were almost the same, yet they seemed to belong to different races of men. The Scalawag official hurried to meet his distinguished caller—a man whose administration thirty years ago was famous in the annals of the state.
The acting Governor seemed a pigmy beside his venerable predecessor. The only prominent feature of the Scalawag's face was his nose. Its size should have symbolized strength, yet it didn't. It seemed to project straight in front in a way that looked ridiculous—as if some one had caught it with a pair of tongs,tweaked and pulled it out to an unusual length. It was elongated but not impressive. His mouth was weak, his chin small and retreating and his watery ferret eyes never looked any one straight in the face. The front of his head was bald and sloped backward at an angle. His hair was worn in long, thin, straight locks which he combed often in a vain effort to look the typical long-haired Southern gentleman of the old school.
His black broadcloth suit with a velvet collar and cuffs fitted his slight figure to perfection and yet failed to be impressive. The failure was doubtless due to his curious way of walking about a room. Sometimes sideways like a crab or a crawfish, and when he sought to be impressive, straight forward with an obvious jerk and an effort to appear dignified.
He was the kind of a man an old-fashioned negro, born and bred in the homes of the aristocratic régime of slavery, would always laugh at. His attempt to be a gentleman was so obvious a fraud it could deceive no one.
"I am honored, Governor Carteret, by your call this morning," he cried with forced politeness. "I need the advice of our wisest men. I appreciate your coming."
The old Governor studied the Scalawag for a moment calmly and said:
"Thank you."
When shown to his seat the older man walked with the unconscious dignity of a man born to rule, the lines of his patrician face seemed cut from a cameo in contrast with the rambling nondescript features of the person who walked with a shuffle beside him. It required no second glance at the clean ruffled shirt with its tiny gold studs, the black string tie, the polished boots andgold-headed cane to recognize the real gentleman of the old school. And no man ever looked a second time at his Roman nose and massive chin and doubted for a moment that he saw a man of power, of iron will and fierce passions.
"I have called this morning, Governor," the older man began with sharp emphasis, "to advise you to revoke at once your proclamation suspending thewritofhabeas corpus. Your act was a blunder—a colossal blunder! We are not living in the Dark Ages, sir—even if you were elected by a negro constituency! Your act is four hundred years out of date in the English-speaking world."
The Scalawag began his answer by wringing his slippery hands:
"I realize, Governor Carteret, the gravity of my act. Yet grave dangers call for grave remedies. You see from the news this morning the condition of turmoil into which reckless men have plunged the state."
The old man rose, crossed the room and confronted the Scalawag, his eyes blazing, his uplifted hand trembling with passion:
"The breed of men with whom you are fooling have not submitted to such an act of tyranny from their rulers for the past three hundred years. Your effort to set the negro up as the ruler of the white race is the act of a madman. Revoke your order to-day or the men who opened that jail last night will hang you——"
The Governor laughed lamely:
"A cheap bluff, sir, a schoolboy's threat!"
The older man drew closer:
"A cheap bluff, eh? Well, when you say your prayers to-night, don't forget to thank your Maker fortwo things—that He sent a storm yesterday that made Buffalo creek impassable and that I reached its banks in time!"
The little Scalawag paled and his voice was scarcely a whisper:
"Why—why, what do you mean?"
"That I reached the ford in time to stop a hundred desperate men who were standing there in the dark waiting for its waters to fall that they might cross and hang you from that beam's end you call a cheap bluff! That I stood there in the moonlight with my arm around their leader for nearly an hour begging, praying, pleading for your damned worthless life! They gave it to me at last because I asked it. No other man could have saved you. Your life is mine to-day! But for my solemn promise to those men that you would revoke that order your body would be swinging at this moment from the Capitol window—will you make good my promise?"
"I'll—I'll consider it," was the waning answer.
"Yes or no?"
"I'll think it over, Governor Carteret—I'll think it over," the trembling voice repeated. "I must consult my friends——"
"I won't take that answer!" the old man thundered in his face. "Revoke that proclamation here and now, or, by the Lord God, I'll send a message to those men that'll swing you from the gallows before the sun rises to-morrow morning!"
"I've got my troops——"
"A hell of a lot of troops they are! Where were they last night—the loafing, drunken cowards? You can't get enough troops in this town to save you. Revoke that proclamation or take your chances!"
The old Governor seized his hat and walked calmly toward the door. The Scalawag trembled, and finally said:
"I'll take your advice, sir—wait a moment until I write the order."
The room was still for five minutes, save for the scratch of the Governor's pen, as he wrote his second famous proclamation, restoring the civil rights of the people. He signed and sealed the document and handed it to his waiting guest:
"Is that satisfactory?"
The old man adjusted his glasses, read each word carefully, and replied with dignity:
"Perfectly—good morning!"
The white head erect, the visitor left the executive chamber without a glance at the man he despised.
The Governor had given his word, signed and sealed his solemn proclamation, but he proved himself a traitor to the last.
With the advice of his confederates he made a last desperate effort to gain his end of holding the leaders of the opposition party in jail by a quick shift of method. He wired orders to every jailer to hold the men until warrants were issued for their arrest by one of his negro magistrates in each county and wired instructions to the clerk of the court to admit none of them to bail no matter what amount offered.
The charges on which these warrants were issued were, in the main, preposterous perjuries by the hirelings of the Governor. There was no expectation that they would be proven in court. But if they could hold these prisoners until the election was over the little Scalawagbelieved the Klan could be thus intimidated in each district and the negro ticket triumphantly elected.
The Governor was explicit in his instructions to the clerk of the court in the Capital county that under no conceivable circumstances should he accept bail for the editor of theEagle and Phoenix.
The Governor's proclamation was issued at noon and within an hour a deputy sheriff appeared at Norton's office and served his warrant charging the preposterous crime of "Treason and Conspiracy" against the state government.
Norton's hundred picked men were already lounging in the Court House Square. When the deputy appeared with his prisoner they quietly closed in around him and entered the clerk's room in a body. The clerk was dumfounded at the sudden packing of his place with quiet, sullen looking, armed men. Their revolvers were in front and the men were nervously fingering the handles.
The clerk had been ordered by the Governor under no circumstances to accept bail, and he had promised with alacrity to obey. But he changed his mind at the sight of those revolvers. Not a word was spoken by the men and the silence was oppressive. The frightened official mopped his brow and tried to leave for a moment to communicate with the Capitol. He found it impossible to move from his desk. The men were jammed around him in an impenetrable mass. He looked over the crowd in vain for a friendly face. Even the deputy who had made the arrest had been jostled out of the room and couldn't get back.
The editor looked at the clerk steadily for a moment and quietly asked:
"What amount of bail do you require?"
The officer smiled wanly:
"Oh, major, it's just a formality with you, sir; a mere nominal sum of $500 will be all right."
"Make out your bond," the editor curtly ordered. "My friends here will sign it."
"Certainly, certainly, major," was the quick answer. "Have a seat, sir, while I fill in the blank."
"I'll stand, thank you," was the quick reply.
The clerk's pen flew while he made out the forbidden bail which set at liberty the arch enemy of the Governor. When it was signed and the daring young leader quietly walked out the door, a cheer from a hundred men rent the air.
The shivering clerk cowered in his seat over his desk and pretended to be very busy. In reality he was breathing a prayer of thanks to God for sparing his life and registering a solemn vow to quit politics and go back to farming.
The editor hurried to his office and sent a message to each district leader of the Klan to secure bail for the accused men in the same quiet manner.
His political battle won, Norton turned his face homeward for a struggle in which victory would not come so easily. He had made up his mind that Cleo should not remain under his roof another day. How much she really knew or understood of the events of the night he could only guess. He was sure she had heard enough of the plans of his men to make a dangerous witness against him if she should see fit to betray the facts to his enemies.
Yet he was morally certain that he could trust her with this secret. What he could not and would not do was to imperil his own life and character by a daily intimate association with this willful, impudent, smiling young animal.
His one fear was the wish of his wife to keep her. In her illness she had developed a tyranny of love that brooked no interference with her whims. He had petted and spoiled her until it was well-nigh impossible to change the situation. The fear of her death was the sword that forever hung over his head.
"Sitting astride her back, laughing his loudest.""Sitting astride her back, laughing his loudest."
He hoped that the girl was lying when she said his wife liked her. Yet it was not improbable. Her mind was still a child's. She could not think evil of any one. She loved the young and she loved grace and beauty wherever she saw it. She loved a beautiful cat, a beautiful dog, and always had taken pride in a handsome servant. It would be just like her to take a fancy to Cleo that no argument could shake. He dreaded to put the thing to an issue—but it had to be done. It was out of the question to tell her the real truth.
His heart sank within him as he entered his wife's room. Mammy had gone to bed suffering with a chill. The doctors had hinted that she was suffering from an incurable ailment and that her days were numbered. Her death might occur at any time.
Cleo was lying flat on a rug, the baby was sitting astride of her back, laughing his loudest at the funny contortions of her lithe figure. She would stop every now and then, turn her own laughing eyes on him and he would scream with joy.
The little mother was sitting on the floor like a child and laughing at the scene. In a flash he realized that Cleo had made herself, in the first few days she had been in his house, its dominant spirit.
He paused in the doorway sobered by the realization.
The supple young form on the floor slowly writhed on her back without disturbing the baby's sturdy hold, his little legs clasping her body tight. She drew his laughing face to her shoulder, smothering his laughter with kisses, and suddenly sprang to her feet, the baby astride her neck, and began galloping around the room.
"W'oa! January, w'oa, sir!" she cried, galloping slowly at first and then prancing like a playful horse.
Her cheeks were flushed, eyes sparkling and red hair flying in waves of fiery beauty over her exquisite shoulders, every change of attitude a new picture of graceful abandon, every movement of her body a throb of savagemusic from some strange seductive orchestra hidden in the deep woods!
Its notes slowly stole over the senses of the man with such alluring power, that in spite of his annoyance he began to smile.
The girl stopped, placed the child on the floor, ran to the corner of the room, dropped on all fours and started slowly toward him, her voice imitating the deep growl of a bear.
"Now the bears are going to get him!—Boo-oo-oo."
The baby screamed with delight. The graceful young she-bear capered around her victim from side to side, smelling his hands and jumping back, approaching and retreating, growling and pawing the floor, while with each movement the child shouted a new note of joy.
The man, watching, wondered if this marvelous creamy yellow animal could get into an ungraceful position.
The keen eyes of the young she-bear saw the boy had worn himself out with laughter and slowly approached her victim, tumbled his happy flushed little form over on the rug and devoured him with kisses.
"Don't, Cleo—that's enough now!" the little mother cried, through her tears of laughter.
"Yessum—yessum—I'm just eatin' him up now—I'm done—and he'll be asleep in two minutes."
She sprang to her feet, crushing the little form tenderly against her warm, young bosom, and walked past the man smiling into his face a look of triumph. The sombre eyes answered with a smile in spite of himself.
Could any man with red blood in his veins fight successfully a force like that? He heard the growl of theBeast within as he stood watching the scene. The sight of the frail little face of his invalid wife brought him up against the ugly fact with a sharp pain.
Yet the moment he tried to broach the subject of discharging Cleo, he hesitated, stammered and was silent. At last he braced himself with determination for the task. It was disagreeable, but it had to be done. The sooner the better.
"You like this girl, my dear?" he said softly.
"She's the most wonderful nurse I ever saw—the baby's simply crazy about her!"
"Yes, I see," he said soberly.
"It's a perfectly marvellous piece of luck that she came the day she did. Mammy was ready to drop. She's been like a fairy in the nursery from the moment she entered. The kiddy has done nothing but laugh and shriek with delight."
"And you like her personally?"
"I've just fallen in love with her! She's so strong and young and beautiful. She picks me up, laughing like a child, and carries me into the bathroom, carries me back and tucks me in bed as easily as she does the baby."
"I'm sorry, my dear," he interrupted with a firm, hard note in his voice.
"Sorry—for what?" the blue eyes opened with astonishment.
"Because I don't like her, and her presence here may be very dangerous just now——"
"Dangerous—what on earth can you mean?"
"To begin with that she's a negress——"
"So's mammy—so's the cook—the man—every servant we've ever had—or will have——"
"I'm not so sure of the last," the husband broke in with a frown.
"What's dangerous about the girl, I'd like to know?" his wife demanded.
"I said, to begin with, she's a negress. That's perhaps the least objectionable thing about her as a servant. But she has bad blood in her on her father's side. Old Peeler's as contemptible a scoundrel as I know in the county——"
"The girl don't like him—that's why she left home."
"Did she tell you that?" he asked quizzically.
"Yes, and I'm sorry for her. She wants a good home among decent white people and I'm not going to give her up. I don't care what you say."
The husband ignored the finality of this decision and went on with his argument as though she had not spoken.
"Old Peeler is not only a low white scoundrel who would marry this girl's mulatto mother if he dared, but he is trying to break into politics as a negro champion. He denies it, but he is a henchman of the Governor. I'm in a fight with this man to the death. There's not room for us both in the state——"
"And you think this laughing child cares anything about the Governor or his dirty politics? Such a thing has never entered her head."
"I'm not sure of that."
"You're crazy, Dan."
"But I'm not so crazy, my dear, that I can't see that this girl's presence in our house is dangerous. She already knows too much about my affairs—enough, in fact, to endanger my life if she should turn traitor."
"But she won't tell, I tell you—she's loyal—I'd trust her with my life, or yours, or the baby's, without hesitation.She proved her loyalty to me and to you last night."
"Yes, and that's just why she's so dangerous." He spoke slowly, as if talking to himself. "You can't understand, dear, I am entering now the last phase of a desperate struggle with the little Scalawag who sits in the Governor's chair for the mastery of this state and its life. The next two weeks and this election will decide whether white civilization shall live or a permanent negroid mongrel government, after the pattern of Haiti and San Domingo, shall be established. If we submit, we are not worth saving. We ought to die and our civilization with us! We are not going to submit, we are not going to die, we are going to win. I want you to help me now by getting rid of this girl."
"I won't give her up. There's no sense in it. A man who fought four years in the war is not afraid of a laughing girl who loves his baby and his wife! I can't risk a green, incompetent girl in the nursery now. I can't think of breaking in a new one. I like Cleo. She's a breath of fresh air when she comes into my room; she's clean and neat; she sings beautifully; her voice is soft and low and deep; I love her touch when she dresses me; the baby worships her—is all this nothing to you?"
"Is my work nothing to you?" he answered soberly.
"Bah! It's a joke! Your work has nothing to do with this girl. She knows nothing, cares nothing for politics—it's absurd!"
"My dear, you must listen to me now——"
"I won't listen. I'll have my way about my servants. It's none of your business. Look after your politics and let the nursery alone!"
"Please be reasonable, my love. I assure you I'm indead earnest. The danger is a real one, or I wouldn't ask this of you—please——"
"No—no—no—no!" she fairly shrieked.
His voice was very quiet when he spoke at last:
"I'm sorry to cross you in this, but the girl must leave to-night."
The tones of his voice and the firm snap of his strong jaw left further argument out of the question and the little woman played her trump card.
She sprang to her feet, pale with rage, and gave way to a fit of hysteria. He attempted to soothe her, in grave alarm over the possible effects on her health of such a temper.
With a piercing scream she threw herself across the bed and he bent over her tenderly:
"Please, don't act this way!"
Her only answer was another scream, her little fists opening and closing like a bird's talons gripping the white counterpane in her trembling fingers.
The man stood in helpless misery and sickening fear, bent low and whispered:
"Please, please, darling—it's all right—she can stay. I won't say another word. Don't make yourself ill. Please don't!"
The sobbing ceased for a moment, and he added:
"I'll go into the nursery and send her here to put you to bed."
He turned to the door and met Cleo entering.
"Miss Jean called me?" she asked with a curious smile playing about her greenish eyes.
"Yes. She wishes you to put her to bed."
The girl threw him a look of triumphant tenderness and he knew that she had heard and understood.
From the moment the jail doors opened the Governor felt the chill of defeat. With his armed guard of fifty thousand "Loyal" white men he hoped to stem the rising tide of Anglo-Saxon fury. But the hope was faint. There was no assurance in its warmth. Every leader he had arrested without warrant and held without bail was now a firebrand in a powder magazine. Mass meetings, barbecues and parades were scheduled for every day by his enemies in every county.
The state was ablaze with wrath from the mountains to the sea. The orators of the white race spoke with tongues of flame.
The record of negro misrule under an African Legislature was told with brutal detail and maddening effects. The state treasury was empty, the school funds had been squandered, millions in bonds had been voted and stolen and the thieves had fled the state in terror.
All this the Governor knew from the first, but he also knew that an ignorant negro majority would ask no questions and believe no evil of their allies.
The adventurers from the North had done their work of alienating the races with a thoroughness that was nothing short of a miracle. The one man on earth who had always been his best friend, every negro now held his bitterest foe. He would consult his old master aboutany subject under the sun and take his advice against the world except in politics. He would come to the back door, beg him for a suit of clothes, take it with joyous thanks, put it on and march straight to the polls and vote against the hand that gave it.
He asked no questions as to his own ticket. It was all right if it was against the white man of the South. The few Scalawags who trained with negroes to get office didn't count.
The negro had always despised such trash. The Governor knew his solid black constituency would vote like sheep, exactly as they were told by their new teachers.
But the nightmare that disturbed him now, waking or dreaming, was the fear that this full negro vote could not be polled. The daring speeches by the enraged leaders of the white race were inflaming the minds of the people beyond the bounds of all reason. These leaders had sworn to carry the election and dared the Governor to show one of his scurvy guards near a polling place on the day they should cast their ballots.
The Ku Klux Klan openly defied all authority. Their men paraded the county roads nightly and ended their parades by lining their horsemen in cavalry formation, galloping through the towns and striking terror to every denizen of the crowded negro quarters.
In vain the Governor issued frantic appeals for the preservation of the sanctity of the ballot. His speeches in which he made this appeal were openly hissed.
The ballot was no longer a sacred thing. The time was in American history when it was the badge of citizen kingship. At this moment the best men in the state were disfranchised and hundreds of thousands of negroes, with the instincts of the savage and the intelligenceof the child, had been given the ballot. Never in the history of civilization had the ballot fallen so low in any republic. The very atmosphere of a polling place was a stench in the nostrils of decent men.
The determination of the leaders of the Klan to clear the polls by force if need be was openly proclaimed before the day of election. The philosophy by which they justified this stand was simple, and unanswerable, for it was founded in the eternal verities. Men are not made free by writing a constitution on a piece of paper. Freedom is inside. A ballot is only a symbol. That symbol stands for physical force directed by the highest intelligence. The ballot, therefore, is force—physical force. Back of every ballot is a bayonet and the red blood of the man who holds it. Therefore, a minority submits to the verdict of a majority at the polls. If there is not an intelligent, powerful fighting unit back of the scrap of paper that falls into a box, there's nothing there and that man's ballot has no more meaning than if it had been deposited by a trained pig or a dog.
On the day of this fated election the little Scalawag Governor sat in the Capitol, the picture of nervous despair. Since sunrise his office had been flooded with messages from every quarter of the state begging too late for troops. Everywhere his henchmen were in a panic. From every quarter the stories were the same.
Hundreds of determined, silent white men had crowded the polls, taken their own time to vote and refused to give an inch of room to the long line of panic-stricken negroes who looked on helplessly. At five o'clock in the afternoon less than a hundred blackshad voted in the entire township in which the Capital was located.
Norton was a candidate for the Legislature on the white ticket, and the Governor had bent every effort to bring about his defeat. The candidate against him was a young negro who had been a slave of his father, and now called himself Andy Norton. Andy had been a house-servant, was exactly the major's age and they had been playmates before the war. He was endowed with a stentorian voice and a passion for oratory. He had acquired a reputation for smartness, was good-natured, loud-mouthed, could tell a story, play the banjo and amuse a crowd. He had been Norton's body-servant the first year of the war.
The Governor relied on Andy to swing a resistless tide of negro votes for the ticket and sweep the county. Under ordinary conditions, he would have done it. But before the hurricane of fury that swept the white race on the day of the election, the voice of Andy was as one crying in the wilderness.
He had made three speeches to his crowd of helpless black voters who hadn't been able to vote. The Governor sent him an urgent message to mass his men and force their way to the ballot box.
The polling place was under a great oak that grew in the Square beside the Court House. A space had been roped off to guard the approach to the boxes. Since sunrise this space had been packed solid with a living wall of white men. Occasionally a well-known old negro of good character was allowed to pass through and vote and then the lines closed up in solid ranks.
One by one a new white man was allowed to take his place in this wall and gradually he was moved up tothe tables on which the boxes rested, voted, and slowly, like the movement of a glacier, the line crowded on in its endless circle.
The outer part of this wall of defense which the white race had erected around the polling place was held throughout the day by the same men—twenty or thirty big, stolid, dogged countrymen, who said nothing, but every now and then winked at each other.
When Andy received the Governor's message he decided to distinguish himself. It was late in the day, but not too late perhaps to win by a successful assault. He picked out twenty of his strongest buck negroes, moved them quietly to a good position near the polls, formed them into a flying wedge, and, leading the assault in person with a loud good-natured laugh, he hurled them against the outer line of whites.
To Andy's surprise the double line opened and yielded to his onset. He had forced a dozen negroes into the ranks when to his surprise the white walls suddenly closed on the blacks and held them as in a steel trap.
And then, quick as a flash, something happened. It was a month before the negroes found out exactly what it was. They didn't see it, they couldn't hear it, but they knew it happened. Theyfeltit.
And the silent swiftness with which it happened was appalling. Every negro who had penetrated the white wall suddenly leaped into the air with a yell of terror. The white line opened quickly and to a man the negro wedge broke and ran for life, each black hand clasped in agony on the same spot.
Andy's voice rang full and clear above his men's:
"Goddermighty, what's dat!"
"Dey shot us, man!" screamed a negro.
The thing was simple, almost childlike in its silliness, but it was tremendously effective. The white guard in the outer line had each been armed with a little piece of shining steel three inches long, fixed in a handle—a plain shoemaker's pegging awl. At a given signal they had wheeled and thrust these awls into the thick flesh of every negro's thigh.
The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, and the pain so sharp, so terrible, for the moment every negro's soul was possessed with a single idea, how to save his particular skin and do it quickest. Allesprit de corpswas gone. It was each for himself and the devil take the hindmost! Some of them never stopped running until they cleared Buffalo creek, three miles out of town.
Andy's ambitions were given a violent turn in a new direction. Before the polls closed at sundown he appeared at the office of theEagle and Phoenixwith a broad grin on his face and asked to see the major.
He entered the editor's room bowing and scraping, his white teeth gleaming.
Norton laughed and quietly said:
"Well, Andy?"
"Yassah, major, I des drap roun' ter kinder facilitate ye, sah, on de 'lection, sah."
"It does look like the tide is turning, Andy."
"Yassah, hit sho' is turnin', but hit's gotter be a purty quick tide dat kin turn afore I does, sah."
"Yes?"
"Yassah! And I drap in, major, ter 'splain ter you dat I'se gwine ter gently draw outen politics, yassah. I makes up my min' ter hitch up wid de white folks agin. Brought up by de Nortons, sah, I'se always bina gemman, an' I can't afford to smut my hands wid de crowd dat I been 'sociating wid. I'se glad you winnin' dis 'lection, sah, an' I'se glad you gwine ter de Legislature—anyhow de office gwine ter stay in de Norton fambly—an' I'se satisfied, sah. I know you gwine ter treat us far an' squar——"
"If I'm elected I'll try to represent all the people, Andy," the major said gravely.
"If you'se 'lected?" Andy laughed. "Lawd, man, you'se dar right now! I kin des see you settin' in one dem big chairs! I knowed it quick as I feel dat thing pop fro my backbone des now! Yassah, I done resigned, an' I thought, major, maybe you get a job 'bout de office or 'bout de house fer er young likely nigger 'bout my size?"
The editor smiled:
"Nothing just now, Andy, but possibly I can find a place for you in a few days."
"Thankee, sah. I'll hold off den till you wants me. I'll des pick up er few odd jobs till you say de word—you won't fergit me?"
"No. I'll remember."
"An', major, ef you kin des advance me 'bout er dollar on my wages now, I kin cheer myself up ter-night wid er good dinner. Dese here loafers done bust me. I hain't got er nickel lef!"
The major laughed heartily and "advanced" his rival for Legislative honors a dollar.
Andy bowed to the floor:
"Any time you'se ready, major, des lemme know, sah. You'll fin' me a handy man 'bout de house, sah."
"All right, Andy, I may need you soon."
"Yassah, de sooner de better, sah," he paused in thedoor. "Dey gotter get up soon in de mornin', sah, ter get erhead er us Nortons—yassah, dat dey is——"
A message, the first news of the election, cut Andy's gabble short. It spelled Victory! One after another they came from every direction—north, south, east and west—each bringing the same magic word—victory! victory! A state redeemed from negroid corruption! A great state once more in the hands of the children of the men who created it!
It had only been necessary to use force to hold the polls from hordes of ignorant negroes in the densest of the black counties. The white majorities would be unprecedented. The enthusiasm had reached the pitch of mania in these counties. They would all break records.
A few daring men in the black centres of population, where negro rule was at its worst, had guarded the polls under his direction armed with the simple device of a shoemaker's awl, and in every case where it had been used the resulting terror had cleared the place of every negro. In not a single case where this novel weapon had been suddenly and mysteriously thrust into a black skin was there an attempt to return to the polls. A long-suffering people, driven at last to desperation, had met force with force and wrested a commonwealth from the clutches of the vandals who were looting and disgracing it.
Now he would call the little Scalawag to the bar of justice.
It was after midnight when Norton closed his desk and left for home. Bonfires were burning in the squares, bands were playing and hundreds of sober, gray-haired men were marching through the streets, hand in hand with shouting boys, cheering, cheering, forever cheering! He had made three speeches from the steps of theEagle and Phoenixbuilding and the crowds still stood there yelling his name and cheering. Broad-shouldered, bronzed men had rushed into his office one by one that night, hugged him and wrung his hands until they ached. He must have rest. The strain had been terrific and in the reaction he was pitifully tired.
The lights were still burning in his wife's room. She was waiting with Cleo for his return. He had sent her the bulletins as they had come and she knew the result of the election almost as soon as he. It was something very unusual that she should remain up so late. The doctor had positively forbidden it since her last attack.
"Cleo and I were watching the procession," she exclaimed. "I never saw so many crazy people since I was born."
"They've had enough to drive them mad the past two years, God knows," he answered, as his eye rested on Cleo, who was dressed in an old silk kimono belongingto his wife, which a friend of her grandfather had sent her from Japan.
She saw his look of surprise and said casually:
"I gave it to Cleo. I never liked the color. Cleo's to stay in the house hereafter. I've moved her things from the servants' quarters to the little room in the hall. I want her near me at night. You stay so late sometimes."
He made no answer, but the keen eyes of the girl saw the silent rage flashing from his eyes and caught the look of fierce determination as he squared his shoulders and gazed at her for a moment. She knew that he would put her out unless she could win his consent. She had made up her mind to fight and never for a moment did she accept the possibility of defeat.
He muttered an incoherent answer to his wife, kissed her good night, and went to his room. He sat down in the moonlight beside the open window, lighted a cigar and gazed out on the beautiful lawn.
His soul raged in fury over the blind folly of his wife. If the devil himself had ruled the world he could not have contrived more skillfully to throw this dangerous, sensuous young animal in his way. It was horrible! He felt himself suffocating with the thought of its possibilities! He rose and paced the floor and sat down again in helpless rage.
The door softly opened and closed and the girl stood before him in the white moonlight, her rounded figure plainly showing against the shimmering kimono as the breeze through the window pressed the delicate silk against her flesh.
He turned on her angrily:
"How dare you?"
"'How dare you?'""'How dare you?'"
"Why, I haven't done anything, major!" she answered softly. "I just came in to pick up that basket of trash I forgot this morning"—she spoke in low, lingering tones.
He rose, walked in front of her, looked her in the eye and quietly said:
"You're lying."
"Why, major——"
"You know that you are lying. Now get out of this room—and stay out of it, do you hear?"
"Yes, I hear," came the answer that was half a sob.
"And make up your mind to leave this place to-morrow, or I'll put you out, if I have to throw you head foremost into the street."
She took a step backward, shook her head and the mass of tangled red hair fell from its coil and dropped on her shoulders. Her eyes were watching him now with dumb passionate yearning.
"Get out!" he ordered brutally.
A moment's silence and a low laugh was her answer.
"Why do you hate me?" she asked the question with a note of triumph.
"I don't," he replied with a sneer.
"Then you're afraid of me!"
"Afraid of you?"
"Yes."
He took another step and towered above her, his fists clenched and his whole being trembled with anger:
"I'd like to strangle you!"
She flung back her rounded throat, shook the long waves of hair down her back and lifted her eyes to his:
"Do it! There's my throat! I want you to. I wouldn't mind dying that way!"
He drew a deep breath and turned away.
With a sob the straight figure suddenly crumpled on the floor, a scarlet heap in the moonlight. She buried her face in her hands, choked back the cries, fought for self-control, and then looked up at him through her eyes half blinded by tears:
"Oh, what's the use! I won't lie any more. I didn't come in here for the basket. I came to see you. I came to beg you to let me stay. I watched you to-night when she told you that I was to sleep in that room there, and I knew you were going to send me away. Please don't! Please let me stay! I can do you no harm, major! I'll be wise, humble, obedient. I'll live only to please you. I haven't a single friend in the world. I hate negroes. I loathe poor white trash. This is my place, here in your home, among the birds and flowers, with your baby in my arms. You know that I love him and that he loves me. I'll work for you as no one else on earth would. My hands will be quick and my feet swift. I'll be your slave, your dog—you can kick me, beat me, strangle me, kill me if you like, but don't send me away—I—I can't help loving you! Please—please don't drive me away."
The passionate, throbbing voice broke into a sob and she touched his foot with her hand. He could feel the warmth of the soft, young flesh. He stooped and drew her to her feet.
"Come, child," he said with a queer hitch in his voice, "you—you—mustn't stay here another moment. I'm sorry——"
She clung to his hand with desperate pleading and pressed close to him:
"But you won't send me away?"
She could feel him trembling.
He hesitated, and then against the warning of conscience, reason, judgment and every instinct of law and self-preservation, he spoke the words that cost so much:
"No—I—I—won't send you away!"
With a sob of gratitude her head sank, the hot lips touched his hand, a rustle of silk and she was gone.
And through every hour of the long night, maddened by the consciousness of her physical nearness—he imagined at times he could hear her breathing in the next room—he lay awake and fought the Beast for the mastery of life.
Cleo made good her vow of perfect service. In the weeks which followed she made herself practically indispensable. Her energy was exhaustless, her strength tireless. She not only kept the baby and the little mother happy, she watched the lawn and the flowers. The men did no more loafing. The grass was cut, the hedges trimmed, every dead limb from shrub and tree removed and the old place began to smile with new life.
Her work of housekeeper and maid-of-all-work was a marvel of efficiency. No orders were ever given to her. They were unnecessary. She knew by an unerring instinct what was needed and anticipated the need.
And then a thing happened that fixed her place in the house on the firmest basis.
The baby had taken a violent cold which quickly developed into pneumonia. The doctor looked at the little red fever-scorched face and parched lips with grave silence. He spoke at last with positive conviction:
"His life depends on a nurse, Norton. All I can do is to give orders. The nurse must save him."
With a sob in her voice, Cleo said:
"Let me—I'll save him. He can't die if it depends on that."
The doctor turned to the mother.
"Can you trust her?"
"Absolutely. She's quick, strong, faithful, careful, and she loves him."
"You agree, major?"
"Yes, we couldn't do better," he answered gravely, turning away.
And so the precious life was given into her hands. Norton spent the mornings in the nursery executing the doctor's orders with clock-like regularity, while Cleo slept. At noon she quietly entered and took his place. Her meals were served in the room and she never left it until he relieved her the next day. The tireless, greenish eyes watched the cradle with death-like stillness and her keen young ears bent low to catch every change in the rising and falling of the little breast. Through the long watches of the night, the quick alert figure with the velvet tread hurried about the room filling every order with skill and patience.
At the end of two weeks, the doctor smiled, patted her on the shoulder and said:
"You're a great nurse, little girl. You've saved his life."
Her head was bending low over the cradle, the baby reached up his hand, caught one of her red curls and lisped faintly:
"C-l-e-o!"
Her eyes were shining with tears as she rushed from the room and out on the lawn to have her cry alone. There could be no question after this of her position.
When the new Legislature met in the old Capitol building four months later, it was in the atmosphere of the crisp clearness that follows the storm. The thieves and vultures had winged their way to more congenial climes. They dared not face the investigation of theirsaturnalia which the restored white race would make. The wisest among them fled northward on the night of the election.
The Governor couldn't run. His term of office had two years more to be filled. And shivering in his room alone, shunned as a pariah, he awaited the assault of his triumphant foes.
And nothing succeeds like success. The brilliant young editor of theEagle and Phoenixwas the man of the hour. When he entered the hall of the House of Representatives on the day the Assembly met, pandemonium broke loose. A shout rose from the floor that fairly shook the old granite pile. Cheer after cheer rent the air, echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted arches of the hall. Men overturned their desks and chairs as they rushed pellmell to seize his hand. They lifted him on their shoulders and carried him in procession around the Assembly Chamber, through the corridors and around the circle of the Rotunda, cheering like madmen, and on through the Senate Chamber where every white Senator joined the procession and returned to the other end of the Capitol singing "Dixie" and shouting themselves hoarse.
He was elected Speaker of the House by his party without a dissenting voice, and the first words that fell from his lips as he ascended the dais, gazed over the cheering House, and rapped sharply for order, sounded the death knell to the hopes of the Governor for a compromise with his enemies. His voice rang clear and cold as the notes of a bugle:
"The first business before this House, gentlemen, is the impeachment and removal from office of the alleged Governor of this state!"
Again the long pent feelings of an outraged people passed all bounds. In vain the tall figure in the chair rapped for order. He had as well tried to call a cyclone to order by hammering at it with a gavel. Shout after shout, cheer after cheer, shout and cheer in apparently unending succession!
They had not only won a great victory and redeemed a state's honor, but they had found a leader who dared to lead in the work of cleansing and rebuilding the old commonwealth. It was ten minutes before order could be restored. And then with merciless precision the Speaker put in motion the legal machine that was to crush the life out of the little Scalawag who sat in his room below and listened to the roar of the storm over his head.
On the day the historic trial opened before the high tribunal of the Senate, sitting as judges, with the Chief Justice of the state as presiding officer, the Governor looked in vain for a friendly face among his accusers. Now that he was down, even the dogs in his own party whom he had reared and fed, men who had waxed fat on the spoils he had thrown them, were barking at his heels. They accused him of being the cause of the party's downfall.
The Governor had quickly made up his mind to ask no favors of these wretches. If the blow should fall, he knew to whom he would appeal that it might be tempered with mercy. The men of his discredited party were of his own type. His only chance lay in the generosity of a great foe.
It would be a bitter thing to beg a favor at the hands of the editor who had hounded him with his merciless pen from the day he had entered office, but it would beeasier than an appeal to the ungrateful hounds of his own kennel who had deserted him in his hour of need.
The Bill of Impeachment which charged him with high crimes and misdemeanors against the people whose rights he had sworn to defend was drawn by the Speaker of the House, and it was a terrible document. It would not only deprive him of his great office, but strip him of citizenship, and send him from the Capitol a branded man for life.
The defense proved weak and the terrific assaults of the Impeachment managers under Norton's leadership resistless. Step by step the remorseless prosecutors closed in on the doomed culprit. Each day he sat in his place beside his counsel in the thronged Senate Chamber and heard his judges vote with practical unanimity "Guilty" on a new count in the Bill of Impeachment. The Chief Executive of a million people cowered in his seat while his accusers told and re-told the story of his crimes and the packed galleries cheered.
But one clause of the bill remained to be adjudged—the brand his accusers proposed to put upon his forehead. His final penalty should be the loss of citizenship. It was more than the Governor could bear. He begged an adjournment of the High Court for a conference with his attorneys and it was granted.
He immediately sought the Speaker, who made no effort to conceal the contempt in which he held the trembling petitioner.
"I've come to you, Major Norton," he began falteringly, "in the darkest hour of my life. I've come because I know that you are a brave and generous man. I appeal to your generosity. I've made mistakes in my administration. But I ask you to remember thatfew men in my place could have done better. I was set to make bricks without straw. I was told to make water run up hill and set at naught the law of gravitation.
"I struck at you personally—yes—but remember my provocation. You made me the target of your merciless ridicule, wit and invective for two years. It was more than flesh and blood could bear without a return blow. Put yourself in my place——"
"I've tried, Governor," Norton interrupted in kindly tones. "And it's inconceivable to me that any man born and bred as you have been, among the best people of the South, a man whose fiery speeches in the Secession Convention helped to plunge this state into civil war—how you could basely betray your own flesh and blood in the hour of their sorest need—it's beyond me! I can't understand it. I've tried to put myself in your place and I can't."
The little ferret eyes were dim as he edged toward the tall figure of his accuser:
"I'm not asking of you mercy, Major Norton, on the main issue. I understand the bitterness in the hearts of these men who sit as my judges to-day. I make no fight to retain the office of Governor, but—major"—his thin voice broke—"it's too hard to brand me a criminal by depriving me of my citizenship and the right to vote, and hurl me from the highest office within the gift of a great people a nameless thing, a man without a country! Come, sir, even if all you say is true, justice may be tempered with mercy. Great minds can understand this. You are the representative to-day of a brave and generous race of men. My life is in ruins—I am at your feet. I have pride. I had high ambitions——"
His voice broke, he paused, and then continued in strained tones:
"I have loved ones to whom this shame will come as a bolt from the clear sky. They know nothing of politics. They simply love me. This final ignominy you would heap on my head may be just from your point of view. But is it necessary? Can it serve any good purpose? Is it not mere wanton cruelty?
"Come now, man to man—our masks are off—my day is done. You are young. The world is yours. This last blow with which you would crush my spirit is too cruel! Can you afford an act of such wanton cruelty in the hour of your triumph? A small man could, yes—but you? I appeal to the best that's in you, to the spark of God that's in every human soul——"
Norton was deeply touched, far more than he dreamed any word from the man he hated could ever stir him. The Governor saw his hesitation and pressed his cause:
"I might say many things honestly in justification of my course in politics; but the time has not come. When passions have cooled and we can look the stirring events of these years squarely in the face—there'll be two sides to this question, major, as there are two sides to all questions. I might say to you that when I saw the frightful blunder I had made in helping to plunge our country into a fatal war, I tried to make good my mistake and went to the other extreme. I was ambitious, yes, but we are confronted with millions of ignorant negroes. What can we do with them? Slavery had an answer. Democracy now must give the true answer or perish——"
"That answer will never be to set these negroes up as rulers over white men!"
Norton raised his hand and spoke with bitter emphasis.
"Even so, in a Democracy with equality as the one fundamental law of life, what are you going to do with them? I could plead with you that in every act of my ill-fated administration I was honestly, in the fear of God, trying to meet and solve this apparently insoluble problem. You are now in power. What are you going to do with these negroes?"
"Send them back to the plow first," was the quick answer.
"All right; when they have bought those farms and their sons and daughters are rich and cultured—what then?"
"We'll answer that question, Governor, when the time comes."
"Remember, major, that you have no answer to it now, and in the pride of your heart to-day let me suggest that you deal charitably with one who honestly tried to find the answer when called to rule over both races.
"I have failed, I grant you. I have made mistakes, I grant you. Won't you accept my humility in this hour in part atonement for my mistakes? I stand alone before you, my bitterest and most powerful enemy, because I believe in the strength and nobility of your character. You are my only hope. I am before you, broken, crushed, humiliated, deserted, friendless—at your mercy!"
The last appeal stirred the soul of the young editor to its depths. He was surprised and shocked to findthe man he had so long ridiculed and hated so thoroughly, human and appealing in his hour of need.
He spoke with a kindly deliberation he had never dreamed it possible to use with this man.
"I'm sorry for you, Governor. Your appeal is to me a very eloquent one. It has opened a new view of your character. I can never again say bitter, merciless things about you in my paper. You have disarmed me. But as the leader of my race, in the crisis through which we are passing, I feel that a great responsibility has been placed on me. Now that we have met, with bared souls in this solemn hour, let me say that I have learned to like you better than I ever thought it possible. But I am to-day a judge who must make his decision, remembering that the lives and liberties of all the people are in his keeping when he pronounces the sentence of law. A judge has no right to spare a man who has taken human life because he is sorry for the prisoner. I have no right, as a leader, to suspend this penalty on you. Your act in destroying the civil law, arresting men without warrant and holding them by military force without bail or date of trial, was, in my judgment, a crime of the highest rank, not merely against me—one individual whom you happened to hate—but against every man, woman and child in the state. Unless that crime is punished another man, as daring in high office, may repeat it in the future. I hold in my hands to-day not only the lives and liberties of the people you have wronged, but of generations yet unborn. Now that I have heard you, personally I am sorry for you, but the law must take its course."
"You will deprive me of my citizenship?" he asked pathetically.
"It is my solemn duty. And when it is done no Governor will ever again dare to repeat your crime."
Norton turned away and the Governor laid his trembling hand on his arm:
"Your decision is absolutely final, Major Norton?"
"Absolutely," was the firm reply.
The Governor's shoulders drooped lower as he shuffled from the room and his eyes were fixed on space as he pushed his way through the hostile crowds that filled the corridors of the Capitol.
The Court immediately reassembled and the Speaker rose to make his motion for a vote on the last count in the bill depriving the Chief Executive of the state of his citizenship.
The silence was intense. The crowds that packed the lobby, the galleries, and every inch of the floor of the Senate Chamber expected a fierce speech of impassioned eloquence from their idolized leader. Every neck was craned and breath held for his first ringing words.
To their surprise he began speaking in a low voice choking with emotion and merely demanded a vote of the Senate on the final clause of the bill, and the brown eyes of the tall orator had a suspicious look of moisture in their depths as they rested on the forlorn figure of the little Scalawag. The crowd caught the spirit of solemnity and of pathos from the speaker's voice and the vote was taken amid a silence that was painful.
When the Clerk announced the result and the Chief Justice of the state declared the office of Governor vacant there was no demonstration. As the Lieutenant-Governor ascended the dais and took the oath of office, the Scalawag rose and staggered through the crowdthat opened with a look of awed pity as he passed from the chamber.
Norton stepped to the window behind the President of the Senate and watched the pathetic figure shuffle down the steps of the Capitol and slowly walk from the grounds. The sun was shining in the radiant splendor of early spring. The first flowers were blooming in the hedges by the walk and birds were chirping, chattering and singing from every tree and shrub. A squirrel started across the path in front of the drooping figure, stopped, cocked his little head to one side, looked up and ran to cover. But the man with drooping shoulders saw nothing. His dim eyes were peering into the shrouded future.
Norton was deeply moved.
"The judgment of posterity may deal kindlier with his life!" he exclaimed. "Who knows? A politician, a trimmer and a time-server—yes, so we all are down in our cowardly hearts—I'm sorry that it had to be!"
He was thinking of a skeleton in his own closet that grinned at him sometimes now when he least expected it.