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THE SINS OF THE FATHER
[Illustration: "She blushed scarlet, took the rosebud from her bosom and
pinned it on his coat."
[Page 246]]
THE SINS OF THE FATHER
A Romance of the South
by
THOMAS DIXON
Author of
The Leopard's Spots, The Clansman,
Comrades, The Root of Evil, etc.
Illustrated by John Cassel
Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers :: :: New York
Copyright, 1912, by
Thomas Dixon
All rights reserved, including that of translation into
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.
Published March, 1913.
Printed in the United States of America.
TO
THE MEMORY OF
RANDOLPH SHOTWELL
OF NORTH CAROLINA
SOLDIER, EDITOR, CLANSMAN
PATRIOT
TO THE READER
_I wish it understood that I have not used in this novel the private life
of Captain Randolph Shotwell, to whom this book is dedicated. I have drawn
the character of my central figure from the authentic personal history of
Major Daniel Norton himself, a distinguished citizen of the far South, with
whom I was intimately acquainted for many years._
THOMAS DIXON.
NEW YORK
MARCH 8, 1912
CONTENTS
BOOK I--SIN
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE WOMAN IN YELLOW 3
II. CLEO ENTERS 26
III. A BEAST AWAKES 39
IV. THE ARREST 46
V. THE RESCUE 58
VI. A TRAITOR'S RUSE 71
VII. THE IRONY OF FATE 78
VIII. A NEW WEAPON 85
IX. THE WORDS THAT COST 93
X. MAN TO MAN 98
XI. THE UNBIDDEN GUEST 109
XII. THE JUDGMENT BAR 116
XIII. AN OLD STORY 130
XIV. THE FIGHT FOR LIFE 139
XV. CLEO'S SILENCE 142
XVI. THE LARGER VISION 145
XVII. THE OPAL GATES 158
XVIII. QUESTIONS 163
XIX. CLEO'S CRY 171
XX. THE BLOW FALLS 174
XXI. THE CALL OF THE BLOOD 182
BOOK II--ATONEMENT
I. THE NEW LIFE PURPOSE 195
II. A MODERN SCALAWAG 199
III. HIS HOUSE IN ORDER 211
IV. THE MAN OF THE HOUR 217
V. A WOMAN SCORNED 222
VI. AN OLD COMEDY 235
VII. TRAPPED 247
VIII. BEHIND THE BARS 259
IX. ANDY'S DILEMMA 262
X. THE BEST LAID PLANS 278
XI. A RECONNOITRE 284
XII. THE FIRST WHISPER 294
XIII. ANDY'S PROPOSAL 299
XIV. THE FOLLY OF PITY 307
XV. A DISCOVERY 319
XVI. THE CHALLENGE 329
XVII. A SKIRMISH 335
XVIII. LOVE LAUGHS 340
XIX. "FIGHT IT OUT!" 346
XX. ANDY FIGHTS 355
XXI. THE SECOND BLOW 365
XXII. THE TEST OF LOVE 372
XXIII. THE PARTING 388
XXIV. FATHER AND SON 399
XXV. THE ONE CHANCE 414
XXVI. BETWEEN TWO FIRES 420
XXVII. A SURPRISE 423
XXVIII. VIA DOLOROSA 428
XXIX. THE DREGS IN THE CUP 438
XXX. THE MILLS OF GOD 449
XXXI. SIN FULL GROWN 454
XXXII. CONFESSION 456
XXXIII. HEALING 461
THE SINS OF THE FATHER
_Book One--Sin_
CHAPTER I
THE WOMAN IN YELLOW
The young editor of _The Daily Eagle and Phoenix_ straightened his tall
figure from the pile of papers that smothered his desk, glanced at his
foreman who stood waiting, and spoke in the quiet drawl he always used when
excited:
"Just a moment--'til I read this over----"
The foreman nodded.
He scanned the scrawled pencil manuscript twice and handed it up without
changing a letter:
"Set the title in heavy black-faced caps--_black_--the blackest you've
got."
He read the title over again musingly, his strong mouth closing with a snap
at its finish:
THE BLACK LEAGUE AND THE KU KLUX KLAN
DOWN WITH ALL SECRET SOCIETIES
The foreman took the manuscript with a laugh:
"You've certainly got 'em guessing, major----"
"Who?"
"Everybody. We've all been thinking until these editorials began that you
were a leader of the Klan."
A smile played about the corners of the deep-set brown eyes as he swung
carelessly back to his desk and waved the printer to his task with a
friendly sweep of his long arm:
"Let 'em think again!"
A shout in the Court House Square across the narrow street caused him to
lift his head with a frown:
"Salesday--of course--the first Monday--doomsday for the conquered
South--God, the horror of it all!"
He laid his pencil down, walked to the window and looked out on the crowd
of slouching loafers as they gathered around the auctioneer's block. The
negroes outnumbered the whites two to one.
A greasy, loud-mouthed negro, as black as ink, was the auctioneer.
"Well, gemmen an' feller citizens," he began pompously, "de fust piece er
property I got ter sell hain't no property 'tall--hit's dese po' folks fum
de County Po' House. Fetch 'em up agin de wall so de bidders can see
'em----"
He paused and a black court attendant led out and placed in line against
the weatherbeaten walls fifty or sixty inmates of the County Poor
House--all of them white men and women. Most of them were over seventy
years old, and one with the quickest step and brightest eye, a little man
of eighty-four with snow-white hair and beard, was the son of a hero of the
American Revolution. The women were bareheaded and the blazing Southern sun
of August beat down piteously on their pinched faces.
The young editor's fists slowly clinched and his breath came in a deep
quivering draught. He watched as in a trance. He had seen four years'
service in the bloodiest war in history--seen thousands swept into
eternity from a single battlefield without a tear. He had witnessed the
sufferings of the wounded and dying until it became the routine of a day's
work. Yet no event of all that fierce and terrible struggle had stirred his
soul as the scene he was now witnessing--not even the tragic end of his
father, the editor of the _Daily Eagle_--who had been burned to death in
the building when Sherman's army swept the land with fire and sword. The
younger man had never referred to this except in a brief, hopeful editorial
in the newly christened _Eagle and Phoenix_, which he literally built on
the ashes of the old paper. He had no unkind word for General Sherman or
his army. It was war, and a soldier knew what that meant. He would have
done the same thing under similar conditions.
Now he was brushing a tear from his cheek. A reporter at work in the
adjoining room watched him curiously. He had never before thought him
capable of such an emotion. A brilliant and powerful editor, he had made
his paper the one authoritative organ of the white race. In the midst of
riot, revolution and counter revolution his voice had the clear ring of a
bugle call to battle. There was never a note of hesitation, of uncertainty
or of compromise. In the fierce white heat of an unconquered spirit, he had
fused the souls of his people as one. At this moment he was the one man
hated and feared most by the negroid government in power, the one man most
admired and trusted by the white race.
And he was young--very young--yet he had lived a life so packed with tragic
events no one ever guessed his real age, twenty-four. People took him to be
more than thirty and the few threads of gray about his temples, added to
the impression of age and dignity. He was not handsome in the conventional
sense. His figure was too tall, his cheek bones too high, the nostrils too
large and his eyebrows too heavy. His great height, six feet three,
invariably made him appear gaunt and serious. Though he had served the
entire four years in the Confederate army, entering a private in the ranks
at eighteen, emerging a major in command of a shattered regiment at
twenty-two, his figure did not convey the impression of military training.
He walked easily, with the long, loose stride of the Southener, his
shoulders slightly stooped from the habit of incessant reading.
He was lifting his broad shoulders now in an ominous way as he folded his
clenched fists behind his back and listened to the negro auctioneer.
"Come now, gemmens," he went on; "what's de lowes' offer ye gwine ter start
me fer dese folks? 'Member, now, de lowes' bid gets 'em, not de highes'!
'Fore de war de black man wuz put on de block an' sole ter de _highes'_
bidder! Times is changed----"
"Yas, Lawd!" shouted a negro woman.
"Times is changed, I tells ye!--now I gwine ter sell dese po' white folks
ter de lowes' bidder. Whosomever'll take de Po' House and bode 'em fer de
least money gits de whole bunch. An' you has de right ter make 'em all work
de Po' farm. Dey kin work, too, an' don' ye fergit it. Dese here ones I
fotch out here ter show ye is all soun' in wind and limb. De bedridden ones
ain't here. Dey ain't but six er dem. What's de lowes' bid now, gemmens,
yer gwine ter gimme ter bode 'em by de month? Look 'em all over, gemmens, I
warrants 'em ter be sound in wind an' limb. Sound in wind an' limb."
The auctioneer's sonorous voice lingered on this phrase and repeated it
again and again.
The watcher at the window turned away in disgust, walked back to his desk,
sat down, fidgeted in his seat, rose and returned to the window in time to
hear the cry:
"An' sold to Mister Abum Russ fer fo' dollars a month!"
Could it be possible that he heard aright? Abe Russ the keeper to the
poor!--a drunkard, wife beater, and midnight prowler. His father before
him, "Devil Tom Russ," had been a notorious character, yet he had at least
one redeeming quality that saved him from contempt--a keen sense of humor.
He had made his living on a ten-acre red hill farm and never used a horse
or an ox. He hitched himself to the plow and made Abe seize the handles.
This strange team worked the fields. No matter how hard the day's task the
elder Russ never quite lost his humorous view of life. When the boy, tired
and thirsty, would stop and go to the spring for water, a favorite trick of
his was to place a piece of paper or a chunk of wood in the furrow a few
yards ahead. When the boy returned and they approached this object, the old
man would stop, lift his head and snort, back and fill, frisk and caper,
plunge and kick, and finally break and run, tearing over the fields like a
maniac, dragging the plow after him with the breathless boy clinging to the
handles. He would then quietly unhitch himself and thrash Abe within an
inch of his life for being so careless as to allow a horse to run away with
him.
But Abe grew up without a trace of his father's sense of humor, picked out
the strongest girl he could find for a wife and hitched her to the plow!
And he permitted no pranks to enliven the tedium of work except the
amusement he allowed himself of beating her at mealtimes after she had
cooked his food.
He had now turned politician, joined the Loyal Black League and was the
successful bidder for Keeper of the Poor. It was incredible!
The watcher was roused from his painful reverie by a reporter's voice:
"I think there's a man waiting in the hall to see you, sir."
"Who is it?"
The reporter smiled:
"Mr. Bob Peeler."
"What on earth can that old scoundrel want with me? All right--show him
in."
The editor was busy writing when Mr. Peeler entered the room furtively. He
was coarse, heavy and fifty years old. His red hair hung in tangled locks
below his ears and a bloated double chin lapped his collar. His legs were
slightly bowed from his favorite mode of travel on horseback astride a huge
stallion trapped with tin and brass bespangled saddle. His supposed
business was farming and the raising of blooded horses. As a matter of
fact, the farm was in the hands of tenants and gambling was his real work.
Of late he had been displaying a hankering for negro politics. A few weeks
before he had created a sensation by applying to the clerk of the court for
a license to marry his mulatto housekeeper. It was common report that this
woman was the mother of a beautiful octoroon daughter with hair exactly the
color of old Peeler's. Few people had seen her. She had been away at
school since her tenth year.
The young editor suddenly wheeled in his chair and spoke with quick
emphasis:
"Mr. Peeler, I believe?"
The visitor's face lighted with a maudlin attempt at politeness:
"Yes, sir; yes, sir!--and I'm shore glad to meet you, Major Norton!"
He came forward briskly, extending his fat mottled hand.
Norton quietly ignored the offer by placing a chair beside his desk:
"Have a seat, Mr. Peeler."
The heavy figure flopped into the chair:
"I want to ask your advice, major, about a little secret matter"--he
glanced toward the door leading into the reporters' room.
The editor rose, closed the door and resumed his seat:
"Well, sir; how can I serve you?"
The visitor fumbled in his coat pocket and drew out a crumpled piece of
paper which he fingered gingerly:
"I've been readin' your editorials agin' secret societies, major, and I
like 'em--that's why I made up my mind to put my trust in you----"
"Why, I thought you were a member of the Loyal Black League, Mr. Peeler?"
"No, sir--it's a mistake, sir," was the smooth lying answer. "I hain't got
nothin' to do with no secret society. I hate 'em all--just run your eye
over that, major."
He extended the crumpled piece of paper on which was scrawled in boyish
writing:
"We hear you want to marry a nigger. Our advice is to leave
this country for the more congenial climate of Africa.
"By order of the Grand Cyclops, KU KLUX KLAN."
The young editor studied the scrawl in surprise:
"A silly prank of schoolboys!" he said at length.
"You think that's all?" Peeler asked dubiously.
"Certainly. The Ku Klux Klan have more important tasks on hand just now. No
man in their authority sent that to you. Their orders are sealed in red ink
with a crossbones and skull. I've seen several of them. Pay no attention to
this--it's a fake."
"I don't think so, major--just wait a minute, I'll show you something worse
than a red-ink crossbones and skull."
Old Peeler tipped to the door leading into the hallway, opened it, peered
out and waved his fat hand, beckoning someone to enter.
The voice of a woman was heard outside protesting:
"No--no--I'll stay here----"
Peeler caught her by the arm and drew her within:
"This is Lucy, my housekeeper, major."
The editor looked in surprise at the slender, graceful figure of the
mulatto. He had pictured her coarse and heavy. He saw instead a face of the
clean-cut Aryan type with scarcely a trace of negroid character. Only the
thick curling hair, shining black eyes and deep yellow skin betrayed the
African mother.
Peeler's eyes were fixed in a tense stare on a small bundle she carried.
His voice was a queer muffled tremor as he slowly said:
"Unwrap the thing and show it to him."
The woman looked at the editor and smiled contemptuously, showing two rows
of perfect teeth, as she slowly drew the brown wrapper from a strange
object which she placed on the desk.
The editor picked the thing up, looked at it and laughed.
It was a tiny pine coffin about six inches long and two inches wide. A
piece of glass was fitted into the upper half of the lid and beneath the
glass was placed a single tube rose whose peculiar penetrating odor already
filled the room.
Peeler mopped the perspiration from his brow.
"Now, what do you think of that?" he asked in an awed whisper.
In spite of an effort at self-control, Norton broke into a peal of
laughter:
"It does look serious, doesn't it?"
"Serious ain't no word for it, sir! It not only looks like death, but I'm
damned if it don't smell like it--smell it!"
"So it does," the editor agreed, lifting the box and breathing the perfume
of the pale little flower.
"And that ain't all," Peeler whispered, "look inside of it."
He opened the lid and drew out a tightly folded scrap of paper on which was
written in pencil the words:
"You lying, hypocritical, blaspheming old scoundrel--unless
you leave the country within forty-eight hours, this coffin
will be large enough to hold all we'll leave of you.
K. K. K."
The editor frowned and then smiled.
"All a joke, Peeler," he said reassuringly.
But Peeler was not convinced. He leaned close and his whiskey-laden breath
seemed to fill the room as his fat finger rested on the word "blaspheming:"
"I don't like that word, major; it sounds like a preacher had something to
do with the writin' of it. You know I've been a tough customer in my day
and I used to cuss the preachers in this county somethin' frightful. Now,
ye see, if they should be in this Ku Klux Klan--I ain't er skeered er their
hell hereafter, but they sho' might give me a taste in this world of what
they think's comin' to me in the next. I tell you that thing makes the cold
chills run down my back. Now, major, I reckon you're about the
level-headest and the most influential man in the county--the question is,
what shall I do to be saved?"
Again Norton laughed:
"Nothing. It's a joke, I tell you----"
"But the Ku Klux Klan ain't no joke!" persisted Peeler. "More than a
thousand of 'em--some say five thousand--paraded the county two weeks ago.
A hundred of 'em passed my house. I saw their white shrouds glisten in the
moonlight. I said my prayers that night! I says to myself, if it don't do
no good, at least it can't do no harm. I tell you, the Klan's no joke. If
you think so, take a walk through that crowd in the Square to-day and see
how quiet they are. Last court day every nigger that could holler was
makin' a speech yellin' that old Thad Stevens was goin' to hang Andy
Johnson, the President, from the White House porch, take every foot of land
from the rebels and give it to the Loyal Black League. Now, by gum, there's
a strange peace in Israel! I felt it this mornin' as I walked through them
crowds--and comin' back to this coffin, major, the question is--what shall
I do to be saved?"
"Go home and forget about it," was the smiling answer. "The Klan didn't
send that thing to you or write that message."
"You think not?"
"I know they didn't. It's a forgery. A trick of some devilish boys."
Peeler scratched his red head:
"I'm glad you think so, major. I'm a thousand times obliged to you, sir.
I'll sleep better to-night after this talk."
"Would you mind leaving this little gift with me, Peeler?" Norton asked,
examining the neat workmanship of the coffin.
"Certainly--certainly, major, keep it. Keep it and more than welcome! It's
a gift I don't crave, sir. I'll feel better to know you've got it."
The yellow woman waited beside the door until Peeler had passed out, bowed
her thanks, turned and followed her master at a respectful distance.
The editor watched them cross the street with a look of loathing, muttering
slowly beneath his breath:
"Oh, my country, what a problem--what a problem!"
He turned again to his desk and forgot his burden in the joy of work. He
loved this work. It called for the best that's in the strongest man. It was
a man's work for men. When he struck a blow he saw the dent of his hammer
on the iron, and heard it ring to the limits of the state.
Dimly aware that some one had entered his room unannounced, he looked up,
sprang to his feet and extended his hand in hearty greeting to a stalwart
farmer who stood smiling into his face:
"Hello, MacArthur!"
"Hello, my captain! You know you weren't a major long enough for me to get
used to it--and it sounds too old for you anyhow----"
"And how's the best sergeant that ever walloped a recruit?"
"Bully," was the hearty answer.
The young editor drew his old comrade in arms down into his chair and sat
on the table facing him:
"And how's the wife and kids, Mac?"
"Bully," he repeated evenly and then looked up with a puzzled expression.
"Look here, Bud," he began quietly, "you've got me up a tree. These
editorials in _The Eagle and Phoenix_ cussin' the Klan----"
"You don't like them?"
"Not a little wee bit!"
The editor smiled:
"You've got Scotch blood in you, Mac--that's what's the matter with
you----"
"Same to you, sir."
"But my great-great-grandmother was a Huguenot and the French, you know,
had a saving sense of humor. The Scotch are thick, Mac!"
"Well, I'm too thick to know what you mean by lambastin' our only
salvation. The Ku Klux Klan have had just one parade--and there hasn't been
a barn burnt in this county or a white woman scared since, and every nigger
I've met to-day has taken off his hat----"
"Are you a member of the Klan, Mac?" The question was asked with his face
turned away.
The farmer hesitated, looked up at the ceiling and quietly answered:
"None of your business--and that's neither here nor there--you know that
every nigger is organized in that secret Black League, grinning and
whispering its signs and passwords--you know that they've already begun to
grip the throats of our women. The Klan's the only way to save this country
from hell--what do you mean by jumpin' on it?"
"The Black League's a bad thing, Mac, and the Klan's a bad thing----"
"All right--still you've got to fight the devil with fire----"
"You don't say so?" the editor said, while a queer smile played around his
serious mouth.
"Yes, by golly, I do say so," the farmer went on with increasing warmth,
"and what I can't understand is how you're against 'em. You're a leader.
You're a soldier--the bravest that ever led his men into the jaws of
death--I know, for I've been with you--and I just come down here to-day to
ask you the plain question, what do you mean?"
"The Klan _is_ a band of lawless night raiders, isn't it?"
"Oh, you make me tired! What are we to do without 'em, that's the
question?"
"Scotch! That's the trouble with you"--the young editor answered
carelessly. "Have you a pin?"
The rugged figure suddenly straightened as though a bolt of lightning had
shot down his spine.
"What's--what's that?" he gasped.
"I merely asked, have you a pin?" was the even answer, as Norton touched
the right lapel of his coat with his right hand.
The farmer hesitated a moment, and then slowly ran three trembling fingers
of his left hand over the left lapel of his coat, replying:
"I'm afraid not."
He looked at Norton a moment and turned pale. He had been given and had
returned the signs of the Klan. It might have been an accident. The rugged
face was a study of eager intensity as he put his friend to the test that
would tell. He slowly thrust the fingers of his right hand into the right
pocket of his trousers, the thumb protruding.
Norton quietly answered in the same way with his left hand.
The farmer looked into the smiling brown eyes of his commander for a moment
and his own filled with tears. He sprang forward and grasped the
outstretched hand:
"Dan Norton! I said last night to my God that you couldn't be against us!
And so I came to ask--oh, why--why've you been foolin' with me?"
The editor tenderly slipped his arm around his old comrade and whispered:
"The cunning of the fox and the courage of the lion now, Mac! It was easy
for our boys to die in battle while guns were thundering, fifes screaming,
drums beating and the banners waving. You and I have something harder to
do--we've got to live--our watchword, '_The cunning of the fox and the
courage of the lion!_' I've some dangerous work to do pretty soon. The
little Scalawag Governor is getting ready for us----"
"I want that job!" MacArthur cried eagerly.
"I'll let you know when the time comes."
The farmer smiled:
"I _am_ a Scotchman--ain't I?"
"And a good one, too!"
With his hand on the door, the rugged face aflame with patriotic fire, he
slowly repeated:
"The cunning of the fox and the courage of the lion!--And by the living
God, we'll win this time, boy!"
Norton heard him laugh aloud as he hurried down the stairs. Gazing again
from his window at the black clouds of negroes floating across the Square,
he slowly muttered:
"Yes, we'll win this time!--but twenty years from now--I wonder!"
He took up the little black coffin and smiled at the perfection of its
workmanship:
"I think I know the young gentleman who made that and he may give me
trouble."
He thrust the thing into a drawer, seized his hat, strolled down a side
street and slowly passed the cabinet shop of the workman whom he suspected.
It was closed. Evidently the master had business outside. It was barely
possible, of course, that he had gone to the galleries of the Capitol to
hear the long-expected message of the Governor against the Klan. The
galleries had been packed for the past two sessions in anticipation of this
threatened message. The Capital city was only a town of five thousand white
inhabitants and four thousand blacks. Rumors of impending political
movements flew from house to house with the swiftness of village gossip.
He walked to the Capitol building by a quiet street. As he passed through
the echoing corridor the rotund figure of Schlitz, the Carpetbagger,
leader of the House of Representatives, emerged from the Governor's office.
The red face flushed a purple hue as his eye rested on his arch-enemy of
the _Eagle and Phoenix_. He tried to smile and nodded to Norton. His smile
was answered by a cold stare and a quickened step.
Schlitz had been a teamster's scullion in the Union Army. He was not even
an army cook, but a servant of servants. He was now the master of the
Legislature of a great Southern state and controlled its black, ignorant
members with a snap of his bloated fingers. There was but one man Norton
loathed with greater intensity and that was the shrewd little Scalawag
Governor, the native traitor who had betrayed his people to win office. A
conference of these two cronies was always an ill omen for the state.
He hurried up the winding stairs, pushed his way into a corner of the
crowded galleries from which he could see every face and searched in vain
for his young workman.
He stood for a moment, looked down on the floor of the House and watched a
Black Parliament at work making laws to govern the children of the men who
had created the Republic--watched them through fetid smoke, the vapors of
stale whiskey and the deafening roar of half-drunken brutes as they voted
millions in taxes, their leaders had already stolen.
The red blood rushed to his cheeks and the big veins on his slender swarthy
neck stood out for a moment like drawn cords.
He hurried down to the Court House Square, walked with long, leisurely
stride through the thinning crowds, and paused before a vacant lot on the
opposite side of the street. A dozen or more horses were still tied to the
racks provided for the accommodation of countrymen.
"Funny," he muttered, "farmers start home before sundown, and it's dusk--I
wonder if it's possible!"
He crossed the street, strolled carelessly among the horses and noted that
their saddles had not been removed and the still more significant fact that
their saddle blankets were unusually thick. Only an eye trained to observe
this fact would have noticed it. He lifted the edge of one of the blankets
and saw the white and scarlet edges of a Klan costume. It was true. The
young dare-devil who had sent that message to old Peeler had planned an
unauthorized raid. Only a crowd of youngsters bent on a night's fun, he
knew; and yet the act at this moment meant certain anarchy unless he nipped
it in the bud. The Klan was a dangerous institution. Its only salvation lay
in the absolute obedience of its members to the orders of an intelligent
and patriotic chief. Unless the word of that chief remained the sole law of
its life, a reign of terror by irresponsible fools would follow at once. As
commander of the Klan in his county he must subdue this lawless element. It
must be done with an iron hand and done immediately or it would be too
late. His decision to act was instantaneous.
He sent a message to his wife that he couldn't get home for supper, locked
his door and in three hours finished his day's work. There was ample time
to head these boys off before they reached old Peeler's house. They
couldn't start before eleven, yet he would take no chances. He determined
to arrive an hour ahead of them.
The night was gloriously beautiful--a clear star-gemmed sky in the full
tide of a Southern summer, the first week in August. He paused inside the
gate of his home and drank for a moment the perfume of the roses on the
lawn. The light from the window of his wife's room poured a mellow flood of
welcome through the shadows beside the white, fluted columns. This home of
his father's was all the wreck of war had left him and his heart gave a
throb of joy to-night that it was his.
Behind the room where the delicate wife lay, a petted invalid, was the
nursery. His baby boy was there, nestling in the arms of the black mammy
who had nursed him twenty odd years ago. He could hear the soft crooning of
her dear old voice singing the child to sleep. The heart of the young
father swelled with pride. He loved his frail little wife with a deep,
tender passion, but this big rosy-cheeked, laughing boy, which she had
given him six months ago, he fairly worshipped.
He stopped again under the nursery window and listened to the music of the
cradle. The old lullaby had waked a mocking bird in a magnolia beside the
porch and he was answering her plaintive wail with a thrilling love song.
By the strange law of contrast, his memory flashed over the fields of death
he had trodden in the long war.
"What does it matter after all, these wars and revolutions, if God only
brings with each new generation a nobler breed of men!"
He tipped softly past the window lest his footfall disturb the loved ones
above, hurried to the stable, saddled his horse and slowly rode through the
quiet streets of the town. On clearing the last clump of negro cabins on
the outskirts his pace quickened to a gallop.
He stopped in the edge of the woods at the gate which opened from Peeler's
farm on the main road. The boys would have to enter here. He would stop
them at this spot.
The solemn beauty of the night stirred his soul to visions of the future,
and the coming battle which his Klan must fight for the mastery of the
state. The chirp of crickets, the song of katydids and the flash of
fireflies became the martial music and the flaming torches of triumphant
hosts he saw marching to certain victory. But the Klan he was leading was a
wild horse that must be broken to the bit or both horse and rider would
plunge to ruin.
There would be at least twenty or thirty of these young marauders to-night.
If they should unite in defying his authority it would be a serious and
dangerous situation. Somebody might be killed. And yet he waited without a
fear of the outcome. He had faced odds before. He loved a battle when the
enemy outnumbered him two to one. It stirred his blood. He had ridden with
Forrest one night at the head of four hundred daring, ragged veterans,
surrounded a crack Union regiment at two o'clock in the morning, and forced
their commander to surrender 1800 men before he discovered the real
strength of the attacking force. It stirred his blood to-night to know that
General Forrest was the Commander-in-Chief of his own daring Clansmen.
Half an hour passed without a sign of the youngsters. He grew uneasy. Could
they have dared to ride so early that they had reached the house before his
arrival? He must know at once. He opened the gate and galloped down the
narrow track at a furious pace.
A hundred yards from Peeler's front gate he drew rein and listened. A horse
neighed in the woods, and the piercing shriek of a woman left nothing to
doubt. They were already in the midst of their dangerous comedy.
He pressed cautiously toward the gate, riding in the shadows of the
overhanging trees. They were dragging old Peeler across the yard toward the
roadway, followed by the pleading voice of a woman begging for his
worthless life.
Realizing that the raid was now an accomplished fact, Norton waited to see
what the young fools were going to do. He was not long in doubt. They
dragged their panting, perspiring victim into the edge of the woods, tied
him to a sapling and bared his back. The leader stepped forward holding a
lighted torch whose flickering flames made an unearthly picture of the
distorted features and bulging eyes.
"Mr. Peeler," began the solemn muffled voice behind the cloth mask, "for
your many sins and blasphemies against God and man the preachers of this
county have assembled to-night to call you to repentance----"
The terror-stricken eyes bulged further and the fat neck twisted in an
effort to see how many ghastly figures surrounded him, as he gasped:
"Oh, Lord--oh, hell--are you all preachers?"
"All!" was the solemn echo from each sepulchral figure.
"Then I'm a goner--that coffin's too big----"
"Yea, verily, there'll be nothing left when we get through--Selah!"
solemnly cried the leader.
"But, say, look here, brethren," Peeler pleaded between shattering teeth,
"can't we compromise this thing? I'll repent and join the church. And
how'll a contribution of fifty dollars each strike you? Now what do you say
to that?"
The coward's voice had melted into a pious whine.
The leader selected a switch from the bundle extended by a shrouded figure
and without a word began to lay on. Peeler's screams could be heard a mile.
Norton allowed them to give him a dozen lashes and spurred his horse into
the crowd. There was a wild scramble to cover and most of the boys leaped
to their saddles. Three white figures resolutely stood their ground.
"What's the meaning of this, sir?" Norton sternly demanded of the man who
still held the switch.
"Just a little fun, major," was the sheepish answer.
"A dangerous piece of business."
"For God's sake, save me, Major Norton!" Peeler cried, suddenly waking from
the spell of fear. "They've got me, sir--and it's just like I told you,
they're all preachers--I'm a goner!"
Norton sprang from his horse and faced the three white figures.
"Who's in command of this crowd?"
"I am, sir!" came the quick answer from a stalwart masquerader who suddenly
stepped from the shadows.
Norton recognized the young cabinet-maker's voice, and spoke in low tense
tones:
"By whose authority are you using these disguises, to-night?"
"It's none of your business!"
The tall sinewy figure suddenly stiffened, stepped close and peered into
the eyes of the speaker's mask:
"Does my word go here to-night or must I call out a division of the Klan?"
A moment's hesitation and the eyes behind the mask fell:
"All right, sir--nothing but a boyish frolic," muttered the leader
apologetically.
"Let this be the end of such nonsense," Norton said with a quiet drawl. "If
I catch you fellows on a raid like this again I'll hang your leader to the
first limb I find--good night."
A whistle blew and the beat of horses' hoofs along the narrow road told
their hurried retreat.
Norton loosed the cords and led old Peeler to his house. As the fat,
wobbling legs mounted the steps the younger man paused at a sound from
behind and before he could turn a girl sprang from the shadows into his
arms, and slipped to her knees, sobbing hysterically:
"Save me!--they're going to beat me--they'll beat me to death--don't let
them--please--please don't let them!"
By the light from the window he saw that her hair was a deep rich red with
the slightest tendency to curl and her wide dilated eyes a soft greenish
grey.
He was too astonished to speak for a moment and Peeler hastened to say:
"That's our little gal, Cleo--that is--I--mean--of--course--it's Lucy's
gal! She's just home from school and she's scared to death and I don't
blame her!"
The girl clung to her rescuer with desperate grip, pressing her trembling
form close with each convulsive sob.
The man drew the soft arms down, held them a moment and looked into the
dumb frightened face. He was surprised at her unusual beauty. Her skin was
a delicate creamy yellow, almost white, and her cheeks were tinged with the
brownish red of ripe apple. As he looked in to her eyes he fancied that he
saw a young leopardess from an African jungle looking at him through the
lithe, graceful form of a Southern woman.
And then something happened in the shadows that stood out forever in his
memory of that day as the turning point of his life.
Laughing at her fears, he suddenly lifted his hand and gently stroked the
tangled red hair, smoothing it back from her forehead with a movement
instinctive, and irresistible as he would have smoothed the fur of a yellow
Persian kitten.
Surprised at his act, he turned without a word and left the place.
And all the way home, through the solemn starlit night, he brooded over the
strange meeting with this extraordinary girl. He forgot his fight. One
thing only stood out with increasing vividness--the curious and
irresistible impulse that caused him to stroke her hair. Personally he had
always loathed the Southern white man who stooped and crawled through the
shadows to meet such women. She was a negress and he knew it, and yet the
act was instinctive and irresistible.
Why?
He asked himself the question a hundred times, and the longer he faced it
the angrier he became at his stupid folly. For hours he lay awake, seeing
in the darkness only the face of this girl.
CHAPTER II
CLEO ENTERS
The conference of the carpetbagger with the little Governor proved more
ominous than even Norton had feared. The blow struck was so daring, so
swift and unexpected it stunned for a moment the entire white race.
When the editor reached his office on the second morning after the raid,
his desk was piled with telegrams from every quarter of the state. The
Governor had issued a proclamation disarming every white military company
and by wire had demanded the immediate surrender of their rifles to the
negro Adjutant-General. The same proclamation had created an equal number
of negro companies who were to receive these guns and equipments.
The negroid state Government would thus command an armed black guard of
fifty thousand men and leave the white race without protection.
Evidently His Excellency was a man of ambitions. It was rumored that he
aspired to the Vice-Presidency and meant to win the honor by a campaign of
such brilliance that the solid negro-ruled South would back him in the
National Convention.
Beyond a doubt, this act was the first step in a daring attempt inspired by
the radical fanatics in Congress to destroy the structure of white
civilization in the South.
And the Governor's resources were apparently boundless. President Johnson,
though a native Southerner, was a puppet now in the hands of his powerful
enemies who dominated Congress. These men boldly proclaimed their purpose
to make the South negro territory by confiscating the property of the
whites and giving it to the negroes. Their bill to do this, House Bill
Number Twenty-nine, introduced by the government leader, Thaddeus Stevens,
was already in the calendar and Mr. Stevens was pressing for its passage
with all the skill of a trained politician inspired by the fiercest hate.
The army had been sent back into the prostrate South to enforce the edicts
of Congress and the negro state government could command all the Federal
troops needed for any scheme concocted.
But the little Governor had a plan up his sleeve by which he proposed to
startle even the Black Radical Administration at Washington. He was going
to stamp out "Rebellion" without the aid of Federal troops, reserving his
right to call them finally as a last resort. That they were ready at his
nod gave him the moral support of their actual presence.
That any man born of a Southern mother and reared in the South under the
conditions of refinement and culture, of the high ideals and the courage of
the old regime, could fall so low as to use this proclamation, struck
Norton at first as impossible. He refused to believe it. There must be some
misunderstanding. He sent a messenger to the Capitol for a copy of the
document before he was fully convinced.
And then he laughed in sheer desperation at the farce-tragedy to which the
life of a brave people had been reduced. It was his business as an editor
to record the daily history of the times. For a moment in imagination he
stood outside his office and looked at his work.
"Future generations simply can't be made to believe it!" he exclaimed.
"It's too grotesque to be credible even to-day."
It had never occurred to him that the war was unreasonable. Its passions,
its crushing cost, its bloodstained fields, its frightful cruelties were of
the great movements of the race from a lower to a higher order of life.
Progress could only come through struggle. War was the struggle which had
to be when two great moral forces clashed. One must die, the other live. A
great issue had to be settled in the Civil War, an issue raised by the
creation of the Constitution itself, an issue its creators had not dared to
face. And each generation of compromisers and interpreters had put it off
and put it off until at last the storm of thundering guns broke from a
hundred hills at once.
It had never been decided by the builders of the Republic whether it should
be a mighty unified nation or a loose aggregation of smaller sovereignties.
Slavery made it necessary to decide this fundamental question on which the
progress of America and the future leadership of the world hung.
He could see all this clearly now. He had felt it dimly true throughout
every bloody scene of the war itself. And so he had closed the eyes of the
lonely dying boy with a reverent smile. It was for his country. He had died
for what he believed to be right and it was good. He had stood bareheaded
in solemn court martials and sentenced deserters to death, led them out in
the gray morning to be shot and ordered them dumped into shallow trenches
without a doubt or a moment's hesitation. He had walked over battlefields
at night and heard the groans of the wounded, the sighs of the dying, the
curses of the living, beneath the silent stars and felt that in the end it
must be good. It was war, and war, however cruel, was inevitable--the great
High Court of Life and Death for the nations of earth.
But this base betrayal which had followed the honorable surrender of a
brave, heroic army--this wanton humiliation of a ruined people by pot-house
politicians--this war on the dead, the wounded, the dying, and their
defenseless women--this enthronement of Savagery, Superstition, Cowardice
and Brutality in high places where Courage and Honor and Chivalry had
ruled--these vandals and camp followers and vultures provoking violence and
exciting crime, set to rule a brave people who had risked all for a
principle and lost--this was a nightmare; it was the reduction of human
society to an absurdity!
For a moment he saw the world red. Anger, fierce and cruel, possessed him.
The desire to kill gripped and strangled until he could scarcely breathe.
Nor did it occur to this man for a moment that he could separate his
individual life from the life of his people. His paper was gaining in
circulation daily. It was paying a good dividend now and would give his
loved ones the luxuries he had dreamed for them. The greater the turmoil
the greater his profits would be. And yet this idea never once flashed
through his mind. His people were of his heart's blood. He had no life
apart from them. Their joys were his, their sorrows his, their shame his.
This proclamation of a traitor to his race struck him in the face as a
direct personal insult. The hot shame of it found his soul.
When the first shock of surprise and indignation had spent itself, he
hurried to answer his telegrams. His hand wrote now with the eager, sure
touch of a master who knew his business. To every one he sent in substance
the same message:
"Submit and await orders."
As he sat writing the fierce denunciation of this act of the Chief
Executive of the state, he forgot his bitterness in the thrill of life that
meant each day a new adventure. He was living in an age whose simple record
must remain more incredible than the tales of the Arabian Nights. And the
spell of its stirring call was now upon him.
The drama had its comedy moments, too. He could but laugh at the sorry
figures the little puppets cut who were strutting for a day in pomp and
splendor. Their end was as sure as the sweep of eternal law. Water could
not be made to run up hill by the proclamation of a Governor.
He had made up his mind within an hour to give the Scalawag a return blow
that would be more swift and surprising than his own. On the little man's
reception of that counter stroke would hang the destiny of his
administration and the history of the state for the next generation.
On the day the white military companies surrendered their arms to their
negro successors something happened that was not on the programme of the
Governor.
The Ku Klux Klan held its second grand parade. It was not merely a dress
affair. A swift and silent army of drilled, desperate men, armed and
disguised, moved with the precision of clockwork at the command of one
mind. At a given hour the armory of every negro military company in the
state was broken open and its guns recovered by the white and scarlet
cavalry of the "Invisible Empire."
Within the next hour every individual negro in the state known to be in
possession of a gun or pistol was disarmed. Resistance was futile. The
attack was so sudden and so unexpected, the attacking party so overwhelming
at the moment, each black man surrendered without a blow and a successful
revolution was accomplished in a night without a shot or the loss of a
life.
Next morning the Governor paced the floor of his office in the Capitol with
the rage of a maddened beast, and Schlitz, the Carpetbagger, was summoned
for a second council of war. It proved to be a very important meeting in
the history of His Excellency.
The editor sat at his desk that day smiling in quiet triumph as he read the
facetious reports wired by his faithful lieutenants from every district of
the Klan. An endless stream of callers had poured through his modest little
room and prevented any attempt at writing. He had turned the columns over
to his assistants and the sun was just sinking in a smother of purple glory
when he turned from his window and began to write his leader for the day.
It was an easy task. A note of defiant power ran through a sarcastic
warning to the Governor that found the quick. The editorial flashed with
wit and stung with bitter epigram. And there was in his consciousness of
power a touch of cruelty that should have warned the Scalawag against his
next act of supreme folly.
But His Excellency had bad advisers, and the wheels of Fate moved swiftly
toward the appointed end.
Norton wrote this editorial with a joy that gave its crisp sentences the
ring of inspired leadership. He knew that every paper in the state read by
white men and women would copy it and he already felt in his heart the
reflex thrill of its call to his people.
He had just finished his revision of the last paragraph when a deep,
laughing voice beside his chair slowly said:
"May I come in?"
He looked up with a start to find the tawny figure of the girl whose red
hair he had stroked that night bowing and smiling. Her white, perfect teeth
gleamed in the gathering twilight and her smile displayed two pretty
dimples in the brownish red cheeks.
"I say, may I come in?" she repeated with a laugh.
"It strikes me you are pretty well in," Norton said good-humoredly.
"Yes, I didn't have any cards. So I came right up. It's getting dark and
nobody saw me----"
The editor frowned and moved uneasily
"You're alone, aren't you?" she asked.
"The others have all gone to supper, I believe."
"Yes, I waited 'til they left. I watched from the Square 'til I saw them
go."
"Why?" he asked sharply.
"I don't know. I reckon I was afraid of 'em."
"And you're not afraid of me?" he laughed.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I know you."
Norton smiled:
"You wish to see me?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything wrong at Mr. Peeler's?"
"No, I just came to thank you for what you did and see if you wouldn't let
me work for you?"
"Work? Where--here?"
"Yes. I can keep the place clean. My mother said it was awful. And, honest,
it's worse than I expected. It doesn't look like it's been cleaned in a
year."
"I don't believe it has," the editor admitted.
"Let me keep it decent for you."
"Thanks, no. It seems more home-like this way."
"Must it be so dirty?" she asked, looking about the room and picking up the
scattered papers from the floor.
Norton, watching her with indulgent amusement at her impudence, saw that
she moved her young form with a rhythmic grace that was perfect. The simple
calico dress, with a dainty little check, fitted her perfectly. It was cut
low and square at the neck and showed the fine lines of a beautiful throat.
Her arms were round and finely shaped and bare to an inch above the elbows.
The body above the waistline was slender, and the sinuous free movement of
her figure showed that she wore no corset. Her step was as light as a cat's
and her voice full of good humor and the bubbling spirits of a perfectly
healthy female animal.
His first impulse was to send her about her business with a word of
dismissal. But when she laughed it was with such pleasant assurance and
such faith in his friendliness it was impossible to be rude.
She picked up the last crumpled paper and laid it on a table beside the
wall, turned and said softly:
"Well, if you don't want me to clean up for you, anyhow, I brought you some
flowers for your room--they're outside."
She darted through the door and returned in a moment with an armful of
roses.
"My mother let me cut them from our yard, and she told me to thank you for
coming that night. They'd have killed us if you hadn't come."
"Nonsense, they wouldn't have touched either you or your mother!"
"Yes, they would, too. Goodness--haven't you anything to put the flowers
in?"
She tipped softly about the room, holding the roses up and arranging them
gracefully.
Norton watched her with a lazy amused interest. He couldn't shake off the
impression that she was a sleek young animal, playful and irresponsible,
that had strayed from home and wandered into his office. And he loved
animals. He never passed a stray dog or a cat without a friendly word of
greeting. He had often laid on his lounge at home, when tired, and watched
a kitten play an hour with unflagging interest. Every movement of this
girl's lithe young body suggested such a scene--especially the velvet tread
of her light foot, and the delicate motions of her figure followed suddenly
by a sinuous quick turn and a childish laugh or cry. The faint shadows of
negro blood in her creamy skin and the purring gentleness of her voice
seemed part of the gathering twilight. Her eyes were apparently twice the
size as when first he saw them, and the pupils, dilated in the dusk,
flashed with unusual brilliance.
She had wandered into the empty reporters' room without permission looking
for a vase, came back and stood in the doorway laughing:
"This is the dirtiest place I ever got into in my life. Gracious! Isn't
there a thing to put the flowers in?"
The editor, roused from his reveries, smiled and answered:
"Put them in the pitcher."
"Why, yes, of course, the pitcher!" she cried, rushing to the little
washstand.
"Why, there isn't a drop of water in it--I'll go to the well and get some."
She seized the pitcher, laid the flowers down in the bowl, darted out the
door and flew across the street to the well in the Court House Square.
The young editor walked carelessly to the window and watched her. She
simply couldn't get into an ungraceful attitude. Every movement was
instinct with vitality. She was alive to her finger tips. Her body swayed
in perfect rhythmic unison with her round, bare arms as she turned the
old-fashioned rope windlass, drew the bucket to the top and dropped it
easily on the wet wooden lids that flapped back in place.
She was singing now a crooning, half-savage melody her mother had taught
her. The low vibrant notes of her voice, deep and tender and quivering with
a strange intensity, floated across the street through the gathering
shadows. The voice had none of the light girlish quality of her age of
eighteen, but rather the full passionate power of a woman of twenty-five.
The distance, the deepening shadows and the quiet of the town's lazy life,
added to the dreamy effectiveness of the song.
"Beautiful!" the man exclaimed. "The negro race will give the world a great
singer some day----"
And then for the first time in his life the paradox of his personal
attitude toward this girl and his attitude in politics toward the black
race struck him as curious. He had just finished an editorial in which he
had met the aggressions of the negro and his allies with the fury, the
scorn, the defiance, the unyielding ferocity with which the Anglo-Saxon
conqueror has always treated his inferiors. And yet he was listening to the
soft tones of this girl's voice with a smile as he watched with
good-natured indulgence the light gleam mischievously from her impudent big
eyes while she moved about his room.
Yet this was not to be wondered at. The history of the South and the
history of slavery made such a paradox inevitable. The long association
with the individual negro in the intimacy of home life had broken down the
barriers of personal race repugnance. He had grown up with negro boys and
girls as playmates. He had romped and wrestled with them. Every servant in
every home he had ever known had been a negro. The first human face he
remembered bending over his cradle was a negro woman's. He had fallen
asleep in her arms times without number. He had found refuge there against
his mother's stern commands and sobbed out on her breast the story of his
fancied wrongs and always found consolation. "Mammy's darlin'" was always
right--the world cruel and wrong! He had loved this old nurse since he
could remember. She was now nursing his own and he would defend her with
his life without a moment's hesitation.
And so it came about inevitably that while he had swung his white and
scarlet legions of disguised Clansmen in solid line against the Governor
and smashed his negro army without the loss of a single life, he was at the
same moment proving himself defenseless against the silent and deadly
purpose that had already shaped itself in the soul of this sleek, sensuous
young animal. He was actually smiling with admiration at the beautiful
picture he saw as she lifted the white pitcher, placed it on the crown of
red hair, and crossed the street.
She was still softly singing as she entered the room and arranged the
flowers in pretty confusion.
Norton had lighted his lamp and seated himself at his desk again. She came
close and looked over his shoulder at the piles of papers.
"How on earth can you work in such a mess?" she asked with a laugh.
"Used to it," he answered without looking up from the final reading of his
editorial.
"What's that you've written?"
The impudent greenish gray eyes bent closer.
"Oh, a little talk to the Governor----"
"I bet it's a hot one. Peeler says you don't like the Governor--read it to
me!"
The editor looked up at the mischievous young face and laughed aloud:
"I'm afraid you wouldn't understand it."
The girl joined in the laugh and the dimples in the reddish brown cheeks
looked prettier than ever.
"Maybe I wouldn't," she agreed.
He resumed his reading and she leaned over his chair until he felt the soft
touch of her shoulder against his. She was staring at his paste-pot,
extended her tapering, creamy finger and touched the paste.
"What in the world's that?" she cried, giggling again.
"Paste."
Another peal of silly laughter echoed through the room.
"Lord, I thought it was mush and milk--I thought it was your supper!--don't
you eat no supper?"
"Sometimes."
The editor looked up with a slight frown and said:
"Run along now, child, I've got to work. And tell your mother I'm obliged
for the flowers."
"I'm not going back home----"
"Why not?"
"I'm scared out there. I've come in town to live with my aunt."
"Well, tell her when you see her."
"Please let me clean this place up for you?" she pleaded.
"Not to-night."
"To-morrow morning, then? I'll come early and every morning--please--let
me--it's all I can do to thank you. I'll do it a month just to show you how
pretty I can keep it and then you can pay me if you want me. It's a
bargain, isn't it?"
The editor smiled, hesitated, and said:
"All right--every morning at seven."
"Thank you, major--good night!"
She paused at the door and her white teeth gleamed in the shadows. She
turned and tripped down the stairs, humming again the strangely appealing
song she had sung at the well.
CHAPTER III
A BEAST AWAKES
Within a week Norton bitterly regretted the arrangement he had made with
Cleo. Not because she had failed to do her work properly, but precisely
because she was doing it so well. She had apparently made it the sole
object of her daily thought and the only task to which she devoted her
time.
He couldn't accustom his mind to the extraordinary neatness with which she
kept the office. The clean floor, the careful arrangement of the chairs,
the neat piles of exchanges laid on a table she had placed beside his desk,
and the vase of fresh flowers he found each morning, were constant
reminders of her personality which piqued his curiosity and disturbed his
poise.
He had told her to come at seven every morning. It was his habit to reach
the office and begin reading the exchanges by eight-thirty and he had not
expected to encounter her there. She had always managed, however, to linger
over her morning tasks until his arrival, and never failed to greet him
pleasantly and ask if there were anything else she could do. She also
insisted on coming at noon to fill his pitcher and again just before supper
to change the water in the vase of flowers.
At this last call she always tried to engage him in a few words of small
talk. At first this program made no impression on his busy brain except
that she was trying to prove her value as a servant. Gradually, however,
he began to notice that her dresses were cut with remarkable neatness for a
girl of her position and that she showed a rare talent in selecting
materials becoming to her creamy yellow skin and curling red hair.
He observed, too, that she had acquired the habit of hanging about his desk
when finishing her tasks and had a queer way of looking at him and
laughing.
She began to make him decidedly uncomfortable and he treated her with
indifference. No matter how sullen the scowl with which he greeted her, she
was always smiling and humming snatches of strange songs. He sought for an
excuse to discharge her and could find none. She had the instincts of a
perfect servant--intelligent, careful and loyal. She never blundered over
the papers on his desk. She seemed to know instinctively what was worthless
and what was valuable, and never made a mistake in rearranging the chaotic
piles of stuff he left in his wake.
He thought once for just a moment of the possibility of her loyalty to the
negro race. She might in that case prove a valuable spy to the Governor and
his allies. He dismissed the idea as preposterous. She never associated
with negroes if she could help it and apparently was as innocent as a babe
of the nature of the terrific struggle in which he was engaged with the
negroid government of the state.
And yet she disturbed him deeply and continuously, as deeply sometimes when
absent as when present.
Why?
He asked himself the question again and again. Why should he dislike her?
She did her work promptly and efficiently, and for the first time within
his memory the building was really fit for human habitation.
At last he guessed the truth and it precipitated the first battle of his
life with the beast that slumbered within. Feeling her physical nearness
more acutely than usual at dusk and noting that she had paused in her task
near his desk, he slowly lifted his eyes from the paper he was reading and,
before she realized it, caught the look on her face when off guard. The
girl was in love with him. It was as clear as day now that he had the key
to her actions the past week. For this reason she had come and for this
reason she was working with such patience and skill.
His first impulse was one of rage. He had little of the vanity of the male
animal that struts before the female. His pet aversion was the man of his
class who lowered himself to vulgar association with such girls. The fact
that, at this time in the history of the South, such intrigues were common
made his determination all the more bitter as a leader of his race to stand
for its purity.
He suddenly swung in his chair, determined to dismiss her at once with as
few words as possible.
She leaped gracefully back with a girlish laugh, so soft, low and full of
innocent surprise, the harsh words died on his lips.
"Lordy, major," she cried, "how you scared me! I thought you had a fit. Did
a pin stick you--or maybe a flea bit you?"
She leaned against the mantel laughing, her white teeth gleaming.
He hesitated a moment, his eyes lingered on the graceful pose of her young
figure, his ear caught the soft note of friendly tenderness in her voice
and he was silent.
"What's the matter?" she asked, stepping closer.
"Nothing."
"Well, you made an awful fuss about it!"
"Just thought of something--suddenly----"
"I thought you were going to bite my head off and then that something bit
you!"
Again she laughed and walked slowly to the door, her greenish eyes watching
him with studied carelessness, as a cat a mouse. Every movement of her
figure was music, her smile contagious, and, by a subtle mental telepathy,
she knew that the man before her felt it, and her heart was singing a
savage song of triumph. She could wait. She had everything to gain and
nothing to lose. She belonged to the pariah world of the Negro. Her love
was patient, joyous, insistent, unconquerable.
It was unusually joyous to-night because she felt without words that the
mad desires that burned a living fire in every nerve of her young body had
scorched the man she had marked her own from the moment she had first laid
eyes on his serious, aristocratic face--for back of every hysterical cry
that came from her lips that night in the shadows beside old Peeler's house
lay the sinister purpose of a mad love that had leaped full grown from the
deeps of her powerful animal nature.
She paused in the doorway and softly said:
"Good night."
The tone of her voice was a caress and the bold eyes laughed a daring
challenge straight into his.
He stared at her a moment, flushed, turned pale and answered in a strained
voice:
"Good night, Cleo."
But it was not a good night for him. It was a night never to be forgotten.
Until after twelve he walked beneath the stars and fought the Beast--the
Beast with a thousand heads and a thousand legs; the Beast that had been
bred in the bone and sinew of generations of ancestors, wilful, cruel,
courageous conquerors of the world. Before its ravenous demands the words
of mother, teacher, priest and lawgiver were as chaff before the
whirlwind--the Beast demanded his own! Peace came at last with the vision
of a baby's laughing face peeping at him from the arms of a frail little
mother.
He made up his mind and hurried home. He would get rid of this girl
to-morrow and never again permit her shadow to cross his pathway. With
other men of more sluggish temperament, position, dignity, the
responsibility of leadership, the restraints of home and religion might be
the guarantee of safety under such temptations. He didn't propose to risk
it. He understood now why he was so nervous and distracted in her presence.
The mere physical proximity to such a creature, vital, magnetic, unmoral,
beautiful and daring, could only mean one thing to a man of his age and
inheritance--a temptation so fierce that yielding could only be a question
of time and opportunity.
And when he told her the next morning that she must not come again she was
not surprised, but accepted his dismissal without a word of protest.
With a look of tenderness she merely said:
"I'm sorry."
"Yes," he went on curtly, "you annoy me; I can't write while you are
puttering around, and I'm always afraid you'll disturb some of my papers."
She laughed in his face, a joyous, impudent, good-natured, ridiculous
laugh, that said more eloquently than words:
"I understand your silly excuse. You're afraid of me. You're a big coward.
Don't worry, I can wait. You'll come to me. And if not, I'll find you--for
I shall be near--and now that you know and fear, I shall be very near!"
She moved shyly to the door and stood framed in its white woodwork, an
appealing picture of dumb regret.
She had anticipated this from the first. And from the moment she threw the
challenge into his eyes the night before, saw him flush and pale beneath
it, she knew it must come at once, and was prepared. There was no use to
plead and beg or argue. It would be a waste of breath with him in this
mood.
Besides, she had already found a better plan.
So when he began to try to soften his harsh decision with kindly words she
only smiled in the friendliest possible way, stepped back to his desk,
extended her hand, and said:
"Please let me know if you need me. I'll do anything on earth for you,
major. Good-by."
It was impossible to refuse the gracefully outstretched hand. The Southern
man had been bred from the cradle to the most intimate and friendly
personal relations with the black folks who were servants in the house. Yet
the moment he touched her hand, felt its soft warm pressure and looked into
the depths of her shining eyes he wished that he had sent her away with
downright rudeness.
But it was impossible to be rude with this beautiful young animal that
purred at his side. He started to say something harsh, she laughed and he
laughed.
She held his hand clasped in hers for a moment and slowly said:
"I haven't done anything wrong, have I, major?"
"No."
"You are not mad at me for anything?"
"No, certainly not."
"I wonder why you won't let me work here?"
She looked about the room and back at him, speaking slowly, musingly, with
an impudence that left little doubt in his mind that she suspected the real
reason and was deliberately trying to tease him.
He flushed, hurriedly withdrew his hand and replied carelessly:
"You bother me--can't work when you're fooling around."
"All right, good-bye."
He turned to his work and she was gone. He was glad she was out of his
sight and out of his life forever. He had been a fool to allow her in the
building at all.
He could concentrate his mind now on his fight with the Governor.
CHAPTER IV
THE ARREST
The time had come in Norton's fight when he was about to be put to a
supreme test.
The Governor was preparing the most daring and sensational movement of his
never-to-be-forgotten administration. The audacity and thoroughness with
which the Klan had disarmed and made ridiculous his army of fifty thousand
negroes was at first a stunning blow. In vain Schlitz stormed and pleaded
for National aid.
"You must ask for Federal troops without a moment's delay," he urged
desperately.
The Scalawag shook his head with quiet determination.
"Congress, under the iron rule of Stevens, will send them, I grant you----"
"Then why hesitate?"
"Because their coming would mean that I have been defeated on my own soil,
that my administration of the state is a failure."
"Well, isn't it?"
"No; I'll make good my promises to the men in Washington who have backed
me. They are preparing to impeach the President, remove him from office and
appoint a dictator in his stead. I'll show them that I can play my part in
the big drama, too. I am going to deliver this state bound hand and foot
into their hands, with a triumphant negro electorate in the saddle, or
I'll go down in ignominious defeat."
"You'll go down, all right--without those troops--mark my word," cried the
Carpetbagger.
"All right, I'll go down flying my own flag."
"You're a fool!" Schlitz roared. "Union troops are our only hope!"
His Excellency kept his temper. The little ferret eyes beneath their bushy
brows were drawn to narrow lines as he slowly said:
"On the other hand, my dear Schlitz, I don't think I could depend on
Federal troops if they were here."
"No?" was the indignant sneer.
"Frankly I do not," was the even answer. "Federal officers have not shown
themselves very keen about executing the orders of Reconstruction
Governors. They have often pretended to execute them and in reality treated
us with contempt. They hold, in brief, that they fought to preserve the
Union, not to make negroes rule over white men! The task before us is not
to their liking. I don't trust them for a moment. I have a better plan----"
"What?"
"I propose to raise immediately an army of fifty thousand loyal white men,
arm and drill them without delay----"
"Where'll you get them?" Schlitz cried incredulously.
"I'll find them if I have to drag the gutters for every poor white scamp in
the state. They'll be a tough lot, maybe, but they'll make good soldiers. A
soldier is a man who obeys orders, draws his pay, and asks no
questions----"
"And then what?"
"And then, sir!----"
The Governor's leathery little face flushed as he sprang to his feet and
paced the floor of his office in intense excitement.
"I'll tell you what then!" Schlitz cried with scorn.
The pacing figure paused and eyed his tormentor, lifting his shaggy brows:
"Yes?"
"And then," the Carpetbagger answered, "the Ku Klux Klan will rise in a
night, jump on your mob of ragamuffins, take their guns and kick them back
into the gutter."
"Perhaps," the Governor said, musingly, "if I give them a chance! But I
won't!"
"You won't? How can you prevent it?"
"Very simply. I'll issue a proclamation suspending the _writ_ of _habeas
corpus_----"
"But you have no right," Schlitz gasped. The ex-scullion had been studying
law the past two years and aspired to the Supreme Court bench.
"My right is doubtful, but it will go in times of revolution. I'll suspend
the _writ_, arrest the leaders of the Klan without warrant, put them in
jail and hold them there without trial until the day after the election."
Schlitz's eyes danced as he sprang forward and extended his fat hand to the
Scalawag:
"Governor, you're a great man! Only a great mind would dare such a plan.
But do you think your life will be safe?"
The little figure was drawn erect and the ferret eyes flashed:
"The Governor of a mighty commonwealth--they wouldn't dare lift their
little finger against me."
Schlitz shook his head dubiously.
"A pretty big job in times of peace--to suspend the civil law, order
wholesale arrests without warrants by a ragged militia and hold your men
without trial----"
"I like the job!" was the quick answer. "I'm going to show the smart young
man who edits the paper in this town that he isn't running the universe."
Again the adventurer seized the hand of his chief:
"Governor, you're a great man! I take my hat off to you, sir."
His Excellency smiled, lifted his sloping shoulders, moistened his thin
lips and whispered:
"Not a word now to a living soul until I strike----"
"I understand, sir, not a word," the Carpetbagger replied in low tones as
he nervously fumbled his hat and edged his way out of the room.
The editor received the Governor's first move in the game with contempt. It
was exactly what he had expected--this organization of white renegades,
thieves, loafers, cut-throats, and deserters. It was the last resort of
desperation. Every day, while these dirty ignorant recruits were being
organized and drilled, he taunted the Governor over the personnel of his
"Loyal" army. He began the publication of the history of its officers and
men. These biographical stories were written with a droll humor that kept
the whole state in a good-humored ripple of laughter and inspired the
convention that nominated a complete white man's ticket to renewed
enthusiasm.
And then the bolt from the blue--the Governor's act of supreme madness!
As the editor sat at his desk writing an editorial congratulating the state
on the brilliant ticket that the white race had nominated and predicting
its triumphant election, in spite of negroes, thieves, cut-throats,
Scalawags and Carpetbaggers, a sudden commotion on the sidewalk in front of
his office stopped his pencil in the midst of an unfinished word.
He walked to the window and looked out. By the flickering light of the
street lamp he saw an excited crowd gathering in the street.
A company of the Governor's new guard had halted in front. An officer
ripped off the palings from the picket fence beside the building and sent a
squad of his men to the rear.
The tramp of heavy feet on the stairs was heard and the dirty troopers
crowded into the editor's room, muskets in hand, cocked, and their fingers
on the triggers.
Norton quietly drew the pencil from his ear, smiled at the mottled group of
excited men, and spoke in his slow drawl:
"And why this excitement, gentlemen?"
The captain stepped forward:
"Are you Major Daniel Norton?"
"I am, sir."
"You're my prisoner."
"Show your warrant!" was the quick challenge.
"I don't need one, sir."
"Indeed! And since when is this state under martial law?"
"Will you go peaceable?" the captain asked roughly.
"When I know by whose authority you make this arrest."
The editor walked close to the officer, drew himself erect, his hands
clenched behind his back and held the man's eye for a moment with a cold
stare.
The captain hesitated and drew a document from his pocket.
The editor scanned it hastily and suddenly turned pale:
"A proclamation suspending the _writ_ of _habeas corpus_--impossible!"
The captain lifted his dirty palms:
"I reckon you can read!"
"Oh, yes, I can read it, captain--still it's impossible. You can't suspend
the law of gravitation by saying so on a scrap of paper----"
"You are ready to go?"
The editor laughed:
"Certainly, certainly--with pleasure, I assure you."
The captain lifted his hand and his men lowered their guns. The editor
seized a number of blank writing pads, a box of pencils, put on his hat and
called to his assistants:
"I'm moving my office temporarily to the county jail, boys. It's quieter
over there. I can do better work. Send word to my home that I'm all right
and tell my wife not to worry for a minute. Every man to his post now and
the liveliest paper ever issued! And on time to the minute."
The printers had crowded into the room and a ringing cheer suddenly
startled the troopers.
The foreman held an ugly piece of steel in his hand and every man seemed to
have hold of something.
"Give the word, chief!" the foreman cried.
The editor smiled:
"Thanks, boys, I understand. Go back to your work. You can help best that
way."
The men dropped their weapons and crowded to the door, jeering and howling
in derision at the awkward squad as they stumbled down the stairs after
their commander, who left the building holding tightly to the editor's arm,
as if at any moment he expected an escape or a rescue.
The procession wended its way to the jail behind the Court House through a
crowd of silent men who merely looked at the prisoner, smiled and nodded to
him over the heads of his guard.
An ominous quiet followed the day's work. The Governor was amazed at the
way his sensational coup was received. He had arrested and thrown into jail
without warrant the leaders of the white party in every county in the
state. He was absolutely sure that these men were the leaders of the Ku
Klux Klan, the one invisible but terrible foe he really feared.
He had expected bluster, protests, mass meetings and fiery resolutions.
Instead his act was received with a silence that was uncanny. In vain his
Carpetbagger lieutenant congratulated him on the success of his Napoleonic
move.
His little ferret eyes snapped with suppressed excitement.
"But what the devil is the meaning of this silence, Schlitz?" he asked with
a tremor.
"They're stunned, I tell you. It was a master stroke. They're a lot of
cowards and sneaks, these night raiders, anyhow. It only took a bold act of
authority to throw them into a panic."
The Scalawag shook his head thoughtfully:
"Doesn't look like a panic to me--I'm uneasy----"
"The only possible mistake you've made was the arrest of Norton."
"Yes, I know public sentiment in the North don't like an attempt to
suppress free speech, but I simply had to do it. Damn him, I've stood his
abuse as long as I'm going to. Besides his dirty sheet is at the bottom of
all our trouble."
When the Governor scanned his copy of the next morning's _Eagle and
Phoenix_ his feeling of uneasiness increased.
Instead of the personal abuse he had expected from the young firebrand, he
read a long, carefully written editorial reviewing the history of the great
_writ_ of _habeas corpus_ in the evolution of human freedom. The essay
closed with the significant statement that no Governor in the records of
the state or the colony had ever dared to repeal or suspend this guarantee
of Anglo-Saxon liberty--not even for a moment during the chaos of the Civil
War.
But the most disquieting feature of this editorial was the suggestive fact
that it was set between heavy mourning lines and at the bottom of it stood
a brief paragraph enclosed in even heavier black bands:
"We regret to announce that the state is at present without
a chief executive. Our late unlamented Governor passed away
in a fit of insanity at three o'clock yesterday."
When the little Scalawag read the sarcastic obituary he paled for a moment
and the hand which held the paper trembled so violently he was compelled to
lay it on the table to prevent his secretary from noting his excitement.
For the first time in the history of the state an armed guard was stationed
at the door of the Governor's mansion that night.
The strange calm continued. No move was made by the negroid government to
bring the imprisoned men to trial and apparently no effort was being made
by the men inside the jails to regain their liberty.
Save that his editorials were dated from the county jail, no change had
occurred in the daily routine of the editor's life. He continued his series
of articles on the history of the state each day, setting them in heavy
black mourning lines. Each of these editorials ended with an appeal to the
patriotism of the reader. And the way in which he told the simple story of
each step achieved in the blood-marked struggle for liberty had a punch in
it that boded ill for the little man who had set himself the task of
dictatorship for a free people.
No reference was made in the _Eagle and Phoenix_ to the Governor. He was
dead. The paper ignored his existence. Each day of this ominous peace among
his enemies increased the terror which had gripped the little Scalawag from
the morning he had read his first obituary. The big black rules down the
sides of those editorials seemed a foot wide now when he read them.
Twice he seated himself at his desk to order the editor's release and each
time cringed and paused at the thought of the sneers with which his act
would be greeted. He was now between the devil and the deep sea. He was
afraid to retreat and dared not take the next step forward. If he could
hold his ground for two weeks longer, and carry the election by the
overwhelming majority he had planned, all would be well. Such a victory,
placing him in power for four years and giving him an obedient negro
Legislature once more to do his bidding, would strike terror to his foes
and silence their assaults. The negro voters far outnumbered the whites,
and victory was a certainty. And so he held his ground--until something
happened!
It began in a semi-tropical rain storm that swept the state. All day it
poured in blinding torrents, the wind steadily rising in velocity until at
noon it was scarcely possible to walk the streets.
At eight o'clock the rain ceased to fall and by nine glimpses of the moon
could be seen as the fast flying clouds parted for a moment. But for these
occasional flashes of moonlight the night was pitch dark. The Governor's
company of nondescript soldiers in camp at the Capitol, drenched with rain,
had abandoned their water-soaked tents for the more congenial atmosphere of
the low dives and saloons of the negro quarters.
The minute the rain ceased to fall, Norton's wife sent his supper--but
to-night by a new messenger. Cleo smiled at him across the little table as
she skillfully laid the cloth, placed the dishes and set a tiny vase of
roses in the center.
"You see," she began, smiling, "your wife needed me and I'm working at your
house now, major."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. Mammy isn't well and I help with the baby. He's a darling. He loved
me the minute I took him in my arms and hugged him."
"No doubt."
"His little mother likes me, too. I can pick her up in my arms and carry
her across the room. You wouldn't think I'm so strong, would you?"
"Yes--I would," he answered slowly, studying her with a look of increasing
wonder at her audacity.
"You're not mad at me for being there, are you? You can't be--mammy wants
me so"--she paused--"Lordy, I forgot the letter!"
She drew from her bosom a note from his wife. He looked curiously at a
smudge where it was sealed and, glancing at the girl who was busy with the
tray, opened and read:
"I have just received a message from MacArthur's daughter
that your life is to be imperilled to-night by a dangerous
raid. Remember your helpless wife and baby. Surely there are
trusted men who can do such work. You have often told me
that no wise general ever risks his precious life on the
firing line. You are a soldier, and know this. Please,
dearest, do not go. Baby and little mother both beg of you!"
Norton looked at Cleo again curiously. He was sure that the seal of this
note had been broken and its message read by her.
"Do you know what's in this note, Cleo?" he asked sharply.
"No, sir!" was the quick answer.
He studied her again closely. She was on guard now. Every nerve alert,
every faculty under perfect control. He was morally sure she was lying and
yet it could only be idle curiosity or jealous interest in his affairs that
prompted the act. That she should be an emissary of the Governor was
absurd.
"It's not bad news, I hope?" she asked with an eagerness that was just a
little too eager. The man caught the false note and frowned.
"No," he answered carelessly. "It's of no importance." He picked up a pad
and wrote a hurried answer:
"Don't worry a moment, dear. I am not in the slightest
danger. I know a soldier's duty and I'll not forget it.
Sleep soundly, little mother and baby mine!"
He folded the sheet of paper and handed it to her without sealing it. She
was watching him keenly. His deep, serious eyes no longer saw her. His body
was there, but the soul was gone. The girl had never seen him in this mood.
She was frightened. His life _was_ in danger. She knew it now by an
unerring instinct. She would watch the jail and see what happened. She
might do something to win his friendship, and then--the rest would be easy.
Her hand trembled as she took the note.
"Give this to Mrs. Norton at once," he said, "and tell her you found me
well and happy in my work."
"Yes, sir," the soft voice answered mechanically as she picked up the tray
and left the room watching him furtively.
CHAPTER V
THE RESCUE
Cleo hurried to the house, delivered the message, rocked the baby to sleep
and quietly slipped through the lawn into the street and back to the jail.
A single guard kept watch at the door. She saw him by a flash of moonlight
and then passed so close she could have touched the long old-fashioned
musket he carried loosely across his shoulder.
The cat-like tread left no echo and she took her stand in the underbrush
that had pushed its way closer and closer until its branches touched the
rear walls of the jail. For two hours she stood amid the shadows, her keen
young ears listening and her piercing eyes watching. Again and again she
counted the steps the sentinel made as he walked back and forth in front of
the entrance to the jail.
She knew from the sound that he passed the corner of the building for three
steps in full view from her position, could she but see him through the
darkness. Twice she had caught a glimpse of his stupid face as the moon
flashed a moment of light through a rift of clouds.
"The Lord help that idiot," she muttered, "if the major's men want to pass
him to-night!"
She turned with a sharp start. The bushes softly parted behind her and a
stealthy step drew near. Her heart stood still. She was afraid to breathe.
They wouldn't hurt her if they only knew she was the major's friend. But if
they found and recognized her as old Peeler's half-breed daughter, they
might kill her on the spot as a spy.
She hadn't thought of this terrible possibility before. It was too late now
to think. To run meant almost certain death. She flattened her figure
against the wall of the jail and drew the underbrush close completely
covering her form.
She stood motionless and as near breathless as possible until the two men
who were approaching a step at a time had passed. At the corner of the jail
they stopped within three feet of her. She could hear every word of their
conference.
"Now, Mac, do as I tell you," a voice whispered. "Jump on him from behind
as he passes the corner and get him in the gills."
"I understand."
"Choke him stiff until I get something in his mouth."
"Ah, it's too easy. I'd like a little excitement."
"We'll get it before morning----"
"Sh! what's that?"
"I didn't hear anything!"
"Something moved."
A bush had slipped from Cleo's hand. She gripped the others with
desperation. Ten minutes passed amid a death-like silence. A hundred times
she imagined the hand of one of these men feeling for her throat. At last
she drew a deep breath.
The men began to move step by step toward the doomed sentinel. They were
standing beside the front corner of the jail now waiting panther-like for
their prey. They allowed him to pass twice. He stopped at the end of his
beat, blew his nose and spoke to himself:
"God, what a lonely night!"
The girl heard him turn, his feet measure three steps on his return and
stop with a dull thud. She couldn't see, but she could feel through the
darkness the grip of those terrible fingers on his throat. The only sound
made was the dull thud of his body on the wet ground.
In two minutes they had carried him into the shadows of a big china tree in
the rear and tied him to the trunk. She could hear their sharp order:
"Break those cords now or dare to open your mouth and, no matter what
happens, we'll kill you first--just for luck."
In ten minutes they had reported the success of their work to their
comrades who were waiting and the men who had been picked for their
dangerous task surrounded the jail and slowly took up their appointed
places in the shadows.
The attacking group stopped for their final instructions not five feet from
the girl's position. A flash of moonlight and she saw them--six grim white
and scarlet figures wearing spiked helmets from which fell a cloth mask to
their shoulders. Their big revolvers were buckled on the outside of their
disguises and each man's hand rested on the handle.
One of them quietly slipped his robe from his shoulders, removed his
helmet, put on the sentinel's coat and cap, seized his musket and walked to
the door of the jail.
She heard him drop the butt of the gun on the flagstone at the steps and
call:
"Hello, jailer!"
Some one stirred inside. It was not yet one o'clock and the jailer who had
been to a drinking bout with the soldiers had not gone to bed. In his shirt
sleeves he thrust his head out the door:
"Who is it?"
"The guard, sir."
"Well, what the devil do you want?"
"Can't ye gimme a drink of somethin'? I'm soaked through and I've caught
cold----"
"All right, in a minute," was the gruff reply.
The girl could hear the soft tread of the shrouded figures closing in on
the front door. A moment more and it opened. The voice inside said:
"Here you are!"
The words had scarcely passed his lips, and there was another dull crash. A
dozen masked Clansmen hurled themselves into the doorway and rushed over
the prostrate form of the half-drunken jailer. He was too frightened to
call for help. He lay with his face downward, begging for his life.
It was the work of a minute to take the keys from his trembling fingers,
bind and gag him, and release Norton. The whole thing had been done so
quietly not even a dog had barked at the disturbance.
Again they stopped within a few feet of the trembling figure against the
wall. The editor had now put on his disguise and stood in the centre of the
group giving his orders as quietly as though he were talking to his
printers about the form of his paper.
"Quick now, Mac," she heard him say, "we've not a moment to lose. I want
two pieces of scantling strong enough for a hangman's beam. Push one of
them out of the center window of the north end of the Capitol building,
the other from the south end. We'll hang the little Scalawag on the south
side and the Carpetbagger on the north. We'll give them this grim touch of
poetry at the end. Your ropes have ready swinging from these beams. Keep
your men on guard there until I come."
"All right, sir!" came the quick response.
"My hundred picked men are waiting?"
"On the turnpike at the first branch----"
"Good! The Governor is spending the night at Schlitz's place, three miles
out. He has been afraid to sleep at home of late, I hear. We'll give the
little man and his pal a royal escort for once as they approach the
Capitol--expect us within an hour."
A moment and they were gone. The girl staggered from her cramped position
and flew to the house. She couldn't understand it all, but she realized
that if the Governor were killed it meant possible ruin for the man she had
marked her own.
A light was still burning in the mother's room. She had been nervous and
restless and couldn't sleep. She heard the girl's swift, excited step on
the stairway and rushed to the door:
"What is it? What has happened?"
Cleo paused for breath and gasped:
"They've broken the jail open and he's gone with the Ku Klux to kill the
Governor!"
"To kill the Governor?"
"Yessum. He's got a hundred men waiting out on the turnpike and they're
going to hang the Governor from one of the Capitol windows!"
The wife caught the girl by the shoulders and cried:
"Who told you this?"
"Nobody. I saw them. I was passing the jail, heard a noise and went close
in the dark. I heard the major give the orders to the men."
"Oh, my God!" the little mother groaned. "And they are going straight to
the Governor's mansion?"
"No--no--he said the Governor's out at Schlitz's place, spending the night.
They're going to kill him, too----"
"Then there's time to stop them--quick--can you hitch a horse?"
"Yessum!"
"Run to the stable, hitch my horse to the buggy and take a note I'll write
to my grandfather, old Governor Carteret--you know where his place is--the
big red brick house at the edge of town?"
"Yessum----"
"His street leads into the turnpike--quick now--the horse and buggy!"
The strong young body sprang down the steps three and four rounds at a leap
and in five minutes the crunch of swift wheels on the gravel walk was
heard.
She sprang up the stairs, took the note from the frail, trembling little
hand and bounded out of the house again.
The clouds had passed and the moon was shining now in silent splendor on
the sparkling refreshed trees and shrubbery. The girl was an expert in
handling a horse. Old Peeler had at least taught her that. In five more
minutes from the time she had left the house she was knocking furiously at
the old Governor's door. He was eighty-four, but a man of extraordinary
vigor for his age.
He came to the door alone in his night-dress, candle in hand, scowling at
the unseemly interruption of his rest.
"What is it?" he cried with impatience.
"A note from Mrs. Norton."
At the mention of her name the fine old face softened and then his eyes
flashed:
"She is ill?"
"No, sir--but she wants you to help her."
He took the note, placed the candle on the old-fashioned mahogany table in
his hall, returned to his room for his glasses, adjusted them with
deliberation and read its startling message.
He spoke without looking up:
"You know the road to Schlitz's house?"
"Yes, sir, every foot of it."
"I'll be ready in ten minutes."
"We've no time to lose--you'd better hurry," the girl said nervously.
The old man lifted his eyebrows:
"I will. But an ex-Governor of the state can't rush to meet the present
Governor in his shirt-tail--now, can he?"
Cleo laughed:
"No, sir."
The thin, sprightly figure moved quickly in spite of the eighty-four years
and in less than ten minutes he was seated beside the girl and they were
flying over the turnpike toward the Schlitz place.
"How long since those men left the jail?" the old Governor asked roughly.
"About a half-hour, sir."
"Give your horse the rein--we'll be too late, I'm afraid."
The lines slacked over the spirited animal's back and he sprang forward as
though lashed by the insult to his high breeding.
The sky was studded now with stars sparkling in the air cleared by the
rain, and the moon flooded the white roadway with light. The buggy flew
over the beaten track for a mile, and as they suddenly plunged down a hill
the old man seized both sides of the canopy top to steady his body as the
light rig swayed first one way and then the other.
"You're going pretty fast," he grumbled.
"Yes, you said to give him the reins."
"But I didn't say to throw them on the horse's head, did I?"
"No, sir," the girl giggled.
"Pull him in!" he ordered sharply.
The strong young arms drew the horse suddenly down on his haunches and the
old man lurched forward.
"I didn't say pull him into the buggy," he growled.
The girl suppressed another laugh. He was certainly a funny old man for all
his eighty odd winters. She thought that he must have been a young devil at
eighteen.
"Stop a minute!" he cried sharply. "What's that roaring?"
Cleo listened:
"The wind in the trees, I think."
"Nothing of the sort--isn't this Buffalo creek?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's water we hear. The creek's out of banks. The storm has made the
ford impassable. They haven't crossed this place yet. We're in time."
The horse lifted his head and neighed. Another answered from the woods and
in a moment a white-masked figure galloped up to the buggy and spoke
sharply:
"You can't cross this ford--turn back."
"Are you one of Norton's men?" the old man asked angrily.
"None of your damned business!" was the quick answer.
"I think it is, sir! I'm Governor Carteret. My age and services to this
state entitle me to a hearing to-night. Tell Major Norton I must speak to
him immediately--immediately, sir!" His voice rose to a high note of
imperious command.
The horseman hesitated and galloped into the shadows. A moment later a tall
shrouded figure on horseback slowly approached.
"Cut your wheel," the old Governor said to the girl. He stepped from the
buggy without assistance. "Now turn round and wait for me." Cleo obeyed,
and the venerable statesman with head erect, his white hair and beard
shining in the moonlight calmly awaited the approach of the younger man.
Norton dismounted and led his horse, the rein hanging loosely over his arm.
"Well, Governor Carteret"--the drawling voice was low and quietly
determined.
The white-haired figure suddenly stiffened:
"Don't insult me, sir, by talking through a mask--take that thing off your
head."
The major bowed and removed his mask.
When the old man spoke again, his voice trembled with emotion, he stepped
close and seized Norton's arm:
"My boy, have you gone mad?"
"I think not," was the even answer. The deep brown eyes were holding the
older man's gaze with a cold, deadly look. "Were you ever arrested,
Governor, by the henchmen of a peanut politician and thrown into a filthy
jail without warrant and held without trial at the pleasure of a master?"
"No--by the living God!"
"And if you had been, sir?"
"I'd have killed him as I would a dog--I'd have shot him on sight--but
you--you can't do this now, my boy--you carry the life of the people in
your hands to-night! You are their chosen leader. The peace and dignity of
a great commonwealth are in your care----"
"I am asserting its outraged dignity against a wretch who has basely
betrayed it."
"Even so, this is not the way. Think of the consequences to-morrow morning.
The President will be forced against his wishes to declare the state in
insurrection. The army will be marched back into our borders and martial
law proclaimed."
"The state is under martial law--the _writ_ has been suspended."
"But not legally, my boy. I know your provocation has been great--yes,
greater than I could have borne in my day. I'll be honest with you, but
you've had better discipline, my son. I belong to the old regime and an
iron will has been my only law. You must live in the new age under new
conditions. You must adjust yourself to these conditions."
"The man who calls himself Governor has betrayed his high trust," Norton
broke in with solemn emphasis. "He has forfeited his life. The people whom
he has basely sold into bondage will applaud his execution. The Klan
to-night is the high court of a sovereign state and his death has been
ordered."
"I insist there's a better way. Your Klan is a resistless weapon if
properly used. You are a maniac to-night. You are pulling your own house
down over your head. The election is but a few weeks off. Use your men as
an army to force this election. The ballot is force--physical force. Apply
that force. Your men can master that rabble of negroes on election day.
Drive them from the polls. They'll run like frightened sheep. Their
enfranchisement is a crime against civilization. Every sane man in the
North knows this. No matter how violent your methods, an election that
returns the intelligent and decent manhood of a state to power against a
corrupt, ignorant and vicious mob will be backed at last by the moral
sentiment of the world. There's a fiercer vengeance to be meted out to your
Scalawag Governor----"
"What do you mean?" the younger man asked.
"Swing the power of your Klan in solid line against the ballot-box at this
election, carry the state, elect your Legislature, impeach the Governor,
remove him from office, deprive him of citizenship and send him to the
grave with the brand of shame on his forehead!"
The leader lifted his somber face, and the older man saw that he was
hesitating:
"That's possible--yes----"
The white head moved closer:
"The only rational thing to do, my boy--come, I love you and I love my
granddaughter. You've a great career before you. Don't throw your life away
to-night in a single act of madness. Listen to an old man whose sands are
nearly run"--a trembling arm slipped around his waist.
"I appreciate your coming here to-night, Governor, of course."
"But if I came in vain, why at all?" there were tears in his voice now.
"You must do as I say, my son--send those men home! I'll see the Governor
to-morrow morning and I pledge you my word of honor that I'll make him
revoke that proclamation within an hour and restore the civil rights of the
people. None of those arrests are legal and every man must be released."
"He won't do it."
"When he learns from my lips that I saved his dog's life to-night, he'll do
it and lick my feet in gratitude. Won't you trust me, boy?"
The pressure of the old man's arm tightened and his keen eyes searched
Norton's face. The strong features were convulsed with passion, he turned
away and the firm mouth closed with decision:
"All right. I'll take your advice."
The old Governor was very still for a moment and his voice quivered with
tenderness as he touched Norton's arm affectionately:
"You're a good boy, Dan! I knew you'd hear me. God! how I envy you the
youth and strength that's yours to fight this battle!"
The leader blew a whistle and his orderly galloped up:
"Tell my men to go home and meet me to-morrow at one o'clock in the Court
House Square, in their everyday clothes, armed and ready for orders. I'll
dismiss the guard I left at the Capitol."
The white horseman wheeled and galloped away. Norton quietly removed his
disguise, folded it neatly, took off his saddle, placed the robe between
the folds of the blanket and mounted his horse.
The old Governor waved to him:
"My love to the little mother and that boy, Tom, that you've named for me!"
"Yes, Governor--good night."
The tall figure on horseback melted into the shadows and in a moment the
buggy was spinning over the glistening, moonlit track of the turnpike.
When they reached the first street lamps on the edge of town, the old man
peered curiously at the girl by his side.
"You drive well, young woman," he said slowly. "Who taught you?"
"Old Peeler."
"You lived on his place?" he asked quickly.
"Yes, sir."
"What's your mother's name?"
"Lucy."
"Hm! I thought so."
"Why, sir?"
"Oh, nothing," was the gruff answer.
"Did you--did you know any of my people, sir?" she asked.
He looked her squarely in the face, smiled and pursed his withered lips:
"Yes. I happen to be personally acquainted with your grandfather and he was
something of a man in his day."
[Illustration: "'You are a maniac to-night.'"]
CHAPTER VI
A TRAITOR'S RUSE
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 regime 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 and gold-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 the
_writ_ of _habeas 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 for two 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 Scalawag believed
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 the _Eagle 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.
CHAPTER VII
THE IRONY OF FATE
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.
[Illustration: "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 savage
music 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 the Beast 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 in dead 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.
CHAPTER VIII
A NEW WEAPON
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 about any 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 intelligence of 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 blacks had 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 to the 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. They _felt_ it.
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. All _esprit de
corps_ was 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 the _Eagle and
Phoenix_ with 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 bin a 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 the door. "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.
CHAPTER IX
THE WORDS THAT COST
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 the _Eagle and Phoenix_ building 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
belonging to 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?"
[Illustration: "'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.
CHAPTER X
MAN TO MAN
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 their saturnalia 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 the _Eagle
and Phoenix_ was 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 be easier 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 that few 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 find the 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 crowd that 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.
CHAPTER XI
THE UNBIDDEN GUEST
The night was a memorable one in Norton's life. The members of the
Legislature and the leaders of his party from every quarter of the state
gave a banquet in his honor in the Hall of the House of Representatives.
Eight hundred guests, the flower and chivalry of the Commonwealth, sat down
at the eighty tables improvised for the occasion.
Fifty leading men were guests of honor and vied with one another in
acclaiming the brilliant young Speaker the coming statesman of the Nation.
His name was linked with Hamilton, Jefferson, Webster, Clay and Calhoun. He
was the youngest man who had ever been elected Speaker of a Legislative
Assembly in American history and a dazzling career was predicted.
Even the newly installed Chief Executive, a hold-over from the defeated
party, asked to be given a seat and in a glowing tribute to Norton hailed
him as the next Governor of the state.
He had scarcely uttered the words when all the guests leaped to their feet
by a common impulse, raised their glasses and shouted:
"To our next Governor, Daniel Norton!"
The cheers which followed were not arranged, they were the spontaneous
outburst of genuine admiration by men and women who knew the man and
believed in his power and his worth.
Norton flushed and his eyes dropped. His daring mind had already leaped the
years. The Governor's chair meant the next step--a seat in the Senate
Chamber of the United States. A quarter of a century and the South would
once more come into her own. He would then be but forty-nine years old. He
would have as good a chance for the Presidency as any other man. His
fathers had been of the stock that created the Nation. His
great-grandfather fought with Washington and Lafayette. His head was
swimming with its visions, while the great Hall rang with his name.
While the tumult was still at its highest, he lifted his eyes for a moment
over the heads of the throng at the tables below the platform on which the
guests of honor were seated, and his heart suddenly stood still.
Cleo was standing in the door of the Hall, a haunted look in her dilated
eyes, watching her chance to beckon to him unseen by the crowd.
He stared at her a moment in blank amazement and turned pale. Something had
happened at his home, and by the expression on her face the message she
bore was one he would never forget.
As he sat staring blankly, as at a sudden apparition, she disappeared in
the crowd at the door. He looked in vain for her reappearance and was
waiting an opportune moment to leave, when a waiter slipped through the
mass of palms and flowers banked behind his chair by his admirers and
thrust a crumpled note into his hand.
"The girl said it was important, sir," he explained.
Norton opened the message and held it under the banquet table as he
hurriedly read in Cleo's hand:
"It's found out--she's raving. The doctor is there. I must see you quick."
* * * * *
He whispered to the chairman that a message had just been received
announcing the illness of his wife, but he hoped to be able to return in a
few minutes.
It was known that his wife was an invalid and had often been stricken with
violent attacks of hysteria, and so the banquet proceeded without
interruption. The band was asked to play a stirring piece and he slipped
out as the opening strains burst over the chattering, gay crowd.
As his tall figure rose from the seat of honor he gazed for an instant over
the sparkling scene, and for the first time in his life knew the meaning of
the word fear. A sickening horror swept his soul and the fire died from
eyes that had a moment before blazed with visions of ambition. He felt the
earth crumbling beneath his feet. He hoped for a way out, but from the
moment he saw Cleo beckoning him over the heads of his guests he knew that
Death had called him in the hour of his triumph.
He felt his way blindly through the crowd and pushed roughly past a hundred
hands extended to congratulate him. He walked by instinct. He couldn't see.
The mists of eternity seemed suddenly to have swept him beyond the range of
time and sense.
In the hall he stumbled against Cleo and looked at her in a dazed way.
"Get your hat," she whispered.
He returned to the cloakroom, got his hat and hurried back in the same dull
stupor.
"Come down stairs into the Square," she said quickly.
He followed her without a word, and when they reached the shadows of an oak
below the windows of the Hall, he suddenly roused himself, turned on her
fiercely and demanded:
"Well, what's happened?"
The girl was calm now, away from the crowd and guarded by the friendly
night. Her words were cool and touched with the least suggestion of
bravado. She looked at him steadily:
"I reckon you know----"
"You mean----" He felt for the tree trunk as if dizzy.
"Yes. She has found out----"
"What--how--when?" His words came in gasps of fear.
"About us----"
"How?"
"It was mammy. She was wild with jealousy that I had taken her place and
was allowed to sleep in the house. She got to slipping to the nursery at
night and watching me. She must have seen me one night at your room door
and told her to get rid of me."
The man suddenly gripped the girl's shoulders, swung her face toward him
and gazed into her shifting eyes, while his breath came in labored gasps:
"You little yellow devil! Mammy never told that to my wife and you know it;
she would have told me and I would have sent you away. She knows that story
would kill my baby's mother and she'd have cut the tongue out of her own
head sooner than betray me. She has always loved me as her own child--she'd
fight for me and die for me and stand for me against every man, woman and
child on earth!"
"Well, she told her," the girl sullenly repeated.
"Told her what?" he asked.
"That I was hanging around your room." She paused.
"Well, go on----"
"Miss Jean asked me if it was true. I saw that we were caught and I just
confessed the whole thing----"
The man sprang at her throat, paused, and his hands fell limp by his side.
He gazed at her a moment, and grasped her wrists with cruel force:
"Yes, that's it, you little fiend--you confessed! You were so afraid you
might not be forced to confess that you went out of your way to tell it.
Two months ago I came to my senses and put you out of my life. You
deliberately tried to commit murder to bring me back. You knew that
confession would kill my wife as surely as if you had plunged a knife into
her heart. You know that she has the mind of an innocent child--that she
can think no evil of any one. You've tried to kill her on purpose,
willfully, maliciously, deliberately--and if she dies----"
Norton's voice choked into an inarticulate groan and the girl smiled
calmly.
The band in the Hall over their heads ended the music in a triumphant crash
and he listened mechanically to the chairman while he announced the
temporary absence of the guest of honor:
"And while he is out of the Hall for a few minutes, ladies and gentlemen,"
he added facetiously, "we can say a lot of fine things behind his back we
would have blushed to tell him to his face----"
Another burst of applause and the hum and chatter and laughter came through
the open window.
With a cry of anguish, the man turned again on the girl:
"Why do you stand there grinning at me? Why did you do this fiendish thing?
What have you to say?"
"Nothing"--there was a ring of exultation in her voice--"I did it because I
had to."
Norton leaned against the oak, placed his hands on his temples and groaned:
"Oh, my God! It's a nightmare----"
Suddenly he asked:
"What did she do when you told her?"
The girl answered with indifference:
"Screamed, called me a liar, jumped on me like a wild-cat, dug her nails in
my neck and went into hysterics."
"And you?"
"I picked her up, carried her to bed and sent for the doctor. As quick as
he came I ran here to tell you."
The speaker upstairs was again announcing his name as the next Governor and
Senator and the crowd were cheering. He felt the waves of Death roll over
and engulf him. His knees grew weak and in spite of all effort he sank to a
stone that lay against the gnarled trunk of the tree.
"She may be dead now," he said to himself in a dazed whisper.
"I don't think so!" the soft voice purred with the slightest suggestion of
a sneer. She bit her lips and actually laughed. It was more than he could
bear. With a sudden leap his hands closed on her throat and forced her
trembling form back into the shadows.
"May--God--hurl--you--into--everlasting--hell--for--this!" he cried in
anguish and his grip suddenly relaxed.
The girl had not struggled. Her own hand had simply been raised
instinctively and grasped his.
"What shall I do?" she asked.
"Get out of my sight before I kill you!"
"I'm not afraid."
The calm accents maddened him to uncontrollable fury:
"And if you ever put your foot into my house again or cross my path, I'll
not be responsible for what happens!"
His face was livid and his fists closed with an unconscious strength that
cut the blood from the palms of his hands.
"I'm not afraid!" she repeated, her voice rising with clear assurance, a
strange smile playing about her full lips.
"Go!" he said fiercely.
The girl turned without a word and walked into the bright light that
streamed from the windows of the banquet hall, paused and looked at him,
the white rows of teeth shining with a smile:
"But I'll see you again!"
And then, with shouts of triumph mocking his soul, his shoulders drooped,
drunk with the stupor and pain of shame, he walked blindly through the
night to the Judgment Bar of Life--a home where a sobbing wife waited for
his coming.
CHAPTER XII
THE JUDGMENT BAR
He paused at the gate. His legs for the moment simply refused to go any
further. A light was burning in his wife's room. Its radiance streaming
against the white fluted columns threw their shadows far out on the lawn.
The fine old house seemed to slowly melt in the starlight into a solemn
Court of Justice set on the highest hill of the world. Its white boards
were hewn slabs of gleaming marble, its quaint old Colonial door the grand
entrance to the Judgment Hall of Life and Death. And the judge who sat on
the high dais was not the blind figure of tradition, but a blushing little
bride he had led to God's altar four years ago. Her blue eyes were burning
into the depths of his trembling soul.
His hand gripped the post and he tried to pull himself together, and look
the ugly situation in the face. But it was too sudden. He had repented and
was living a clean life, and the shock was so unexpected, its coming so
unforeseen, the stroke at a moment when his spirits had climbed so high,
the fall was too great. He lay a mangled heap at the foot of a precipice
and could as yet only stretch out lame hands and feel in the dark. He could
see nothing clearly.
A curious thing flashed through his benumbed mind as his gaze fascinated
by the light in her room. She had not yet sent for him. He might have
passed a messenger on the other side of the street, or he may have gone to
the Capitol by another way, yet he was somehow morally sure that no word
had as yet been sent. It could mean but one thing--that his wife had
utterly refused to believe the girl's story. This would make the only sane
thing to do almost impossible. If he could humbly confess the truth and beg
for her forgiveness, the cloud might be lifted and her life saved.
But if she blindly refused to admit the possibility of such a sin, the
crisis was one that sickened him. He would either be compelled to risk her
life with the shock of confession, or lie to her with a shameless passion
that would convince her of his innocence.
Could he do this? It was doubtful. He had never been a good liar. He had
taken many a whipping as a boy sooner than lie. He had always dared to tell
the truth and had felt a cruel free joy somehow in its consequence. He had
been reserved and silent in his youth when he had sowed his wild oats
before his marriage. He had never been forced to lie about that. No
questions had been asked. He had kept his own counsel and that side of his
life was a sealed book even to his most intimate friends.
He had never been under the influence of liquor and knew how to be a good
fellow without being a fool. The first big lie of his life he was forced to
act rather than speak when Cleo had entered his life. This lie had not yet
shaped itself into words. And he doubted his ability to carry it off
successfully. To speak the truth simply and plainly had become an ingrained
habit. He trembled at the possibility of being compelled to deliberately
and continuously lie to his wife. If he could only tell her the truth--tell
her the hours of anguish he had passed in struggling against the Beast that
at last had won the fight--if he could only make her feel to-night the
pain, the shame, the loathing, the rage that filled his soul, she must
forgive.
But would she listen? Had the child-mind that had never faced realities the
power to adjust itself to such a tragedy and see life in its wider
relations of sin and sorrow, of repentance and struggle to the achievement
of character? There was but one answer:
"No. It would kill her. She can't understand----"
And then despair gripped him, his eyes grew dim and he couldn't think. He
leaned heavily on the gate in a sickening stupor from which his mind slowly
emerged and his fancy began to play pranks with an imagination suddenly
quickened by suffering into extraordinary activity.
A katydid was crying somewhere over his head and a whip-poor-will broke the
stillness with his weird call that seemed to rise from the ground under his
feet. He was a boy again roaming the fields where stalwart slaves were
working his father's plantation. It was just such a day in early spring
when he had persuaded Andy to run away with him and go swimming in Buffalo
creek. He had caught cold and they both got a whipping that night. He
remembered how Andy had yelled so loud his father had stopped. And how he
had set his little jaws together, refused to cry and received the worst
whipping of his life. He could hear Andy now as he slipped up to him
afterward, grinning and chuckling and whispered:
"Lordy, man, why didn't ye holler? You don't know how ter take er whippin'
nohow. He nebber hurt me no mo' dan a flea bitin'!"
And then his mind leaped the years. Cleo was in his arms that night at old
Peeler's and he was stroking her hair as he would have smoothed the fur of
a frightened kitten. That strange impulse was the beginning--he could see
it now--and it had grown with daily contact, until the contagious animal
magnetism of her nearness became resistless. And now he stood a shivering
coward in the dark, afraid to enter his own house and look his wife in the
face.
Yes, he was a coward. He acknowledged it with a grim smile--a coward! This
boastful, high-strung, self-poised leader of men! He drew his tall figure
erect and a bitter laugh broke from his lips. He who had led men to death
on battlefields with a smile and a shout! He who had cried in anguish the
day Lee surrendered! He who, in defeat, still indomitable and unconquered,
had fired the souls of his ruined people and led them through riot and
revolution again to victory!--He was a coward now and he knew it, as he
stood there alone in the stillness of the Southern night and looked himself
squarely in the face.
His heart gave a throb of pity as he recalled the scenes during the war,
when deserters and cowards had been led out in the gray dawn and shot to
death for something they couldn't help.
It must be a dream. He couldn't realize the truth--grim, hideous and
unthinkable. He had won every fight as the leader of his race against
overwhelming odds. He had subdued the desperate and lawless among his own
men until his word was law. He had rallied the shattered forces of a
defeated people and inspired them with enthusiasm. He had overturned the
negroid government in the state though backed by a million bayonets in the
hands of veteran battle-tried soldiers. He had crushed the man who led
these forces, impeached and removed him from office, and hurled him into
merited oblivion, a man without a country. He had made himself the central
figure of the commonwealth. In the dawn of manhood he had lived already a
man's full life. A conquered world at his feet, and yet a little yellow,
red-haired girl of the race he despised, in the supreme hour of triumph had
laid his life in ruins. He had conquered all save the Beast within and he
must die for it--it was only a morbid fancy, yes--yet he felt the chill in
his soul.
How long he had stood there doubting, fearing, dreaming, he could form no
idea. He was suddenly roused to the consciousness of his position by the
doctor who was hurrying from the house. There was genuine surprise in his
voice as he spoke slowly and in a very low tone.
Dr. Williams had the habit of slow, quiet speech. He was a privileged
character in the town and the state, with the record of a half century of
practice. A man of wide reading and genuine culture, he concealed a big
heart beneath a brutal way of expressing his thoughts. He said exactly what
he meant with a distinctness that was all the more startling because of his
curious habit of speaking harsh things in tones so softly modulated that
his hearers frequently asked him to repeat his words.
"I had just started to the banquet hall with a message for you," he said
slowly.
"Yes--yes," Norton answered vaguely.
"But I see you've come--Cleo told you?"
"Yes--she came to the hall----"
The doctor's slender fingers touched his fine gray beard.
"Really! She entered that hall to-night? Well, it's a funny world, this. We
spend our time and energy fighting the negro race in front and leave our
back doors open for their women and children to enter and master our life.
I congratulate you as a politician on your victory----"
Norton lifted his hand as if to ward off a blow:
"Please! not to-night!"
The doctor caught the look of agony in the haggard face and suddenly
extended his hand:
"I wasn't thinking of your personal history, my boy. I was--I was thinking
for a moment of the folly of a people--forgive me--I know you need help
to-night. You must pull yourself together before you go in there----"
"Yes, I know!" Norton faltered. "You have seen my wife and talked with
her--you can see things clearer than I--tell me what to do!"
"There's but one thing you can do," was the gentle answer. "Lie to
her--lie--and stick to it. Lie skillfully, carefully, deliberately, and
with such sincerity and conviction she's got to believe you. She wants to
believe you, of course. I know you are guilty----"
"Let me tell you, doctor----"
"No, you needn't. It's an old story. The more powerful the man the easier
his conquest when once the female animal of Cleo's race has her chance.
It's enough to make the devil laugh to hear your politicians howl against
social and political equality while this cancer is eating the heart out of
our society. It makes me sick! And she went to your banquet hall to-night!
I'll laugh over it when I'm blue----"
The doctor paused, laughed softly, and continued:
"Now listen, Norton. Your wife can't live unless she wills to live. I've
told you this before. The moment she gives up, she dies. It's the iron will
inside her frail body that holds the spirit. If she knows the truth, she
can't face it. She is narrow, conventional, and can't readjust herself----"
"But doctor, can't she be made to realize that this thing is here a living
fact which the white woman of the South must face? These hundreds of
thousands of a mixed race are not accidents. She must know that this racial
degradation is not merely a thing of to-day, but the heritage of two
hundred years of sin and sorrow!"
"The older women know this--yes--but not our younger generation, who have
been reared in the fierce defense of slavery we were forced to make before
the war. These things were not to be talked about. No girl reared as your
wife can conceive of the possibility of a decent man falling so low. I warn
you. You can't let her know the truth--and so the only thing you can do is
to lie and stick to it. It's queer advice for a doctor to give an honorable
man, perhaps. But life is full of paradoxes. My advice is medicine. Our
best medicines are the most deadly poisons in nature. I've saved many a
man's life by their use. This happens to be one of the cases where I
prescribe a poison. Put the responsibility on me if you like. My shoulders
are broad. I live close to Nature and the prattle of fools never disturbs
me."
"Is she still hysterical?" Norton asked.
"No. That's the strange part of it--the thing that frightens me. That's why
I haven't left her side since I was called. Her outburst wasn't hysteria in
the first place. It was rage--the blind unreasoning fury of the woman who
sees her possible rival and wishes to kill her. You'll find her very quiet.
There's a queer, still look in her eyes I don't like. It's the calm before
the storm--a storm that may leave death in its trail----"
"Couldn't I deny it at first," Norton interrupted, "and then make my plea
to her in an appeal for mercy on an imaginary case? God only knows what
I've gone through--the fight I made----"
"Yes, I know, my boy, with that young animal playing at your feet in
physical touch with your soul and body in the intimacies of your home, you
never had a chance. But you can't make your wife see this. An angel from
heaven, with tongue of divine eloquence, can make no impression on her if
she once believes you guilty. Don't tell her--and may God have mercy on
your soul to-night!"
With a pressure on the younger man's arm, the straight white figure of the
old doctor passed through the gate.
Norton walked quickly to the steps of the spacious, pillared porch, stopped
and turned again into the lawn. He sat down on a rustic seat and tried
desperately to work out what he would say, and always the gray mist of a
fog of despair closed in.
For the first time in his life he was confronted squarely with the fact
that the whole structure of society is enfolded in a network of
interminable lies. His wife had been reared from the cradle in the
atmosphere of beauty and innocence. She believed in the innocence of her
father, her brothers, and every man who moved in her circle. Above all, she
believed in the innocence of her husband. The fact that the negro race had
for two hundred years been stirring the baser passions of her men--that
this degradation of the higher race had been bred into the bone and sinew
of succeeding generations--had never occurred to her childlike mind. How
hopeless the task to tell her now when the tragic story must shatter her
own ideals!
The very thought brought a cry of agony to his lips:
"God in heaven--what can I do?"
He looked helplessly at the stream of light from her window and turned
again toward the cool, friendly darkness.
The night was one of marvellous stillness. The band was playing again in
his banquet hall at the Capitol. So still was the night he could hear
distinctly the softer strains of the stringed instruments, faint, sweet and
thrilling, as they floated over the sleepy old town. A mocking-bird above
him wakened by the call of melody answered, tenderly at first, and then,
with the crash of cornet and drum, his voice swelled into a flood of
wonderful song.
With a groan of pain, Norton rose and walked rapidly into the house. His
bird-dog lay on the mat outside the door and sprang forward with a joyous
whine to meet him.
He stooped and drew the shaggy setter's head against his hot cheek.
"I need a friend, to-night, Don, old boy!" he said tenderly. And Don
answered with an eloquent wag of his tail and a gentle nudge of his nose.
"If you were only my judge!--Bah, what's the use----"
He drew his drooping shoulders erect and entered his wife's room. Her eyes
were shining with peculiar brightness, but otherwise she seemed unusually
calm. She began speaking with quick nervous energy:
"Dr. Williams told you?"
"Yes, and I came at once." He answered with an unusually firm and clear
note of strength. His whole being was keyed now to a high tension of alert
decision. He saw that the doctor's way was the only one.
"I don't ask you, Dan," she went on with increasing excitement and a touch
of scorn in her voice--"I don't ask you to deny this lie. What I want to
know is the motive the little devil had in saying such a thing to me.
Mammy, in her jealousy, merely told me she was hanging around your room too
often. I asked her if it were true. She looked at me a moment and burst
into her lying 'confession.' I could have killed her. I did try to tear her
green eyes out. I knew that you hated her and tried to put her out of the
house, and I thought she had taken this way to get even with you--but it
doesn't seem possible. And then I thought the Governor might have taken
this way to strike you. He knows old Peeler, the low miserable scoundrel,
who is her father. Do you think it possible?"
"I--don't--know," he stammered, moistening his lips and turning away.
"Yet it's possible"--she insisted.
He saw the chance to confirm this impression by a cheap lie--to invent a
story of old Peeler's intimacy with the Governor, of his attempt to marry
Lucy, of his hatred of the policy of the paper, his fear of the Klan and
of his treacherous, cowardly nature--yet the lie seemed so cheap and
contemptible his lips refused to move. If he were going to carry out the
doctor's orders here was his chance. He struggled to speak and couldn't.
The habit of a life and the fibre of character were too strong. So he did
the fatal thing at the moment of crisis.
"I don't think that possible," he said.
"Why not?"
"Well, you see, since I rescued old Peeler that night from those boys, he
has been so abjectly grateful I've had to put him out of my office once or
twice, and I'm sure he voted for me for the Legislature against his own
party."
"He voted for you?" she asked in surprise.
"He told me so. He may have lied, of course, but I don't think he did."
"Then what could have been her motive?"
His teeth were chattering in spite of a desperate effort to think clearly
and speak intelligently. He stared at a picture on the wall and made no
reply.
"Say something--answer my question!" his wife cried excitedly.
"I have answered, my dear. I said I don't know. I'm stunned by the whole
thing."
"You are _stunned_?"
"Yes----"
"Stunned? You, a strong, innocent man, stunned by a weak contemptible lie
like this from the lips of such a girl--what do you mean?"
"Why, that I was naturally shocked to be called out of a banquet at such a
moment by such an accusation. She actually beckoned to me from the door
over the heads of the guests----"
The little blue eyes suddenly narrowed and the thin lips grew hard:
"Cleo called you from the door?" she asked.
"Yes."
"You left the hall to see her there?"
"No, I went down stairs."
"Into the Capitol Square?"
"Yes. I couldn't well talk to her before all those guests----"
"Why not?"
The question came like the crack of a pistol. Her voice was high, cold,
metallic, ringing. He saw, when too late, that he had made a fatal mistake.
He stammered, reddened and then turned pale:
"Why--why--naturally----"
"If you are innocent--why not?"
He made a desperate effort to find a place of safety:
"I thought it wise to go down stairs where I could talk without
interruption----"
"You--were--afraid," she was speaking each word now with cold, deadly
deliberation, "to take-a-message-from-your-servant-at-the-door-of-a-public
banquet-hall----" her words quickened--"then you suspected her possible
message! There _was_ something between you----"
"My dear, I beg of you----"
He turned his head away with a weary gesture.
She sprang from the side of the bed, leaped to his side, seized him by both
arms and fairly screamed in his face:
"Look at me, Dan!"
He turned quickly, his haggard eyes stared into hers, and she looked with
slowly dawning horror.
"Oh, my God!" she shrieked. "It's true--it's true--it's true!"
She sprang back with a shiver of loathing, covered her face with her hands
and staggered to her bed, sobbing hysterically:
"It's true--it's true--it's true! Have mercy, Lord!--it's true--it's true!"
She fell face downward, her frail figure quivering like a leaf in a storm.
He rushed to her side, crying in terror:
"It's not true--it's not true, my dear! Don't believe it. I swear it's a
lie--it's a lie--I tell you!"
She was crying in sobs of utter anguish.
He bent low:
"It's not true, dearest! It's not true, I tell you. You mustn't believe it.
You can't believe it when I swear to you that it's a lie----"
His head gently touched her slender shoulder.
She flinched as if scorched by a flame, sprang to her feet, and faced him
with blazing eyes:
"Don't--you--dare--touch--me----"
"My dear," he pleaded.
"Don't speak to me again!"
"Please----"
"Get out of this room!"
He stood rooted to the spot in helpless stupor and she threw her little
body against his with sudden fury, pushing him toward the door. "Get out, I
say!"
He staggered back helplessly and awkwardly amazed at her strength as she
pushed him into the hall. She stood a moment towering in the white frame of
the door, the picture of an avenging angel to his tormented soul. Through
teeth chattering with hysterical emotion she cried:
"Go, you leper! And don't you ever dare to cross this door-sill again--not
even to look on my dead face!"
"For God's sake, don't!" he gasped, staggering toward her.
But the door slammed in his face and the bolt suddenly shot into its place.
He knocked gently and received no answer. An ominous stillness reigned
within. He called again and again without response. He waited patiently for
half an hour and knocked once more. An agony of fear chilled him. She might
be dead. He knelt, pressed his ear close to the keyhole and heard a long,
low, pitiful sob from her bed.
"Thank God----"
He rose with sudden determination. She couldn't be left like that. He would
call the doctor back at once, and, what was better still, he would bring
her mother, a wise gray-haired little saint, who rarely volunteered advice
in her daughter's affairs. The door would fly open at her soft command.
CHAPTER XIII
AN OLD STORY
The doctor's house lay beyond the Capitol and in his haste Norton forgot
that a banquet was being held in his honor. He found himself suddenly face
to face with the first of the departing guests as they began to pour
through the gates of the Square.
He couldn't face these people, turned in his tracks, walked back to the
next block and hurried into an obscure side street by which he could avoid
them.
The doctor had not retired. He was seated on his porch quietly smoking, as
if he were expecting the call.
"Well, you've bungled it, I see," he said simply, as he rose and seized his
hat.
"Yes, she guessed the truth----"
"Guessed?--hardly." The white head with its shining hair slowly wagged.
"She read it in those haggard eyes. Funny what poor liars your people have
always been! If your father hadn't been fool enough to tell the truth with
such habitual persistence, that office of his would never have been burned
during the war. It's a funny world. It's the fun of it that keeps us alive,
after all."
"Do the best you can for me, doctor," he interrupted. "I'm going for her
mother."
"All right," was the cheery answer, "bring her at once. She's a better
doctor than I to-night."
Norton walked swiftly toward a vine-clad cottage that stood beside Governor
Carteret's place. It sat far back on the lawn that was once a part of the
original estate twenty odd years ago. The old Governor during his last
administration had built it for Robert Carteret, a handsome, wayward son,
whom pretty Jennie Pryor had married. It had been a runaway love match. The
old man had not opposed it because of any objection to the charming girl
the boy had fallen in love with. He knew that Robert was a wild,
headstrong, young scapegrace unfit to be the husband of any woman.
But apparently marriage settled him. For two years after Jean's birth he
lived a decent life and then slipped again into hopelessly dissolute
habits. When Jean was seven years old he was found dead one night under
peculiar circumstances that were never made public. The sweet little woman
who had braved the world's wrath to marry him had never complained, and she
alone (with one other) knew the true secret of his death.
She had always been supported by a generous allowance from the old Governor
and in his last will the vigorous octogenarian had made her his sole heir.
Norton had loved this quiet, patient little mother with a great tenderness
since the day of his marriage to her daughter. He had never found her
wanting in sympathy or helpfulness. She rarely left her cottage, but many a
time he had gone to her with his troubles and came away with a light heart
and a clearer insight into the duty that called. Her love and faith in him
was one of the big things in life. In every dream of achievement that had
fired his imagination during the stirring days of the past months he had
always seen her face smiling with pride and love.
It was a bitter task to confess his shame to her--this tender, gracious,
uncomplaining saint, to whom he had always been a hero. He paused a moment
with his hand on the bell of the cottage, and finally rang.
Standing before her with bowed head he told in a few stammering words the
story of his sin and the sorrow that had overwhelmed him.
"I swear to you that for the past two months my life has been clean and God
alone knows the anguish of remorse I have suffered. You'll help me,
mother?" he asked pathetically.
"Yes, my son," she answered simply.
"You don't hate me?"--the question ended with a catch in his voice that
made it almost inaudible.
She lifted her white hands to his cheeks, drew the tall form down gently
and pressed his lips:
"No, my son, I've lived too long. I leave judgment now to God. The unshed
tears I see in your eyes are enough for me."
"I must see her to-night, mother. Make her see me. I can't endure this."
"She will see you when I have talked with her," was the slow reply as if to
herself. "I am going to tell her something that I hoped to carry to the
grave. But the time has come and she must know."
The doctor was strolling on the lawn when they arrived.
"She didn't wish to see me, my boy," he said with a look of sympathy. "And
I thought it best to humor her. Send for me again if you wish, but I think
the mother is best to-night." Without further words he tipped his hat with
a fine old-fashioned bow to Mrs. Carteret and hurried home.
At the sound of the mother's voice the door was opened, two frail arms
slipped around her neck and a baby was sobbing again on her breast. The
white slender hands tenderly stroked the blonde hair, lips bent low and
kissed the shining head and a cheek rested there while sob after sob shook
the little body. The wise mother spoke no words save the sign language of
love and tenderness, the slow pressure to her heart of the sobbing figure,
kisses, kisses, kisses on her hair and the soothing touch of her hand.
A long time without a word they thus clung to each other. The sobs ceased
at last.
"Now tell me, darling, how can I help you?" the gentle voice said.
"Oh, mamma, I just want to go home to you again and die--that's all."
"You'd be happier, you think, with me, dear?"
"Yes--it's clean and pure there. I can't live in this house--the very air I
breathe is foul!"
"But you can't leave Dan, my child. Your life and his are one in your babe.
God has made this so."
"He is nothing to me now. He doesn't exist. I don't come of his breed of
men. My father's handsome face--my grandfather's record as the greatest
Governor of the state--are not merely memories to me. I'll return to my
own. And I'll take my child with me. I'll go back where the air is clean,
where men have always been men, not beasts----"
The mother rose quietly and took from the mantel the dainty morocco-covered
copy of the Bible she had given her daughter the day she left home. She
turned its first, pages, put her finger on the sixteenth chapter of the
Book of Genesis, and turned down a leaf:
"I want you to read this chapter of Genesis which I have marked when you
are yourself, and remember that the sympathy of the world has always been
with the outcast Hagar, and not with the foolish wife who brought a
beautiful girl into her husband's house and then repented of her folly."
"But a negress! oh, my God, the horror, the shame, the humiliation he has
put on me! I've asked myself a hundred times why I lived a moment, why I
didn't leap from that window and dash my brain out on the ground below--the
beast--the beast!"
"Yes, dear, but when you are older you will know that all men are beasts."
"Mother!"
"Yes, all men who are worth while----"
"How can you say that," the daughter cried with scorn, "and remember my
father and grandfather? No man passes the old Governor to-day without
lifting his hat, and I've seen you sit for hours with my father's picture
in your lap crying over it----"
"Yes, dear," was the sweet answer, "these hearts of ours play strange
pranks with us sometimes. You must see Dan to-night and forgive. He will
crawl on his hands and knees to your feet and beg it."
"I'll never see him or speak to him again!"
"You must--dear."
"Never!"
The mother sat down on the lounge and drew the quivering figure close. Her
face was hidden from the daughter's view when she began to speak and so
the death-like pallor was not noticed. The voice was held even by a firm
will:
"I hoped God might let me go without my having to tell you what I must say
now, dearest"--in spite of her effort there was a break and silence.
The little hand sought the mother's:
"You know you can tell me anything, mamma, dear."
"Your father, my child, was not a great man. He died in what should have
been the glory of young manhood. He achieved nothing. He was just the
spoiled child of a greater man, a child who inherited his father's
brilliant mind, fiery temper and willful passions. I loved him from the
moment we met and in spite of all I know that he loved me with the
strongest, purest love he was capable of giving to any woman. And yet,
dearest, I dare not tell you all I discovered of his wild, reckless life.
The vilest trait of his character was transmitted straight from sire to
son--he would never ask forgiveness of any human being for anything he had
done--that is your grandfather's boast to-day. The old Governor, my child,
was the owner of more than a thousand slaves on his two great plantations.
Many of them he didn't know personally--unless they were beautiful
girls----"
"Oh, mother, darling, have mercy on me!"--the little fingers tightened
their grip. But the mother's even voice went on remorselessly:
"Cleo's mother was one of his slaves. You may depend upon it, your
grandfather knows her history. You must remember what slavery meant, dear.
It put into the hands of a master an awful power. It was not necessary for
strong men to use this power. The humble daughters of slaves vied with one
another to win his favor. Your grandfather was a man of great intellect, of
powerful physique, of fierce, ungovernable passions----"
"But my father"--gasped the girl wife.
"Was a handsome, spoiled child, the kind of man for whom women have always
died--but he never possessed the strength to keep himself within the bounds
of decency as did the older man----"
"What do you mean?" the daughter broke in desperately.
"There has always been a secret about your father's death"--the mother
paused and drew a deep breath. "I made the secret. I told the story to save
him from shame in death. He died in the cabin of a mulatto girl he had
played with as a boy--and--the thing that's hardest for me to tell you,
dearest, is that I knew exactly where to find him when he had not returned
at two o'clock that morning----"
The white head sank lower and rested on the shoulder of the frail young
wife, who slipped her arms about the form of her mother, and neither spoke
for a long while.
At last the mother began in quiet tones:
"And this was one of the reasons, my child, why slavery was doomed. The war
was a wicked and awful tragedy. The white motherhood of the South would
have crushed slavery. Before the war began we had six hundred thousand
mulattoes--six hundred thousand reasons why slavery had to die!"
The fire flashed in the gentle eyes for a moment while she paused, and drew
her soul back from the sorrowful past to the tragedy of to-day:
"And so, my darling, you must see your husband and forgive. He isn't bad.
He carried in his blood the inheritance of hundreds of years of lawless
passion. The noble thing about Dan is that he has the strength of character
to rise from this to a higher manhood. You must help him, dearest, to do
this."
The daughter bent and kissed the gentle lips:
"Ask him to come here, mother----"
She found the restless husband pacing the floor of the pillared porch. It
was past two o'clock and the waning moon had risen. His face was ghastly as
his feet stopped their dreary beat at the rustle of her dress. His heart
stood still for a moment until he saw the smiling face.
"It's all right, Dan," she called softly in the doorway. "She's waiting for
you."
He sprang to the door, stooped and kissed the silken gray hair and hurried
up the stairs.
Tears were slowly stealing from the blue eyes as the little wife extended
her frail arms. The man knelt and bowed his head in her lap, unable to
speak at first. With an effort he mastered his voice:
"Say that you forgive me!"
The blonde head sank until it touched the brown:
"I forgive you--but, oh, Dan, dear, I don't want to live any more now----"
"Don't say that!" he pleaded desperately.
"And I've wanted to live so madly, so desperately--but now--I'm afraid I
can't."
"You can--you must! You have forgiven me. I'll prove my love to you by a
life of such devotion I'll make you forget! All I ask is the chance to
atone and make you happy. You must live because I ask it, dear! It's the
only way you can give me a chance. And the boy--dearest--you must live to
teach him."
She nodded her head and choked back a sob.
When the first faint light of the dawn of a glorious spring morning began
to tinge the eastern sky he was still holding her hands and begging her to
live.
CHAPTER XIV
THE FIGHT FOR LIFE
The little wife made a brave fight. For a week there was no sign of a
breakdown save an unnatural brightness of the eyes that told the story of
struggle within. He gave himself to the effort to help her win. He spent
but an hour at the Capitol, left a Speaker _pro tem_ in the chair, hurried
to his office, gave his orders and by eleven o'clock he was at home,
talking, laughing, and planning a day's work that would interest her and
bring back the flush to her pale cheeks.
She had responded to his increasing tenderness and devotion with pathetic
eagerness. At the beginning of the second week Doctor Williams gave him
hope:
"It looks to me, my boy," he said thoughtfully, "that I'm seeing a miracle.
I think she's not only going to survive the shock, but, what's more
remarkable, she's going to recover her health again. The mind's the source
of health and power. We give medicines, of course, but the thought that
heals the soul will reach the body. Bah!--the body is the soul anyhow, for
all our fine-spun theories, and the mind is only one of the ways through
which we reach it----"
"You really think she may be well again?" Norton asked with boyish
eagerness.
"Yes, if you can reconcile her mind to this thing, she'll not only live,
she will be born again into a more vigorous life. Why not? The preachers
have often called me a godless rationalist. But I go them one better when
they preach the miracle of a second, or spiritual birth. I believe in the
possibility of many births for the human soul and the readjustment of these
bodies of ours to the new spirits thus born. If you can tide her over the
next three weeks without a breakdown, she will get well."
The husband's eyes flashed:
"If it depends on her mental attitude, I'll make her live and grow strong.
I'll give her my body and soul."
"There are just two dangers----"
"What?"
"The first mental--a sudden collapse of the will with which she's making
this fight under a reaction to the memories of our system of educated
ignorance, which we call girlish innocence. This may come at a moment when
the consciousness of these 'ideals' may overwhelm her imagination and cause
a collapse----"
"Yes, I understand," he replied thoughtfully. "I'll guard that."
"The other is the big physical enigma----"
"You mean?"
"The possible reopening of that curious abscess in her throat."
"But the specialist assured us it would never reappear----"
"Yes, and he knows just as much about it as you or I. It is one of the few
cases of its kind so far recorded in the science of medicine. When the baby
was born, the drawing of the mother's neck in pain pressed a bone of the
spinal column into the flesh beside the jugular vein. Your specialist never
dared to operate for a thorough removal of the trouble for fear he would
sever the vein----"
"And if the old wound reopens it will reach the jugular vein?"
"Yes."
"Well--it--won't happen!" he answered fiercely. "It can't happen now----"
"I don't think it will myself, if you can keep at its highest tension the
desire to live. That's the magic thing that works the miracle of life in
such cases. It makes food digest, sends red blood to the tips of the
slenderest finger and builds up the weak places. Don't forget this, my boy.
Make her love life, desperately and passionately, until the will to live
dominates both soul and body."
"I'll do it," was the firm answer, as he grasped the doctor's outstretched
hand in parting.
He withdrew completely from his political work. A Speaker _pro tem_
presided daily over the deliberations of the House, and an assistant editor
took charge of the paper.
The wife gently urged him to give part of his time to his work again.
"No," he responded firmly and gayly. "The doctor says you have a chance to
get well. I'd rather see the roses in your cheeks again than be the
President of the United States."
She drew his head down and clung to him with desperate tenderness.
CHAPTER XV
CLEO'S SILENCE
For two weeks the wife held her own and the doctor grew more confident each
day. When Norton began to feel sure the big danger was past his mind became
alert once more to the existence of Cleo. He began to wonder why she had
not made an effort to see or communicate with him.
She had apparently vanished from the face of the earth. In spite of his
effort to minimize the importance of this fact, her silence gradually grew
in sinister significance. What did it mean? What was her active brain and
vital personality up to? That it boded no good to his life and the life of
those he loved he couldn't doubt for a moment. He sent a reporter on a
secret mission to Peeler's house to find if she were there.
He returned in three hours and made his report.
"She's at Peeler's, sir," the young man said with a smile.
"You allowed no one to learn the real reason of your visit, as I told you?"
"They never dreamed it. I interviewed old Peeler on the revolution in
politics and its effects on the poor whites of the state----"
"You saw her?"
"She seemed to be all over the place at the same time, singing, laughing
and perfectly happy."
"Run your interview to-morrow, and keep this visit a profound secret
between us."
"Yes, sir."
The reporter tipped his hat and was gone. Why she was apparently happy and
contented in surroundings she had grown to loathe was another puzzle.
Through every hour of the day, down in the subconscious part of his mind,
he was at work on this surprising fact. The longer he thought of it the
less he understood it. That she would ever content herself with the dreary
existence of old Peeler's farm after her experiences in the town and in his
home was preposterous.
That she was smiling and happy under such conditions was uncanny, and the
picture of her shining teeth and the sound of her deep voice singing as she
walked through the cheap, sordid surroundings of that drab farmhouse
haunted his mind with strange fear.
She was getting ready to strike him in the dark. Just how the blow would
fall he couldn't guess.
The most obvious thing for her to do would be to carry her story to his
political enemies and end his career at a stroke. Yet somehow, for the life
of him he couldn't picture her choosing that method of revenge. She had not
left him in a temper. The rage and curses had all been his. She had never
for a moment lost her self-control. The last picture that burned into his
soul was the curious smile with which she had spoken her parting words:
"But I'll see you again!"
Beyond a doubt some clean-cut plan of action was in her mind when she
uttered that sentence. The one question now was--"what did she mean?"
There was one thought that kept popping into his head, but it was too
hideous for a moment's belief. He stamped on it as he would a snake and
hurried on to other possibilities. There was but one thing he could do and
that was to await with increasing dread her first move.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LARGER VISION
His mind had just settled into this attitude of alert watchfulness toward
Cleo when the first danger the doctor dreaded for his wife began to take
shape.
The feverish brightness in her eyes grew dimmer and her movements less
vigorous. The dreaded reaction had come and the taut strings of weakened
nerves could bear the strain no longer.
With a cry of despair she threw herself into his arms:
"Oh, Dan, dear, it's no use! I've tried--I've tried so hard--but I can't do
it--I just don't want to live any more!"
He put his hands over the trembling, thin lips:
"Hush, dearest, you mustn't say that--it's just a minute's reaction. You're
blue this morning, that's all. It's the weather--a dreary foggy day. The
sun will be shining again to-morrow. It's shining now behind the mists if
we only remember it. The trees are bare, but their buds are swelling and
these days of cold and fog and rain must come to make them burst in glory.
Come, let me put your shawl around you and I'll show you how the flowers
have pushed up in the sheltered places the past week."
He drew the hands, limp and cold, from his neck, picked up her shawl,
tenderly placed it about her shoulders, lifted her in his strong arms, and
carried her to the old rose garden behind the house.
Don sniffed his leg, and looked up into his face with surprise at the
unexpected frolic. He leaped into the air, barked softly and ran in front
to show the way.
"You see, old Don knows the sun is shining behind the clouds, dear!"
She made no answer. The blonde head drooped limply against his breast. He
found a seat on the south side of the greenhouse on an old rustic bench his
father had built of cedar when he was a boy.
"There," he said cheerfully, as he smoothed her dress and drew her close by
his side. "You can feel the warmth of the sun here reflected from the
glass. The violets are already blooming along the walks. The jonquils are
all gone, and the rose bushes have begun to bud. You mustn't talk about
giving up. We haven't lived yet."
"But I'm tired, Dan, tired----"
"It's just for a moment, remember, my love. You'll feel differently
to-morrow. The world is always beautiful if we only have eyes to see and
ears to hear. Watch that smoke curling straight up from the chimney! That
means the clouds are already lifting and the sun will burst through them
this afternoon. You mustn't brood, dearest. You must forget the misery that
has darkened our world for a moment and remember that it's only the dawn of
a new life for us both. We are just boy and girl yet. There's nothing
impossible. I'm going to prove to you that my love is the deathless thing
in me--the thing that links me to God."
"You really love me so?" she asked softly.
"Give me a chance to prove it. That's all I ask. Men sometimes wait until
they're past forty before they begin to sow their wild oats. I am only
twenty-five now. This tragic sin and shame has redeemed life. It's yours
forever--you must believe me when I say this, dearest----"
"I try," she broke in wearily. "I try, Dan, but it's hard to believe
anything now--oh, so hard----"
"But can't you understand, my love, how I have been headstrong and selfish
before the shock of my fall brought me to my senses? And that the terror of
losing you has taught me how deep and eternal the roots of our love have
struck and this knowledge led me into the consciousness of a larger and
more wonderful life--can't--can't you understand this, dearest?"
His voice sank to the lowest reverent whisper as he ceased to speak. She
stroked his hand with a pathetic little gesture of tenderness.
"Yes, I believe you," she said with a far-away look in her eyes. "I know
that I can trust you now implicitly, and what I can't understand is
that--feeling this so clearly--still I have no interest in life. Something
has snapped inside of me. Life doesn't seem worth the struggle any
longer----"
"But it is, dear! Life is always good, always beautiful, and always worth
the struggle. We've but to lift our eyes and see. Sin is only our stumbling
in the dark as we grope toward the light. I'm going to be a humbler and
better man. I am no longer proud and vain. I've a larger and sweeter
vision. I feel my kinship to the weak and the erring. Alone in the night my
soul has entered into the fellowship of the great Brotherhood through the
gates of suffering. You must know this, Jean--you know that it's true as I
thus lay my heart's last secret bare to you to-day.
"Yes, Dan," she sighed wearily, "but I'm just tired. I don't seem to
recognize anything I used to know. I look at the baby and he don't seem to
be mine. I look at you and feel that you're a stranger. I look at my room,
the lawn, the street, the garden--no matter where, and I'm dazed. I feel
that I've lost my way. I don't know how to live any more."
For an hour he held her hand and pleaded with all the eloquence of his love
that she would let him teach her again, and all she could do was to come
back forever in the narrow circle her mind had beaten. She was tired and
life no longer seemed worth while!
He kissed the drooping eyelids at last and laughed a willful, daring laugh
as he gathered her in his arms and walked slowly back into the house.
"You've got to live, my own! I'll show you how! I'll breathe my fierce
desire into your soul and call you back even from the dead!"
Yet in spite of all she drooped and weakened daily, and at the end of a
fortnight began to complain of a feeling of uneasiness in her throat.
The old doctor said nothing when she made this announcement. He drew his
beetling eyebrows low and walked out on the lawn.
Pale and haggard, Norton followed him.
"Well, doctor?" he asked queerly.
"There's only one thing to do. Get her away from here at once, to the most
beautiful spot you can find, high altitude with pure, stimulating air. The
change may help her. That's all I can say"--he paused, laid his hand on the
husband's arm and went on earnestly--"and if you haven't discussed that
affair with her, you'd better try it. Tear the old wound open, go to the
bottom of it, find the thing that's festering there and root it out if you
can--the thing that's caused this break."
The end of another week found them in Asheville, North Carolina.
The wonderful views of purple hills and turquoise sky stretching away into
the infinite thrilled the heart of the little invalid.
It was her first trip to the mountains. She never tired the first two days
of sitting in the big sun-parlor beside the open fire logs and gazing over
the valleys and watching the fleet clouds with their marvelous coloring.
The air was too chill in these early days of spring for her to feel
comfortable outside. But a great longing began to possess her to climb the
mountains and feel their beauty at closer range.
She sat by his side in her room and held his hand while they watched the
glory of the first cloud-flecked mountain sunset. The river lay a crooked
silver ribbon in the deepening shadows of the valley, while the sky
stretched its dazzling scarlet canopy high in heaven above it. The scarlet
slowly turned to gold, and then to deepening purple and with each change
revealed new beauty to the enraptured eye.
She caught her breath and cried at last:
"Oh, it is a beautiful world, Dan, dear--and I wish I could live!"
He laughed for joy:
"Then you shall, dearest! You shall, of course you shall!"
"I want you to take me over every one of those wonderful purple hills!"
"Yes, dear, I will!"
"I dream as I sit and look at them that God lives somewhere in one of those
deep shadows behind a dazzling cloud, and that if we only drive along those
ragged cliffs among them we'd come face to face with Him some day----"
He looked at her keenly. There was again that unnatural brightness in her
eyes which he didn't like and yet he took courage. The day was a glorious
one in the calendar. Hope had dawned in her heart.
"The first warm day we'll go, dear," he cried with the enthusiasm of a boy,
"and take mammy and the kid with us, too, if you say so----"
"No, I want just you, Dan. The long ride might tire the baby, and I might
wish to stay up there all night. I shall never grow tired of those hills."
"It's sweet to hear you talk like that," he cried with a smile.
He selected a gentle horse for their use and five days later, when the sun
rose with unusual warmth, they took their first mountain drive.
Along the banks of crystal brooks that dashed their sparkling waters over
the rocks, up and up winding, narrow roads until the town became a mottled
white spot in the valley below, and higher still until the shining clouds
they had seen from the valley rolled silently into their faces, melting
into the gray mists of fog!
In the midst of one of these clouds, the little wife leaned close and
whispered:
"We're in heaven now, Dan--we're passing through the opal gates! I
shouldn't be a bit surprised to see Him at any moment up here----"
A lump suddenly rose in his throat. Her voice sounded unreal. He bent
close and saw the strange bright light again in her eyes. And the awful
thought slowly shaped itself that the light he saw was the shining image of
the angel of Death reflected there.
He tried to laugh off his morbid fancy now that she had begun to find the
world so beautiful, but the idea haunted him with increasing terror. He
couldn't shake off the impression.
An hour later he asked abruptly:
"You have felt no return of the pain in your throat, dear?"
"Just a little last night, but not to-day--I've been happy to-day."
He made up his mind to telegraph to New York at once for the specialist to
examine her throat.
The fine weather continued unbroken. Every day for a week she sat by his
side and drifted over sunlit valleys, lingered beside beautiful waters and
climbed a new peak to bathe in sun-kissed clouds. On the top of one of
these peaks they found a farmhouse where lodgers were allowed for the
night. They stayed to see the sunrise next morning. Mammy would not worry,
they had told her they might spend the night on these mountain trips.
The farmer called them in time--just as the first birds were waking in the
trees by their window.
It was a climb of only two hundred yards to reach the top of a great
boulder that gave an entrancing view in four directions. To the west lay
the still sleeping town of Asheville half hidden among its hills and trees.
Eastward towered the giant peaks of the Blue Ridge, over whose ragged
crests the sun was climbing.
The young husband took the light form in his strong arms and carried her
to the summit. He placed his coat on the rocky ledge, seated her on it, and
slipped his arm around the slim waist. There in silence they watched the
changing glory of the sky and saw the shadows wake and flee from the
valleys at the kiss of the sun.
He felt the moment had come that he might say some things he had waited
with patience to speak:
"You are sure, dear, that you have utterly forgiven the great wrong I did
you?"
"Yes, Dan," she answered simply, "why do you ask?"
"I just want to be sure, my Jean," he said tenderly, "that there's not a
single dark corner of your heart in which the old shadows lurk. I want to
drive them all out with my love just as we see the sun now lighting with
glory every nook and corner of the world. You are sure?"
The thin lips quivered uncertainly and her blue eyes wavered as he searched
their depths.
"There's one thing, Dan, that I'll never quite face, I think"--she paused
and turned away.
"What, dear?"
"How any man who had ever bent over a baby's cradle with the tenderness and
love I've seen in your face for Tom, could forget the mother who gave the
life at his command!"
"I didn't forget, dearest," he said sadly. "I fought as a wounded man,
alone and unarmed, fights a beast in the jungle. With her sweet spiritual
ideal of love a sheltered, innocent woman can't remember that man is still
an animal, with tooth and claw and unbridled passions, that when put to the
test his religion and his civilization often are only a thin veneer, that
if he becomes a civilized human being in his relations to women it is not
by inheritance, for he is yet in the zoological period of development--but
that it is by the divine achievement of character through struggle. Try,
dearest, if you can, to imagine such a struggle. This primeval man, in the
shadows with desires inflamed by hunger, meets this free primeval woman who
is unafraid, who laughs at the laws of Society because she has nothing to
lose. Both are for the moment animals pure and simple. The universal in him
finds its counterpart in the universal in her. And whether she be fair or
dark, her face, her form, her body, her desires are his--and, above all,
she is near--and in that moment with a nearness that overwhelms by its
enfolding animal magnetism all powers of the mind to think or reflect. Two
such beings are atoms tossed by a storm of forces beyond their control. A
man of refinement wakes from such a crash of elemental powers dazed and
humiliated. Your lips can speak no word as vile, no curse as bitter as I
have hurled against myself----"
The voice broke and he was silent. A little hand pressed his, and her words
were the merest tender whisper as she leaned close:
"I've forgiven you, my love, and I'm going to let you teach me again to
live. I'll be a very docile little scholar in your school. But you know I
can't forget in a moment the greatest single hour that is given a woman to
know--the hour she feels the breath of her first born on her breast. It's
the memory of that hour that hurts. I won't try to deceive you. I'll get
over it in the years to come if God sends them----"
"He will send them--he will send them!" the man broke in with desperate
emotion.
Both were silent for several minutes and a smile began to play about the
blue eyes when she spoke at last:
"You remember how angry you were that morning when you found a doctor and a
nurse in charge of your home? And the great fear that gripped your heart at
the first mad cry of pain I gave? I laughed at myself the next moment. And
then how I found your hand and wouldn't let you go. The doctor stormed and
ordered you out, and I just held on and shook my head, and you stayed. And
when the doctor turned his back I whispered in your ear:
"''You won't leave me, Dan, darling, for a single moment--promise me--swear
it!'
"And you answered:
"'Yes, I swear it, honey--but you must be very brave--braver than I am, you
know'----
"And you begged me to take an anesthetic and I wouldn't, like a little
fool. I wanted to know all and feel all if it killed me. And the anguish of
your face became so terrible, dear--I was sorrier for you than for myself.
And when I saw your lips murmuring in an agony of prayer, I somehow didn't
mind it then----"
She paused, looked far out over the hills and continued:
"What a funny cry he gave--that first one--not a real baby cry--just a
funny little grunt like a good-natured pig! And how awfully disappointed
you were at the shapeless bundle of red flesh that hardly looked human! But
I could see the lines of your dear face in his, I knew that he would be
even handsomer than his big, brave father and pressed him close and laughed
for joy----"
She stopped and sighed:
"You see, Dan, what I couldn't understand is how any man who has felt the
pain and the glory of this, with his hand clasped in the hand of the woman
he loves, their two souls mirrored in that first pair of mysterious little
eyes God sent from eternity--how he could forget the tie that binds----"
He made no effort to interrupt her until the last bitter thought that had
been rankling in her heart was out. He was looking thoughtfully over the
valley. An eagle poised above the field in the foreground, darted to the
stubble with lightning swiftness and rose with a fluttering brown quail in
his talons. His shrill cry of triumph rang pitilessly in the stillness of
the heights.
The little figure gave an unconscious shiver and she added in low tones:
"I'm never going to speak of this nameless thing again, Dan, but you asked
me this morning and I've told you what was in my heart. I just couldn't
understand how you could forget----"
"Only a beast could, dearest," he answered with a curl of the lip. "I'm
something more than that now, taught by the bitterness of experience.
You're just a sweet, innocent girl who has never looked the world as it is
in the face. Reared as you were, you can't understand that there's a
difference as deep as the gulf between heaven and hell, in the divine love
that binds my soul and body and life to you and the sudden passing of a
storm of passion. Won't you try to remember this?"
"Yes, dear, I will----"
She looked into his eyes with a smile of tenderness:
"A curious change is coming over you, Dan. I can begin to see it. There
used to be a line of cruelty sometimes about your mouth and a flash of it
in your eyes. They're gone. There's something strong and tender, wise and
sweet, in their place. If I were an artist I could paint it but I can't
just tell you what it is. I used to think the cruel thing I saw in you was
the memory of the war. Your eyes saw so much of blood and death and pain
and cruelty----"
"Perhaps it was," he said slowly. "War does make men cruel--unconsciously
cruel. We lose all sense of the value of human life----"
"No, it wasn't that," she protested, "it was the other
thing--the--the--Beast you've been talking about. It's not there any more,
Dan--and I'm going to be happy now. I know it, dear----"
He bent and kissed the slender fingers.
"If this old throat of mine just won't bother me again," she added.
He looked at her and turned pale:
"It's bothering you this morning?"
She lifted the delicately shaped head and touched her neck:
"Not much pain, but a sense of fullness. I feel as if I'm going to choke
sometimes."
He rose abruptly, a great fear in his heart:
"We'll go back to town at once. The doctor should arrive at three from New
York."
"Let's not hurry," she cried smiling. "I'm happy now. You're my old
sweetheart again and I'm on a new honeymoon----"
He gazed at the white slender throat. She was looking unusually well. He
wondered if this were a trick of the enemy to throw him off his guard. He
wondered what was happening in those tiny cells behind the smooth round
lines of the beautiful neck. It made him sick and faint to think of the
possibility of another attack--just when the fight was over--just when she
had begun to smile and find life sweet again! His soul rose in fierce
rebellion. It was too horrible for belief. He simply wouldn't believe it!
"All right!" he exclaimed with decision. "We'll stay here till two o'clock,
anyhow. We can drive back in three hours. The train will be late--it always
is."
Through the long hours of a wonderful spring morning they basked in the sun
side by side on a bed of leaves he piled in a sheltered spot on the
mountain side. They were boy and girl again. The shadows had lifted and the
world was radiant with new glory. They talked of the future and the life of
perfect mutual faith and love that should be theirs.
And each moment closer came the soft footfall of an unseen angel.
CHAPTER XVII
THE OPAL GATES
The doctor was waiting at the hotel, his keen eyes very serious. He had
guessed the sinister meaning of the summons. He was an unusually brusque
man--almost rude in his words. He greeted Norton with friendly sympathy and
smiled at the radiant face of the wife.
"Well, little mother," he said with grave humor, "we have more trouble. But
you're brave and patient. It's a joy to work for you."
"And now," she responded gayly, "you've got to finish this thing, doctor. I
don't want any more half-way operations. I'm going to get well this time.
I'm happy and I'm going to be strong again."
"Good, we'll get at it right away. I knew you'd feel that way and so I
brought with me a great surgeon, the most skillful man I know in New York.
I've told him of your case, a very unusual one, and he is going to help
me."
The little mouth smiled bravely:
"I'll be ready for the examination in half an hour----"
When the doctors emerged from her room the sun had set behind the dark blue
hills and Norton was waiting on the balcony for their report.
The specialist walked slowly to where he was standing. He couldn't move
from his tracks. His throat was dry and he had somehow lost the power of
speech. He looked into the face of the man of science, read the story of
tragedy and a mist closed his eyes.
The doctor took his arm gently:
"I've bad news for you----"
"Yes, I know," was the low answer.
"The truth is best----"
"I want to know it."
"She can't live!"
The tall figure stiffened, there was a moment of silence and when he spoke
his words fell slowly with measured intensity:
"There's not a single chance, doctor?"
"Not worth your cherishing. You'd as well know this now and be prepared. We
opened and drained the old wound, and both agreed that it is too late for
an operation. The flesh that guards the wall of the great vein is a mere
shred. She would die under the operation. I can't undertake it."
"And it will not heal again?"
The doctor was silent for a long while and his eyes wandered to the
darkening sky where the stars were coming out one by one:
"Who knows but God? And who am I to set bounds to his power?"
"Then there may be a slender chance?" he asked eagerly.
"To the eye of Science--no--yet while life lingers we always hope. But I
wouldn't advise you to leave her side for the next ten days. The end, if it
comes, will be very sudden, and it will be too late for speech."
A groan interrupted his words and Norton leaned heavily against the
balcony rail. The doctor's voice was full of feeling as he continued:
"If you have anything to say to her you'd better say it quickly to be sure
that it does not remain unsaid."
"Thank you----"
"I have told her nothing more can be done now until the wound from this
draining heals--that when it does she can come to New York for a final
decision on the operation."
"I understand."
"We leave to-night on the midnight express----"
"You can do nothing more?"
"Nothing."
A warm pressure of the hand in the gathering twilight and he was gone. The
dazed man looked toward the fading sky-line of the southwest at Mt.
Pisgah's towering black form pushing his way into the track of the stars
and a feeling of loneliness crushed his soul.
He turned abruptly, braced himself for the ordeal and hurried to her room.
She was unusually bright and cheerful.
"Why, it didn't hurt a bit, dear!" she exclaimed joyfully. "It was nothing.
And when it heals you're to take me to New York for the operation----"
He took her hot hand and kissed it through blinding tears which he tried in
vain to fight back.
"They didn't even have to pack that nasty old gauze in it again--were you
very much scared waiting out there, Dan?"
"Very much."
She started at the queer note in his voice, caught her hand in his brown
locks and pressed his head back in view:
"Why, you're crying--you big foolish boy! You mustn't do that. I'm all
right now--I feel much better--there's not a trace of pain or uneasiness.
Don't be silly--it's all right, remember."
He stroked the little hand:
"Yes, I'll remember, dearest."
"It should all be healed in three weeks and then we'll go to New York.
It'll just be fun! I've always been crazy to go. I won't mind the
operation--you'll be with me every minute now till I'm well again."
"Yes, dear, every moment now until--you--are--well."
The last words came slowly, but by a supreme effort of will the voice was
held even.
He found mammy, told her the solemn truth, and sent her to hire a nurse for
the baby.
"Either you or I must be by her side every minute now, mammy--day and
night."
"Yessir, I understand," the dear old voice answered.
Every morning early the nurse brought the baby in for a romp as soon as he
waked and mammy came to relieve the tired watcher.
Ten days passed before the end came. Many long, sweet hours he had with her
hand in his as the great shadow deepened, while he talked to her of life
and death, and immortality.
A strange peace had slowly stolen into his heart. He had always hated and
feared death before. Now his fears had gone. And the face of the dim white
messenger seemed to smile at him from the friendly shadows.
The change came quietly one night as they sat in the moonlight of her
window.
"Oh, what a beautiful world, Dan!" she said softly, and then the little
hand suddenly grasped her throat! She turned a blanched face on him and
couldn't speak.
He lifted her tenderly and laid her on the bed, rang for the doctor and
sent mammy for the baby.
She motioned for a piece of paper--and slowly wrote in a queer, trembling
hand:
"I understand, dearest, I am going--it's all right. I am
happy--remember that I love you and have forgiven--rear our
boy free from the curse--you know what I mean. I had rather
a thousand times that he should die than this--my brooding
spirit will watch and guard."
The baby kissed her sweetly and lisped:
"Good night, mamma!"
From the doorway he waved his chubby little arm and cried again:
"Night, night, mamma!"
The sun was slowly climbing the eastern hills when the end came. Its first
rays streamed through the window and fell on his haggard face as he bent
and pressed a kiss on the silent lips of the dead.
CHAPTER XVIII
QUESTIONS
The thing that crushed the spirit of the man was not the shock of death
with its thousand and one unanswerable questions torturing the soul, but
the possibility that his acts had been the cause of the tragedy. Dr.
Williams had said to him over and over again:
"Make her will to live and she'll recover!"
He had fought this grim battle and won. She had willed to live and was
happy. The world had never seemed so beautiful as the day she died. If the
cause of her death lay further back in the curious accident which happened
at the birth of the child, his soul was clear of guilt.
He held none of the morbid fancies of the super-sensitive mind that would
make a father responsible for a fatal outcome in the birth of a babe. God
made women to bear children. The only woman to be pitied was the one who
could not know the pain, the joy and the danger of this divine hour.
But the one persistent question to which his mind forever returned was
whether the shock of his sin had weakened her vitality and caused the
return of this old trouble.
The moment he left the grave on the day of her burial, he turned to the old
doctor with this grim question. He told him the whole story. He told him
every word she had spoken since they left home. He recounted every hour of
reaction and depression, the good and the bad, just as the recording angel
might have written it. He ended his recital with the burning question:
"Tell me now, doctor, honestly before God, did I kill her?"
"Certainly not!" was the quick response.
"Don't try to shield me. I can stand the truth. I don't belong to a race of
cowards. After this no pain can ever come but that my soul shall laugh!"
"I'm honest with you, my boy. I've too much self-respect not to treat you
as a man in such an hour. No, if she died as you say, you had nothing to do
with it. The seed of death was hiding there behind that slender, graceful
throat. I was always afraid of it. And I've always known that if the pain
returned she'd die----"
"You knew that before we left home?"
"Yes. I only hinted the truth. I thought the change might prolong her life,
that's all."
"You're not saying this to cheer me? This is not one of your lies you give
for medicine sometimes?"
"No"--the old doctor smiled gravely. "No, shake off this nightmare and go
back to your work. Your people are calling you."
* * * * *
He made a desperate effort to readjust himself to life, but somehow at the
moment the task was hopeless. He had preached, with all the eloquence of
the enthusiasm of youth, that life in itself is always beautiful and always
good. He found it was easier to preach a thing than to live it.
The old house seemed to be empty, and, strange to say, the baby's voice
didn't fill it. He had said to himself that the patter of his little feet
and the sound of his laughter would fill its halls, make it possible to
live, and get used to the change. But it wasn't so. Somehow the child's
laughter made him faint. The sound of his voice made the memory of his
mother an intolerable pain. His voice in the morning was the first thing he
heard and it drove him from the house. At night when he knelt to lisp his
prayers her name was a stab, and when he waved his little hands and said:
"Good night, Papa!" he could remember nothing save the last picture that
had burned itself into his soul.
He tried to feed and care for a canary she had kept in her room, but when
he cocked his little yellow head and gave the loving plaintive cry with
which he used to greet her, the room became a blur and he staggered out
unable to return for a day.
The silent sympathy of his dog, as he thrust his nose between his hands and
wagged his shaggy tail, was the only thing that seemed to count for
anything.
"I understand, Don, old boy," he cried, lifting his paw into his lap and
slipping his arm around the woolly neck, "you're telling me that you love
me always, good or bad, right or wrong. I understand, and it's very sweet
to know it. But I've somehow lost the way on life's field, old boy. The
night is coming on and I can't find the road home. You remember that
feeling when we were lost sometimes in strange countries hunting together,
you and I?"
Don licked his hand and wagged his tail again.
He rose and walked through the lawn, radiant now with the glory of spring.
But the flowers had become the emblems of Death not Life and their odor
was oppressive.
A little black boy, in a ragged shirt and torn trousers, barefooted and
bareheaded, stopped at the gate, climbed up and looked over with idle
curiosity at his aimless wandering. He giggled and asked:
"Ye don't need no boy fer nothin, do ye?"
The man's sombre eyes suddenly lighted with a look of hate that faded in a
moment and he made no reply. What had this poor little ragamuffin, his face
smeared with dirt and his eyes rolling with childish mirth, to do with
tragic problems which his black skin symbolized! He was there because a
greedy race of empire builders had need of his labor. He had remained to
torment and puzzle and set at naught the wisdom of statesmen for the same
reason. For the first time in his life he asked himself a startling
question:
"Do I really need him?"
Before the shock that threw his life into ruins he would have answered as
every Southerner always answered at that time:
"Certainly I need him. His labor is indispensable to the South."
But to-day, back of the fire that flashed in his eyes, there had been born
a new thought. He was destined to forget it in the stress of the life of
the future, but it was there growing from day to day. The thought shaped
itself into questions:
"Isn't the price we pay too great? Is his labor worth more than the purity
of our racial stock? Shall we improve the breed of men or degrade it? Is
any progress that degrades the breed of men progress at all? Is it not
retrogression? Can we afford it?"
He threw off his train of thought with a gesture of weariness and a great
desire suddenly possessed his heart to get rid of such a burden by a
complete break with every tie of life save one.
"Why not take the boy and go?" he exclaimed.
The more he turned the idea over in his mind the more clearly it seemed to
be the sensible thing to do.
But the fighting instinct within him was too strong for immediate
surrender. He went to his office determined to work and lose himself in a
return to its old habits.
He sat down at his desk, but his mind was a blank. There wasn't a question
on earth that seemed worth writing an editorial about. Nothing mattered.
For two hours he sat hopelessly staring at his exchanges. The same world,
which he had left a few weeks before when he had gone down into the valley
of the shadows to fight for his life, still rolled on with its endless
story of joy and sorrow, ambitions and struggle. It seemed now the record
of the buzzing of a lot of insects. It was a waste of time to record such a
struggle or to worry one way or another about it. And this effort of a
daily newspaper to write the day's history of these insects! It might be
worth the while of a philosopher to pause a moment to record the blow that
would wipe them out of existence, but to get excited again over their
little squabbles--it seemed funny now that he had ever been such a fool!
He rose at last in disgust and seized his hat to go home when the Chairman
of the Executive Committee of his party suddenly walked into his office
unannounced. His face was wreathed in smiles and his deep bass voice had a
hearty, genuine ring:
"I've big news for you, major!"
The editor placed a chair beside his desk, motioned his visitor to be
seated and quietly resumed his seat.
"It's been settled for some time," he went on enthusiastically, "but we
thought best not to make the announcement so soon after your wife's death.
I reckon you can guess my secret?"
"I give it up," was the listless answer.
"The Committee has voted unanimously to make you the next Governor. Your
nomination with such backing is a mere formality. Your election is a
certainty----"
The Chairman sprang to his feet and extended his big hand:
"I salute the Governor of the Commonwealth--the youngest man in the history
of the state to hold such high office----"
"You mean it?" Norton asked in a stupor.
"Mean it? Of course I mean it! Why don't you give me your hand? What's the
matter?"
"You see, I've sort of lost my bearings in politics lately."
The Chairman's voice was lowered:
"Of course, major, I understand. Well, this is the medicine you need now to
brace you up. For the first time in my memory a name will go before our
convention without a rival. There'll be just one ballot and that will be a
single shout that'll raise the roof----"
Norton rose and walked to his window overlooking the Square, as he was in
the habit of doing often, turning his back for a moment on the enthusiastic
politician.
He was trying to think. The first big dream of his life had come true and
it didn't interest him.
He turned abruptly and faced his visitor:
"Tell your Committee for me," he said with slow emphatic voice, "that I
appreciate the high honor they would do me, but cannot accept----"
"What!"
"I cannot accept the responsibility."
"You don't mean it?"
"I was never more in earnest."
The Chairman slipped his arm around the editor with a movement of genuine
sympathy:
"Come, my boy, this is nonsense. I'm a veteran politician. No man ever did
such a thing as this in the history of the state! You can't decline such an
honor. You're only twenty-five years old."
"Time is not measured by the tick of a clock," Norton interrupted, "but by
what we've lived."
"Yes, yes, we know you've had a great shock in the death of your wife, but
you must remember that the people--a million people--are calling you to
lead them. It's a solemn duty. Don't say no now. Take a little time and
you'll see that it's the work sent to you at the moment you need it most. I
won't take no for an answer----"
He put on his hat and started to the door:
"I'll just report to the Committee that I notified you and that you have
the matter under consideration."
Before Norton could enter a protest the politician had gone.
His decision was instantly made. This startling event revealed the
hopelessness of life under its present conditions. He would leave the
South. He would put a thousand miles between him and the scene of the
events of the past year. He would leave his home with its torturing
memories.
Above all, he would leave the negroid conditions that made his shame
possible and rear his boy in clean air.
CHAPTER XIX
CLEO'S CRY
The decision once made was carried out without delay. He placed an editor
permanently in charge of his paper, closed the tall green shutters of the
stately old house, sold his horses, and bought tickets for himself and
mammy for New York.
He paused at the gate and looked back at the white pillars of which he had
once been so proud. He hadn't a single regret at leaving.
"A house doesn't make a home, after all!" he sighed with a lingering look.
He took the boy to the cemetery for a last hour beside the mother's grave
before he should turn his back on the scenes of his old life forever.
The cemetery was the most beautiful spot in the county. At this period of
the life of the South, it was the one spot where every home had its little
plot. The war had killed the flower of Southern manhood. The bravest and
the noblest boys never surrendered. They died with a shout and a smile on
their lips and Southern women came daily now to keep their love watches on
these solemn bivouacs of the dead. The girls got the habit of going there
to plant flowers and to tend them and grew to love the shaded walks, the
deep boxwood hedges, the quiet, sweetly perfumed air. Sweethearts were
always strolling among the flowers and from every nook and corner peeped a
rustic seat that could tell its story of the first stammering words from
lovers' lips.
Norton saw them everywhere this beautiful spring afternoon, the girls in
their white, clean dresses, the boys bashful and self-conscious. A throb of
pain gripped his heart and he hurried through the wilderness of flowers to
the spot beneath a great oak where he had laid the tired body of the first
and only woman he had ever loved.
He placed the child on the grass and led him to the newly-made mound, put
into his tiny hand the roses he had brought and guided him while he placed
them on her grave.
"This is where little mother sleeps, my boy," he said softly. "Remember it
now--it will be a long, long time before we shall see it again. You won't
forget----"
"No--dad-ee," he lisped sweetly. "I'll not fordet, the big tree----"
The man rose and stood in silence seeing again the last beautiful day of
their life together and forgot the swift moments. He stood as in a trance
from which he was suddenly awakened by the child's voice calling him
excitedly from another walkway into which he had wandered:
"Dad-ee!" he called again.
"Yes, baby," he answered.
"Oh, come quick! Dad-ee--here's C-l-e-o!"
Norton turned and with angry steps measured the distance between them.
He came upon them suddenly behind a boxwood hedge. The girl was kneeling
with the child's arms around her neck, clinging to her with all the
yearning of his hungry little heart, and she was muttering half articulate
words of love and tenderness. She held him from her a moment, looked into
his eyes and cried:
"And you missed me, darling?"
"Oh--C-l-e-o!" he cried, "I thought 'oo'd _nev-er_ tum!"
The angry words died in the man's lips as he watched the scene in silence.
He stooped and drew the child away:
"Come, baby, we must go----"
"Tum on, C-l-e-o, we do now," he cried.
The girl shook her head and turned away.
"Tum on, C-l-e-o!" he cried tenderly.
She waved him a kiss, and the child said excitedly:
"Oh, dad-ee, wait!--wait for C-l-e-o!"
"No, my baby, she can't come with us----"
The little head sank to his shoulder, a sob rose from his heart and he
burst into weeping. And through the storm of tears one word only came out
clear and soft and plaintive:
"C-l-e-o! C-l-e-o!"
The girl watched them until they reached the gate and then, on a sudden
impulse, ran swiftly up, caught the child's hand that hung limply down his
father's back, covered it with kisses and cried in cheerful, half-laughing
tones:
"Don't cry, darling! Cleo will come again!"
And in the long journey to the North the man brooded over the strange tones
of joyous assurance with which the girl had spoken.
CHAPTER XX
THE BLOW FALLS
For a time Norton lost himself in the stunning immensity of the life of New
York. He made no effort to adjust himself to it. He simply allowed its
waves to roll over and engulf him.
He stopped with mammy and the boy at a brown-stone boarding house on
Stuyvesant Square kept by a Southern woman to whom he had a letter of
introduction.
Mrs. Beam was not an ideal landlady, but her good-natured helplessness
appealed to him. She was a large woman of ample hips and bust, and though
very tall seemed always in her own way. She moved slowly and laughed with a
final sort of surrender to fate when anything went wrong. And it was
generally going wrong. She was still comparatively young--perhaps
thirty-two--but was built on so large and unwieldy a pattern that it was
not easy to guess her age, especially as she had a silly tendency to
harmless kittenish ways at times.
The poor thing was pitifully at sea in her new world and its work. She had
been reared in a typically extravagant home of the old South where slaves
had waited her call from childhood. She had not learned to sew, or cook or
keep house--in fact, she had never learned to do anything useful or
important. So naturally she took boarders. Her husband, on whose shoulders
she had placed every burden of life the day of her marriage, lay somewhere
in an unmarked trench on a Virginia battlefield.
She couldn't conceive of any human being enduring a servant that wasn't
black and so had turned her house over to a lazy and worthless crew of
Northern negro help. The house was never clean, the waste in her kitchen
was appalling, but so long as she could find money to pay her rent and
grocery bills, she was happy. Her only child, a daughter of sixteen, never
dreamed of lifting her hand to work, and it hadn't yet occurred to the
mother to insult her with such a suggestion.
Norton was not comfortable but he was lonely, and Mrs. Beam's easy ways,
genial smile and Southern weaknesses somehow gave him a sense of being at
home and he stayed. Mammy complained bitterly of the insolence and low
manners of the kitchen. But he only laughed and told her she'd get used to
it.
He was astonished to find that so many Southern people had drifted to New
York--exiles of all sorts, with one universal trait, poverty and
politeness.
And they quickly made friends. As he began to realize it, his heart went
out to the great city with a throb of gratitude.
When the novelty of the new world had gradually worn off a feeling of
loneliness set in. He couldn't get used to the crowds on every street,
these roaring rivers of strange faces rushing by like the waters of a
swollen stream after a freshet, hurrying and swirling out of its banks.
At first he had found himself trying to bow to every man he met and take
off his hat to every woman. It took a long time to break himself of this
Southern instinct. The thing that cured him completely was when he tipped
his hat unconsciously to a lady on Fifth Avenue. She blushed furiously,
hurried to the corner and had him arrested.
His apology was so abject, so evidently sincere, his grief so absurd over
her mistake that when she caught his Southern drawl, it was her turn to
blush and ask his pardon.
A feeling of utter depression and pitiful homesickness gradually crushed
his spirit. His soul began to cry for the sunlit fields and the perfumed
nights of the South. There didn't seem to be any moon or stars here, and
the only birds he ever saw were the chattering drab little sparrows in the
parks.
The first day of autumn, as he walked through Central Park, a magnificent
Irish setter lifted his fine head and spied him. Some subtle instinct told
the dog that the man was a hunter and a lover of his kind. The setter
wagged his tail and introduced himself. Norton dropped to a seat, drew the
shaggy face into his lap, and stroked his head.
He was back home again. Don, with his fine nose high in the air, was
circling a field and Andy was shouting:
"He's got 'em! He's got 'em sho, Marse Dan!"
He could see Don's slim white and black figure stepping slowly through the
high grass on velvet feet, glancing back to see if his master were
coming--the muscles suddenly stiffened, his tail became rigid, and the
whole covey of quail were under his nose!
He was a boy again and felt the elemental thrill of man's first work as
hunter and fisherman. He looked about him at the bald coldness of the
artificial park and a desperate longing surged through his heart to be
among his own people again, to live their life and feel their joys and
sorrows as his own.
And then the memory of the great tragedy slowly surged back, he pushed the
dog aside, rose and hurried on in his search for a new world.
He tried the theatres--saw Booth in his own house on 23d Street play
"Hamlet" and Lawrence Barrett "Othello," listened with rapture to the new
Italian Grand Opera Company in the Academy of Music--saw a burlesque in the
Tammany Theatre on 14th Street, Lester Wallack in "The School for Scandal"
at Wallack's Theatre on Broadway at 13th Street, and Tony Pastor in his
variety show at his Opera House on the Bowery, and yet returned each night
with a dull ache in his heart.
Other men who loved home less perhaps could adjust themselves to new
surroundings, but somehow in him this home instinct, this feeling of
personal friendliness for neighbor and people, this passion for house and
lawn, flowers and trees and shrubs, for fields and rivers and hills, seemed
of the very fibre of his inmost life. This vast rushing, roaring,
impersonal world, driven by invisible titanic forces, somehow didn't appeal
to him. It merely stunned and appalled and confused his mind.
And then without warning the blow fell.
He told himself afterwards that he must have been waiting for it, that some
mysterious power of mental telepathy had wired its message without words
across the thousand miles that separated him from the old life, and yet the
surprise was complete and overwhelming.
He had tried that morning to write. A story was shaping itself in his mind
and he felt the impulse to express it. But he was too depressed. He threw
his pencil down in disgust and walked to his window facing the little
park.
It was a bleak, miserable day in November--the first freezing weather had
come during the night and turned a drizzling rain into sleet. The streets
were covered with a thin, hard, glistening coat of ice. A coal wagon had
stalled in front of the house, a magnificent draught horse had fallen and a
brutal driver began to beat him unmercifully.
Henry Berg's Society had not yet been organized.
Norton rushed from the door and faced the astonished driver:
"Don't you dare to strike that horse again!"
The workman turned his half-drunken face on the intruder with a vicious
leer:
"Well, what t'ell----"
"I mean it!"
With an oath the driver lunged at him:
"Get out of my way!"
The big fist shot at Norton's head. He parried the attack and knocked the
man down. The driver scrambled to his feet and plunged forward again. A
second blow sent him flat on his back on the ice and his body slipped three
feet and struck the curb.
"Have you got enough?" Norton asked, towering over the sprawling figure.
"Yes."
"Well, get up now, and I'll help you with the horse."
He helped the sullen fellow unhitch the fallen horse, lift him to his feet
and readjust the harness. He put shoulder to the wheel and started the
wagon again on its way.
He returned to his room feeling better. It was the first fight he had
started for months and it stirred his blood to healthy reaction.
He watched the bare limbs swaying in the bitter wind in front of St.
George's Church and his eye rested on the steeples the architects said were
unsafe and might fall some day with a crash, and his depression slowly
returned. He had waked that morning with a vague sense of dread.
"I guess it was that fight!" he muttered. "The scoundrel will be back in an
hour with a warrant for my arrest and I'll spend a few days in jail----"
The postman's whistle blew at the basement window. He knew that fellow by
the way he started the first notes of his call--always low, swelling into a
peculiar shrill crescendo and dying away in a weird cry of pain.
The call this morning was one of startling effects. It was his high nerve
tension, of course, that made the difference--perhaps, too, the bitter cold
and swirling gusts of wind outside. But the shock was none the less vivid.
The whistle began so low it seemed at first the moaning of the wind, the
high note rang higher and higher, until it became the shout of a fiend, and
died away with a wail of agony wrung from a lost soul.
He shivered at the sound. He would not have been surprised to receive a
letter from the dead after that.
He heard some one coming slowly up stairs. It was mammy and the boy. The
lazy maid had handed his mail to her, of course.
His door was pushed open and the child ran in holding a letter in his red,
chubby hand:
"A letter, daddy!" he cried.
He took it mechanically, staring at the inscription. He knew now the
meaning of his horrible depression! She was writing that letter when it
began yesterday. He recognized Cleo's handwriting at a glance, though this
was unusually blurred and crooked. The postmark was Baltimore, another
striking fact.
He laid the letter down on his table unopened and turned to mammy:
"Take him to your room. I'm trying to do some writing."
The old woman took the child's hand grumbling:
"Come on, mammy's darlin', nobody wants us!"
He closed the door, locked it, glanced savagely at the unopened letter,
drew his chair before the open fire and gazed into the glowing coals.
He feared to break the seal--feared with a dull, sickening dread. He
glanced at it again as though he were looking at a toad that had suddenly
intruded into his room.
Six months had passed without a sign, and he had ceased to wonder at the
strange calm with which she received her dismissal and his flight from the
scene after his wife's death. He had begun to believe that her shadow would
never again fall across his life.
It had come at last. He picked the letter up, and tried to guess its
meaning. She was going to make demands on him, of course. He had expected
this months ago. But why should she be in Baltimore? He thought of a
hundred foolish reasons without once the faintest suspicion of the truth
entering his mind.
He broke the seal and read its contents. A look of vague incredulity
overspread his face, followed by a sudden pallor. The one frightful thing
he had dreaded and forgotten was true!
He crushed the letter in his powerful hand with a savage groan:
"God in Heaven!"
He spread it out again and read and re-read its message, until each word
burned its way into his soul:
"Our baby was born here yesterday. I was on my way to New
York to you, but was taken sick on the train at Baltimore
and had to stop. I'm alone and have no money, but I'm proud
and happy. I know that you will help me.
"CLEO."
For hours he sat in a stupor of pain, holding this crumpled letter in his
hand, staring into the fire.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CALL OF THE BLOOD
It was all clear now, the mystery of Cleo's assurance, of her happiness, of
her acceptance of his going without protest.
She had known the truth from the first and had reckoned on his strength and
manliness to draw him to her in this hour.
"I'll show her!" he said in fierce rebellion. "I'll give her the money she
needs--yes--but her shadow shall never again darken my life. I won't permit
this shame to smirch the soul of my boy--I'll die first!"
He moved to the West side of town, permitted no one to learn his new
address, sent her money from the general postoffice, and directed all his
mail to a lock box he had secured.
He destroyed thus every trace by which she might discover his residence if
she dared to venture into New York.
To his surprise it was more than three weeks before he received a reply
from her. And the second letter made an appeal well-nigh resistless. The
message was brief, but she had instinctively chosen the words that found
him. How well she knew that side of his nature! He resented it with rage
and tried to read all sorts of sinister guile into the lines. But as he
scanned them a second time reason rejected all save the simplest and most
obvious meaning the words implied.
The letter was evidently written in a cramped position. She had missed the
lines many times and some words were so scrawled they were scarcely
legible. But he read them all at last:
"I have been very sick since your letter came with the
money. I tried to get up too soon. I have suffered awfully.
You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through. Please
don't be angry with me for what neither you nor I can help
now. I want to see you just once, and then I won't trouble
you any more. I am very weak to-day, but I'll soon be strong
again.
"CLEO."
It made him furious, this subtle appeal to his keen sense of fatherhood.
She knew how tenderly he loved his boy. She knew that while such
obligations rest lightly on some men, the tie that bound him to his son was
the biggest thing in his life. She had been near him long enough to learn
the secret things of his inner life. She was using them now to break down
the barriers of character and self-respect. He could see it plainly. He
hated her for it and yet the appeal went straight to his heart.
Two things in this letter he couldn't get away from:
"You see, I didn't know how much I had gone through."
He kept reading this over. And the next line:
"Please don't be angry with me for what neither you nor I can help now."
The appeal was so human, so simple, so obviously sincere, no man with a
soul could ignore it. How could she help it now? She too had been swept
into the tragic situation by the blind forces of Nature. After all, had it
not been inevitable? Did not such a position of daily intimate physical
contact--morning, noon and night--mean just this? Could she have helped it?
Were they not both the victims, in a sense, of the follies of centuries?
Had he the right to be angry with her?
His reason answered, no. And again came the deeper question--can any man
ever escape the consequences of his deeds? Deeds are of the infinite and
eternal and the smallest one disturbs the universe. It slowly began to dawn
on him that nothing he could ever do or say could change one elemental
fact. She was a mother--a fact bigger than all the forms and ceremonies of
the ages. It was just this thing in his history that made his sin against
the wife so poignant, both to her and to his imagination. A child was a
child, and he had no right to sneak and play a coward in such an hour.
Step by step the woman's simple cry forced its way into the soul and slowly
but surely the rags were stripped from pride, until he began to see himself
naked and without sham.
The one thing that finally cut deepest was the single sentence: "You see, I
didn't know how much I had gone through----"
He read it again with a feeling of awe. No matter what the shade of her
olive cheek or the length of her curly hair, she was a mother with all that
big word means in the language of men. Say what he might--of her art in
leading him on, of her final offering herself in a hundred subtle ways in
their daily life in his home--he was still responsible. He had accepted the
challenge at last.
And he knew what it meant to any woman under the best conditions, with a
mother's face hovering near and the man she loved by her side. He saw
again the scene of his boy's birth. And then another picture--a lonely girl
in a strange city without a friend--a cot in the whitewashed ward of a
city's hospital--a pair of startled eyes looking in vain for a loved,
familiar face as her trembling feet stepped falteringly down into the
valley that lies between Life and Death!
A pitiful thing, this hour of suffering and of waiting for the unknown.
His heart went out to her in sympathy, and he answered her letter with a
promise to come. But on the day he was to start for Baltimore mammy was
stricken with a cold which developed into pneumonia. Unaccustomed to the
rigors of a Northern climate, she had been careless and the result from the
first was doubtful. To leave her was, of course, impossible.
He sent for a doctor and two nurses and no care or expense was spared, but
in spite of every effort she died. It was four weeks before he returned
from the funeral in the South.
He reached Baltimore in a blinding snowstorm the week preceding Christmas.
Cleo had left the hospital three weeks previous to his arrival, and for
some unexplained reason had spent a week or ten days in Norfolk and
returned in time to meet him.
He failed to find her at the address she had given him, but was directed to
an obscure hotel in another quarter of the city.
He was surprised and puzzled at the attitude assumed at this meeting. She
was nervous, irritable, insolent and apparently anxious for a fight.
"Well, why do you stare at me like that?" she asked angrily.
"Was I staring?" he said with an effort at self-control.
"After all I've been through the past weeks," she said bitterly, "I didn't
care whether I lived or died."
"I meant to have come at once as I wrote you. But mammy's illness and death
made it impossible to get here sooner."
"One excuse is as good as another," she retorted with a contemptuous toss
of her head.
Norton looked at her in blank amazement. It was inconceivable that this was
the same woman who wrote him the simple, sincere appeal a few weeks ago. It
was possible, of course, that suffering had embittered her mind and reduced
her temporarily to the nervous condition in which she appeared.
"Why do you keep staring at me?" she asked again, with insolent ill-temper.
He was so enraged at her evident attempt to bully him into an attitude of
abject sympathy, he shot her a look of rage, seized his hat and without a
word started for the door.
With a cry of despair she was by his side and grasped his arm:
"Please--please don't!"
"Change your tactics, then, if you have anything to say to me."
She flushed, stammered, looked at him queerly and then smiled:
"Yes, I will, major--please don't be mad at me! You see, I'm just a little
crazy. I've been through so much since I came here I didn't know what I was
saying to you. I'm awfully sorry--let me take your hat----"
She took his hat, laid it on the table and led him to a seat.
"Please sit down. I'm so glad you've come, and I thank you for coming. I'm
just as humble and grateful as I can be. You must forget how foolish I've
acted. I've been so miserable and scared and lonely, it's a wonder I
haven't jumped into the bay. And I just thought at last that you were never
coming."
Norton looked at her with new astonishment. Not because there was anything
strange in what she said--he had expected some such words on his arrival,
but because they didn't ring true. She seemed to be lying. There was an
expression of furtive cunning in her greenish eyes that was uncanny. He
couldn't make her out. In spite of the effort to be friendly she was
repulsive.
"Well, I'm here," he said calmly. "You have something to say--what is it?"
"Of course," she answered smilingly. "I have a lot to say. I want you to
tell me what to do."
"Anything you like," he answered bluntly.
"It's nothing to you?"
"I'll give you an allowance."
"Is that all?"
"What else do you expect?"
"You don't want to see her?"
"No."
"I thought you were coming for that?"
"I've changed my mind. And the less we see of each other the better. I'll
go with you to-morrow and verify the records----"
Cleo laughed:
"You don't think I'm joking about her birth?"
"No. But I'm not going to take your word for it."
"All right, I'll go with you to-morrow."
He started again to the door. He felt that he must leave--that he was
smothering. Something about the girl's manner got on his nerves. Not only
was there no sort of sympathy or attraction between them but the longer he
stayed in her presence the more he felt the desire to choke her. He began
to look into her eyes with growing suspicion and hate, and behind their
smiling plausibility he felt the power of a secret deadly hostility.
"You don't want me to go back home with the child, do you?" Cleo asked with
a furtive glance.
"No, I do not," he replied, emphatically.
"I'm going back--but I'll give her up and let you educate her in a convent
on one condition----"
"What?" he asked sharply.
"That you let me nurse the boy again and give me the protection and shelter
of your home----"
"Never!" he cried.
"Please be reasonable. It will be best for you and best for me and best for
her that her life shall never be blackened by the stain of my blood. I've
thought it all out. It's the only way----"
"No," he replied sternly. "I'll educate her in my own way, if placed in my
hands without condition. But you shall never enter my house again----"
"Is it fair," she pleaded, "to take everything from me and turn me out in
the world alone? I'll give your boy all the love of a hungry heart. He
loves me."
"He has forgotten your existence----"
"You know that he hasn't!"
"I know that he has," Norton persisted with rising wrath. "It's a waste of
breath for you to talk to me about this thing"--he turned on her fiercely:
"Why do you wish to go back there? To grin and hint the truth to your
friends?"
"You know that I'd cut my tongue out sooner than betray you. I'd like to
scream it from every housetop--yes. But I won't. I won't, because you smile
or frown means too much to me. I'm asking this that I may live and work for
you and be your slave without money and without price----"
"I understand," he broke in bitterly, "because you think that thus you can
again drag me down--well, you can't do it! The power you once had is
gone--gone forever--never to return----"
"Then why be afraid? No one there knows except my mother. You hate me. All
right. I can do you no harm. I'll never hate you. I'll just be happy to
serve you, to love your boy and help you rear him to be a fine man. Let me
go back with you and open the old house again----"
He lifted his hand with a gesture of angry impatience:
"Enough of this now--you go your way in life and I go mine."
"I'll not give her up except on my conditions----"
"Then you can keep her and go where you please. If you return home you'll
not find me. I'll put the ocean between us if necessary----"
He stepped quickly to the door and she knew it was needless to argue
further.
"Come to my hotel to-morrow morning at ten o'clock and I'll make you a
settlement through a lawyer."
"I'll be there," she answered in a low tone, "but please, major, before you
go let me ask you not to remember the foolish things I said and the way I
acted when you came. I'm so sorry--forgive me. I made you terribly mad. I
don't know what was the matter with me. Remember I'm just a foolish girl
here without a friend----"
She stopped, her voice failing:
"Oh, my God, I'm so lonely, I don't want to live! You don't know what it
means for me just to be near you--please let me go home with you!"
There was something genuine in this last cry. It reached his heart in spite
of anger. He hesitated and spoke in kindly tones:
"Good night--I'll see you in the morning."
This plea of loneliness and homesickness found the weak spot in his armor.
It was so clearly the echo of his own feelings. The old home, with its
beautiful and sad memories, his people and his work had begun to pull
resistlessly. Her suggestion was a subtle and dangerous one, doubly
seductive because it was so safe a solution of difficulties. There was not
the shadow of a doubt that her deeper purpose was to ultimately dominate
his personal life. He was sure of his strength, yet he knew that the wise
thing to do was to refuse to listen.
At ten o'clock next morning she came. He had called a lawyer and drawn up a
settlement that only waited her signature.
She had not said she would sign--she had not positively refused. She was
looking at him with dumb pleading eyes.
[Illustration: "He had heard the call of his people."]
Without a moment's warning the boy pushed his way into the room. Norton
sprang before Cleo and shouted angrily to the nurse:
"I told you not to let him come into this room----"
"But you see I des tum!" the boy answered with a laugh as he darted to the
corner.
The thing he dreaded had happened. In a moment the child saw Cleo. There
was just an instant's hesitation and the father smiled that he had
forgotten her. But the hesitation was only the moment of dazed surprise.
With a scream of joy he crossed the room and sprang into her arms:
"Oh, Cleo--Cleo--my Cleo! You've tum--you've tum! Look, Daddy! She's
tum--my Cleo!"
He hugged her, he kissed her, he patted her flushed cheeks, he ran his
little fingers through her tangled hair, drew himself up and kissed her
again.
She snatched him to her heart and burst into uncontrollable sobs, raised
her eyes streaming with tears to Norton and said softly:
"Let me go home with you!"
He looked at her, hesitated and then slowly tore the legal document to
pieces, threw it in the fire and nodded his consent.
But this time his act was not surrender. He had heard the call of his
people and his country. It was the first step toward the execution of a new
life purpose that had suddenly flamed in the depths of his darkened soul as
he watched the picture of the olive cheek of the woman against the clear
white of his child's.
Book Two--Atonement
CHAPTER I
THE NEW LIFE PURPOSE
Norton had been compelled to wait twenty years for the hour when he could
strike the first decisive blow in the execution of his new life purpose.
But the aim he had set was so high, so utterly unselfish, so visionary, so
impossible by the standards of modern materialism, he felt the thrill of
the religious fanatic as he daily girded himself to his task.
He was far from being a religious enthusiast, although he had grown a
religion of his own, inherited in part, dreamed in part from the depth of
his own heart. The first article of this faith was a firm belief in the
ever-brooding Divine Spirit and its guidance in the work of man if he but
opened his mind to its illumination.
He believed, as in his own existence, that God's Spirit had revealed the
vision he saw in the hour of his agony, twenty years before when he had
watched his boy's tiny arms encircle the neck of Cleo, the tawny young
animal who had wrecked his life, but won the heart of his child. He had
tried to desert his people of the South and awaked with a shock. His mind
in prophetic gaze had leaped the years and seen the gradual wearing down of
every barrier between the white and black races by the sheer force of daily
contact under the new conditions which Democracy had made inevitable.
Even under the iron laws of slavery it was impossible for an inferior and
superior race to live side by side for centuries as master and slave
without the breaking down of some of these barriers. But the moment the
magic principle of equality in a Democracy became the law of life they must
all melt or Democracy itself yield and die. He had squarely faced this big
question and given his life to its solution.
When he returned to his old home and installed Cleo as his housekeeper and
nurse she was the living incarnation before his eyes daily of the problem
to be solved--the incarnation of its subtleties and its dangers. He studied
her with the cold intellectual passion of a scientist. Nor was there ever a
moment's uncertainty or halting in the grim purpose that fired his soul.
She had at first accepted his matter of fact treatment as the sign of
ultimate surrender. And yet as the years passed she saw with increasing
wonder and rage the gulf between them deepen and darken. She tried every
art her mind could conceive and her effective body symbolize in vain. His
eyes looked at her, but never saw the woman. They only saw the thing he
hated--the mongrel breed of a degraded nation.
He had begun his work at the beginning. He had tried to do the things that
were possible. The minds of the people were not yet ready to accept the
idea of a complete separation of the races. He planned for the slow process
of an epic movement. His paper, in season and out of season, presented the
daily life of the black and white races in such a way that the dullest mind
must be struck by the fact that their relations presented an insoluble
problem. Every road of escape led at last through a blind alley against a
blank wall.
In this policy he antagonized no one, but expressed always the doubts and
fears that lurked in the minds of thoughtful men and women. His paper had
steadily grown in circulation and in solid power. He meant to use this
power at the right moment. He had waited patiently and the hour at last had
struck.
The thunder of a torpedo under an American warship lying in Havana harbor
shook the Nation and changed the alignment of political parties.
The war with Spain lasted but a few months, but it gave the South her
chance. Her sons leaped to the front and proved their loyalty to the flag.
The "Bloody Shirt" could never again be waved. The negro ceased to be a
ward of the Nation and the Union of States our fathers dreamed was at last
an accomplished fact. There could never again be a "North" or a "South."
Norton's first brilliant editorial reviewing the results of this war drew
the fire of his enemies from exactly the quarter he expected.
A little college professor, who aspired to the leadership of Southern
thought under Northern patronage, called at his office.
The editor's lips curled with contempt as he read the engraved card:
"Professor Alexander Magraw"
The man had long been one of his pet aversions. He occupied a chair in one
of the state's leading colleges, and his effusions advocating peace at any
price on the negro problem had grown so disgusting of late the _Eagle and
Phoenix_ had refused to print them.
Magraw was nothing daunted. He devoted his energies to writing a book in
fulsome eulogy of a notorious negro which had made him famous in the North.
He wrote it to curry favor with the millionaires who were backing this
African's work and succeeded in winning their boundless admiration. They
hailed him the coming leader of "advanced thought." As a Southern white man
the little professor had boldly declared that this negro, who had never
done anything except to demonstrate his skill as a beggar in raising a
million dollars from Northern sentimentalists, was the greatest human being
ever born in America!
Outraged public opinion in the South had demanded his expulsion from the
college for this idiotic effusion, but he was so entrenched behind the
power of money he could not be disturbed. His loud protests for free speech
following his acquittal had greatly increased the number of his henchmen.
Norton wondered at the meaning of his visit. It could only be a sinister
one. In view of his many contemptuous references to the man, he was amazed
at his audacity in venturing to invade his office.
He scowled a long while at the card and finally said to the boy:
"Show him in."