by a group of a dozen ex-service men, two of whom grasped him by the
arms. He did not lift a hand, nor even make a sound. Comrade Abell,
of course, started to cry out in protest; Moneta, the Mexican,
reverted to his ancestors. His hand flashed to an inside pocket, and
a knife leaped out. A soldier had hold of him, and Moneta shouted,
“Stand back, or I cut off your ears.” At which Carpenter turned, and
in a stern, commanding voice proclaimed: “Let no man use force in my
behalf! They who use force shall perish by force.” Moneta stood
still; and of course Lynch and Old Joe and I stood still; and the
dozen men about Carpenter started to lead him away to their
automobiles.
But they did not get very far. Upon the silence of the street a
voice rang out. Ordinarily, one would have known it was the voice of
a woman; but in this place, under these exciting circumstances, it
seemed the voice of a supernatural being. It almost sang the words;
it was like a silver bugle calling across a battle-field--glorious,
thrilling, hypnotic. “Make way-y-y-y for the Grand Imperial
Kle-e-e-agle of the Ku-u Klux Klan!” Every one was startled; but I
think I was startled more that the rest, for I knew the voice! Mary
Magna had taken another speaking part!
I was on the steps of the building, so I could see over the heads of
the crowd. There were four of the big busses from Eternal City, two
having approached from each direction. Some fifty figures had
descended from them, and others were still descending, each one clad
in a voluminous white robe, with a white hood over the head, and two
black holes for eyes, and another for the nose. These figures had
spread out in a half moon, entirely surrounding the little mob of
ex-service men, and penning them against the wall of the building.
In the center of the half moon, standing a few feet in advance, was
the figure of the “Grand Imperial Kleagle,” with a red star upon the
forehead of the white hood, and shrouded white arms stretched out,
and in one hand a magic wand with a red light on the end. This wand
was waving over the Brigade members, and had apparently its full
supernatural effect, for one and all they stood rooted to the spot,
staring with wide-open eyes.
LVII
The grand-opera voice raised again its silver chant: “Give way, all
mobs! Yield! Retire! Abdicate!--Bow down-n-n-n-n! Make way for the
Mob of Mobs, the irresistible, imperial, superior super-mob! Hearken
to the Lord High Chief Commanding Dragon of the Esoteric Cohorts,
the Exalted Immortal Grand Imperial Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan!”
Then the Grand Imperial Kleagle turned and addressed the white-robed
throng in a voice of sharp command: “Klansmen! Remember your oath!
The hour of Judgment is here! The guilty wretch cowers! The grand
insuperable sentence has been spoken! Coelum animum imperiabilis
senescat! Similia similibus per quantum imperator. Inexorabilis
ingenium parasimilibua esperantur! Saeva itnparatus ignotum
indignatio! Salvo! Suppositio! Indurato! Klansmen, kneel!”
As one man, the host fell upon its knees.
“Klansmen, swear! Si fractus illibatur orbis, impavidum ferient
ruinae! You have heard the sentence. What is the penalty? Is it
death?”
And a voice in the crowd cried “Death!” And the others took it up;
there was a roar: “Death! Death!”
Said the Grand Imperial Kleagle: “Arma virumque cano, tou
poluphlesboiou thalasses!” Then, facing the staring ex-servicemen:
“Tetlathi mater erne kai anaskeo ko-omeneper!”
Finally the Grand Imperial Kleagle pointed her shrouded white arm at
Carpenter, who stood, as pale as death, but unflinchingly. “Death to
all traitors!” she cried. “Death to all agitators! Death to all
enemies of the Ku Klux Klan! Condemnatus! Incomparabilis!
Ingenientis exequatur! Let the Loyal High Inexorable Guardians and
the Grand Holy Seneschals of the Klan advance!”
Six shrouded figures stepped out from the crowd. Said the Grand
Imperial Kleagle: “Possess yourselves of the body of this guilty
wretch!” And to the ex-servicemen: “Yield up this varlet to the High
Secret Court-martial of the Klan, which alone has power to punish
such as he.”
What the bewildered members of the Brigade made of all this
hocus-pocus I had no idea. Afterwards, when the adventure was over,
I asked Mary, “Where in the world did you get that stuff?” And she
told me how she had once acted in a children's comedy, in which
there was an old magician who spent his time putting spells on
people. She had had to witness his incantations eight or ten times a
week for nearly a year, so of course the phrases had got fixed in
her memory, and they had served just as well to impress these
grown-up children.
Or perhaps the ex-servicemen thought this might be a further plan of
those who had employed them. Whatever they thought, it was obvious
that they were hopelessly outnumbered. There could be nothing for a
mob to do but yield to a Super-mob; and they yielded. Those who were
in front of Carpenter stepped back, and the Loyal High Inexorable
Guardians and the Grand Holy Seneschals took Carpenter by the arms
and led him away. Apparently they were going to overlook the rest of
us; but Old Joe and Lynch and myself took Abell and Moneta by the
shoulders and shoved them along, past the ex-service men and into
the midst of the “Klansmen.”
There was no need to consider dignity after that. We hustled
Carpenter to the nearest of the busses, and put him in; the Grand
Imperial Kleagle followed, and the rest of us clambered in after
her. Sitting up beside the driver, watching the scene, was T-S,
beaming with delight; he got me by the hand and wrung it. I could
not speak, my teeth were literally chattering with excitement.
Carpenter, sitting in the seat behind us, must have realized by now
the meaning of this scandalous adventure; but he said not a word,
and the white-gowned Klansmen piled in behind him, and the siren
shrieked out into the night, and the bus backed to the corner, and
turned and sped off; and all the way to Eternal City, T-S and I and
Old Joe slapped one another on the back and roared with laughter,
and the rest of the Klansmen roared with laughter--all save the
Grand Imperial Kleagle, who sat by Carpenter's side, and was
discovered to be weeping.
LVIII
T-S and I had exchanged a few whispered words, and decided that we
would take Carpenter to his place, which was a few miles in the
country from Eternal City. He would be as safe there as anywhere I
could think of. When we had got to the studios, we discharged our
Klansmen, and arranged to send Old Joe to his home, and the three
disciples to a hotel for the night; then I invited Carpenter to step
into T-S's car. He had not spoken a word, and all he said now was,
“I wish to be alone.”
I answered: “I am taking you to a place where you may be alone as
long as you choose.” So he entered the car, and a few minutes later
T-S and I were escorting him into the latter's showy mansion.
We were getting to be rather scared now, for Carpenter's silence was
forbidding. But again he said: “I wish to be alone.” We took him
upstairs to a bed-room, and shut him in and left him--but taking the
precaution to lock the door.
Downstairs, we stood and looked at each other, feeling like two
school-boys who had been playing truant, and would soon have to face
the teacher. “You stay here, Billy!” insisted the magnate. “You
gotta see him in de mornin'! I von't!”
“I'll stay,” I said, and looked at my watch. It was after one
o'clock. “Give me an alarm-clock,” I said, “because Carpenter wakes
with the birds, and we don't want him escaping by the window.”
So it came about that at daybreak I tapped on Carpenter's door,
softly, so as not to waken him if he were asleep. But he answered,
“Come in;” and I entered, and found him sitting by the window,
watching the dawn.
I stood timidly in the middle of the room, and began: “I realize, of
course, Mr. Carpenter, that I have taken a very great liberty with
you--”
“You have said it,” he replied; and his eyes were awful.
“But,” I persisted, “if you knew what danger you were in--”
Said he: “Do you think that I came to Mobland to look for a
comfortable life?”
“But,” I pleaded, “if you only knew that particular gang! Do you
realize that they had planted an infernal machine, a dynamite bomb,
in that room? And all the world was to read in the newspapers this
morning that you had been conspiring to blow up somebody!”
Said Carpenter: “Would it have been the first time that I have been
lied about?”
“Of course,” I argued, “I know what I have done--”
“You can have no idea what you have done. You are too ignorant.”
I bowed my head, prepared to take my punishment. But at once
Carpenter's voice softened. “You are a part of Mobland,” he said;
“you cannot help yourself. In Mobland it is not possible for even a
martyrdom to proceed in an orderly way.”
I gazed at him a moment, bewildered. “What's the good of a
martyrdom?” I cried.
“The good is, that men can be moved in no other way; they are in
that childish stage of being, where they require blood sacrifice.”
“But what kind of martyrdom!” I argued. “So undignified and
unimpressive! To have hot tar smeared over your body, and be hanged
by the neck like a common criminal!”
I realized that this last phrase was unfortunate. Said Carpenter: “I
am used to being treated as a common criminal.”
“Well,” said I, in a voice of despair, “of course, if you're
absolutely bent on being hanged--if you can't think of anything you
would prefer--”
I stopped, for I saw that he had covered his face with his hands. In
the silence I heard him whisper: “I prayed last night that this cup
might pass from me; and apparently my prayer has been answered.”
“Well,” I said, deciding to cheer up, “you see, I have only been
playing the part of Providence. Let me play it just a few days
longer, until this mob of crazy soldier-boys has got out of town
again. I am truly ashamed for them, but I am one of them myself, so
I understand them. They really fought and won a war, you see, and
they are full of the madness of it, the blind, intense passions--”
Carpenter was on his feet. “I know!” he exclaimed. “I know! You need
not tell me about that! I do not blame your soldier-boys. I blame
the men who incite them--the old men, the soft-handed men, who sit
back in office-chairs and plan madness for the world! What shall be
the punishment of these men?”
“They're a hard crowd--” I admitted.
“I have seen them! They are stone-faced men! They are wolves with
machinery! They are savages with polished fingernails! And they have
made of the land a place of fools! They have made it Mobland!”
I did not try to answer him, but waited until the storm of his
emotion passed. “You are right, Mr. Carpenter. But that is the fact
about our world, and you cannot change it--”
Carpenter flung out his arm at me. “Let no man utter in my presence
the supreme blasphemy against life!”
So, of course, I was silent; and Carpenter went and sat at the
window again, and watched the dawn.
At last I ventured: “All that your friends ask, Mr. Carpenter, is
that you will wait until this convention of the ex-soldiers has got
out of town. After that, it may be possible to get people to listen
to you. But while the Brigade is here, it is impossible. They are
rough, and they are wild; they are taking possession of the city,
and will do what they please. If they see you on the streets, they
will inflict indignities upon you, they will mishandle you--”
Said Carpenter: “Do not fear those who kill the body, but fear those
who kill the soul.”
So again I fell silent; and presently he remarked: “My brother, I
wish to be alone.”
Said I: “Won't you please promise, Mr. Carpenter--”
He answered: “I make promises only to my Father. Let me be.”
LIX
I went downstairs, and there was T-S, wandering around like a big
fat monk in a purple dressing gown. And there was Maw, also--only
her dressing gown was rose-pink, with white chrysanthemums on it. It
took a lot to get those two awake at six o'clock in the morning, you
may be sure; but there they were, very much worried. “Vot does he
say?” cried the magnate.
“He won't say what he is going to do.”
“He von't promise to stay?”
“He won't promise anything.”
“Vell, did you lock de door?”
I answered that I had, and then Maw put in, in a hurry: “Billy, you
gotta stay here and take care of him! If he vas to gome downstairs
and tell me to do someting, I vould got to do it!”
I promised; and a little later they got ready a cup of coffee and a
glass of milk and some rolls and butter and fruit, and I had the job
of taking up the tray and setting it in the prophet's room. When I
came in, I tried to say cheerfully, “Here's your breakfast,” and not
to show any trace of my uneasiness.
Carpenter looked at me, and said: “You had the door locked?”
I summoned my nerve, and answered, “Yes.”
Said he: “What is the difference to me between being your prisoner
and being the prisoner of your rulers?”
Said I: “Mr. Carpenter, the difference is that we don't intend to
hang you.”
“And how long do you propose to keep me here?”
“For about four days,” I said; “until the convention disbands. If
you will only give me your word to wait that time, you may have the
freedom of this beautiful place, and when the period is over, I
pledge you every help I can give to make known your message to the
people.”
I waited for an answer, but none came, so I set down the tray and
went out, locking the door again. And downstairs was one of T-S's
secretaries, with copies of the morning newspapers, and I picked up
a “Times,” and there was a headline, all the way across the page:
KU KLUX KLAN KIDNAPS KARPENTER RANTING RED PROPHET DISAPPEARS IN
TOOTING AUTOS
I understood, of course, that the secret agency which had
engineered the mobbing of the prophet would have had their stories
all ready for our morning newspapers--stories which played up to
the full the finding of an infernal machine, and an unprovoked
attack upon ex-service men by the armed followers of the “Red
Prophet.” But now all this was gone, and instead was a story
glorifying the Klansmen as the saviors of the city's good name. It
was evident that up to the hour of going to press, neither of the
two newspapers had any idea but that the white robed figures were
genuine followers of the “Grand Imperial Kleagle.” The “Times”
carried at the top of its editorial page a brief comment in large
type, congratulating the people of Western City upon the promptness
with which they had demonstrated their devotion to the cause of law
and order.
But of course the truth about our made-to-order mob could not be
kept very long. When you have hired a hundred moving-picture actors
to share in the greatest mystery of the age, it will not be many
hours before your secret has got to the newspaper offices. As a
matter of fact, it wasn't two hours before the “Evening Blare” was
calling the home of the movie magnate to inquire where he had taken
the kidnapped prophet; there was no use trying to deny anything,
said the editor, diplomatically, because too many people had seen
the prophet transferred to Mr. T-S's automobile. Of course T-S's
secretary, who answered the phone, lied valiantly; but here again,
we knew the truth would leak. There were servants and chauffeurs and
gardeners, and all of them knew that the white robed mystery was
somewhere on the place. They would be offered endless bribes--and
some of them would accept!
In the course of the next hour or two there were a dozen newspaper
reporters besieging the mansion, and camera men taking pictures of
it, and even spying with opera glasses from a distance. Before my
mind's eye flashed new headlines:
MOVIE MAGNATE HIDES MOB PROPHET FROM LAW
This was an aspect of the matter which we had at first overlooked.
Carpenter was due at Judge Ponty's police-court at nine o'clock that
morning. Was he going? demanded the reporters, and if not, why not?
Mary Magna no doubt would be willing to sacrifice the two hundred
dollars bail that she had put up; but the judge had a right to issue
a bench warrant and send a deputy for the prisoner. Would he do it?
Behind the scenes of Western City's government there began forthwith
a tremendous diplomatic duel. Who it was that wanted Carpenter
dragged out of his hiding-place, we could not be sure, but we knew
who it was that wanted him to stay hidden! I called up my uncle
Timothy, and explained the situation. It wasn't worth while for him
to waste his breath scolding, I was going to stand by my prophet. If
he wanted to put an end to the scandal, let him do what he could to
see that the prophet was let alone.
“But, Billy, what can I do?” he cried. “It's a matter of the law.”
I answered: “Fudge! You know perfectly well there's no magistrate or
judge in this city that won't do what he's told, if the right people
tell him. What I want you to do is to get busy with de Wiggs and
Westerly and Carson, and the rest of the big gang, and persuade them
that there's nothing to be gained by dragging Carpenter out of his
hiding-place.”
What did they want anyway? I argued. They wanted the agitation
stopped. Well, we had stopped it, and without any bloodshed. If they
dragged the prophet out from concealment, and into a police court,
they would only have more excitement, more tumult, ending nobody
could tell how.
I called up several other people who might have influence; and
meanwhile T-S was over at his office in Eternal City, pleading over
the telephone with the editors of afternoon papers. They had got the
Red Prophet out of the way during the convention, and why couldn't
they let well enough alone? Wasn't there news enough, with five or
ten thousand war-heroes coming to town, without bothering about one
poor religious freak?
When you shoot a load of shot at a duck, and the bird comes tumbling
down, you do not bother to ask which particular shot it was that hit
the target. And so it was with these frantic efforts of ours. One
shot must have hit, for at eleven o'clock that morning, when the
case of John Doe Carpenter versus the Commonwealth of Western City
was reached in Judge Ponty's court, and the bailiff called the name
of the defendant and there was no answer, the magistrate in a single
sentence declared the bail forfeited, and passed on to the next case
without a word. And all three of our afternoon newspapers reported
this incident in an obscure corner on an inside page. The Red
Prophet was dead and buried!
IX
I took up Carpenter's lunch at one o'clock, and discovered, to my
dismay, that he had not tasted his breakfast. I ventured to speak to
him; but he sat on a chair, gazing ahead of him and paying no
attention to me, so I left him alone. At six o'clock in the evening
I took up his dinner, and discovered that he had not touched either
breakfast or lunch; but still he had nothing to say, so I took back
the dinner, and went downstairs, and said to T-S: “We've got
ourselves in for a hunger strike!”
Needless to say, under the circumstances we did not very heartily
enjoy our own dinner. And T-S, neglecting his important business,
stayed around; getting up out of one chair and walking nowhere, and
then sitting down in another chair. I did the same, and after we had
exchanged chairs a dozen times--it being then about eight o'clock in
the evening--I said: “By the way, hadn't you better call up the
morning papers and persuade them to be decent.” So T-S seated
himself at the telephone, and asked for the managing editor of the
Western City “Times,” and I sat and listened to the conversation.
It began with a reminder of the amount of advertising space which
Eternal City consumed in the “Times” in the course of a year, and
also the amount of its payroll in the community. It wasn't often
that T-S asked favors, but he wanted to ask one now; he wanted the
“Times” to let up on this prophet business, and especially about the
prophet's connection with the moving picture industry. Everything
was quiet now, the prophet wasn't bothering anybody--
Suddenly, at the height of his eloquence, T-S stopped; and it seemed
to me as if he jumped a foot out of his chair. “VOT!” And then, “Vy
man, you're crazy!” He turned upon me, his eyes wide with dismay.
“Billy! Dey got a report--Carpenter is shoost now speakin' to a mob
on de steps of de City Hall!”
The magnate did not wait to see me jump out of my chair or to hear
my exclamations, but turned again to the telephone. “My Gawd, man!
Vot do I know about it? De feller vas up in his room two hours ago
ven we took him his dinner! He vouldn't eat it, he vouldn't speak--”
That was the last I heard, having bolted out of the room, and
upstairs. I found Carpenter's door locked; I opened it, and rushed
in. The place was empty! The bird had flown!
How had he got out? Had he climbed through the window and slid down
a rain-spout in his prophetic robes? Had he won the heart of some
servant? Had some newspaper reporter or agent of our enemies used
bribery? I rushed downstairs, and got my car from the garage; and
all the way to the city I spent my time in such futile speculations.
How Carpenter, having escaped from the house, had managed to get
into town so quickly--that was much easier to figure out; for our
highways are full of motor traffic, and almost any driver will take
in a stranger.
I came to the city. Even outside the crowded district, the traffic
was held up for a minute or two at every corner; so I found time to
look about, and to realize that the Brigade had got to town. All day
special trains had been pouring into the city, literally dozens of
them by every road; and now the streets were thronged with men in
uniform, marching arm in arm, shouting, chanting war-cries, roaming
in search of adventure. Tomorrow was the first day of the
convention, the day of the big parade: tonight was a night of riot.
Everything in town was free to ex-service men--and to all others who
could borrow or buy a uniform. The spirit of the occasion was set
forth in a notice published on the editorial page of the “Times”:
“Hello, bo! Have a cigarette. Take another one. Take anything you
see around the place.
“The town is yours. Take it into camp with you. Scruff it up to your
heart's content. Order it about. Let it carry grub to you. Have it
shine your shoes. Hand it your coat and tell it to hold it until the
show is over.
“We are all waiting your orders. Shove us back if we crowd. Push us
off the street. Give us your grip and tell us where to deliver it.
Any errands? Call us. If you want to go anywhere, don't ask for
directions. Just jump into the car and tell us where you're bound
for.
“Let's have another one before we part. Put up your money; it's no
good here. This one's on Western City.”
I saw that it was not going to be possible to drive through the jam,
so I put my car in a parking place, and set out for the City Hall on
foot. On the way I observed that the invitation of the “Times” had
been accepted; the Brigade had taken possession of the town. It was
just about possible to walk on the down-town streets; there were
solid masses of noisy, pushing people, every other man in uniform.
Evidently there had been a tacit agreement to repeal the Eighteenth
amendment to the Constitution for the next three days; bootleggers
had drawn up their trucks and automobiles along the curbs, and
corn-whiskey, otherwise known as “white lightnin',” was freely sold.
You would meet a man with a bottle in his hand, and the effects of
other bottles in his face, who would embrace you and offer you a
drink; in the same block you would meet another man who would invite
you to buy drinks for everybody in sight. The town had apparently
agreed that no invitation should be declined. If the great Republic
of Mobland had been unable to make for its returned war-heroes the
new world which it had promised them--if it could not even give them
back the jobs they had had before they left--surely the least it
could do was to get them drunk!
And several times in each block you would have to get off the
sidewalk for a group of ten or twenty flushed, dishevelled men,
playing the great national game of craps. “Roll the bones!” they
would shout, completely ignoring the throngs which surged about
them. Each had his pile of bills and silver laid out on the
pavement, and his bottle of “white lightnin';” now and then one
would take a swig, and now and then one would start singing:
All we do is sign the pay-roll--
And we don't get a goddam cent.