THE APPEAL

On the iron balcony of a house in the vicinity of the parish prison the

two Sicilian girls were standing. Across from them loomed the great

decaying structure with its little iron-barred windows and its

steel-ribbed doors behind which lay their countrymen. From inside came

the echo of a great hammering, as if a gallows were being erected; but

the square and the streets outside were quiet.

"What time is it now?" Oliveta had repeated this question already a

dozen times.

"It is after ten."

"I hear nothing as yet, do you?"

"Nothing!"

"We could hear if it were not for that dreadful pounding yonder in the

jail."

"Hush! They are building barricades."

The peasant girl gasped and seized the iron railing in front of her.

"Madonna mia! I am dying. Do you think Signore Blake will yield to your

appeal and turn the mob?"

"I'm afraid not," said Vittoria, faintly.

"He can do more than any other, for he is powerful; they will listen to

him. If Caesar should escape! I am shamed through and through to have

loved such a man, and yet to have him killed like a rat in a hole! I

pray, and I know not what I pray for--my thoughts are whirling so. Do

you hear anything from the city?"

"No, no!"

There was a moment's pause.

"Those barricades will not allow them to enter, even if our friend does

not persuade them to disperse."

"I have heard there is sometimes shooting." Vittoria shuddered. "It is

terrible for men to become brutes."

"The time is growing late," Oliveta quavered.

There was another period of silence while they strained their ears for

the faintest sound, but the fresh breeze wafted nothing to them. On a

neighboring gallery two housewives were gossiping; a child was playing

on the walk beneath, and his piping laughter sounded strangely

incongruous. From across the way rose that desultory pounding as spikes

were driven home and beams were nailed in place. Through a grated

aperture in the prison wall an armed man peered down the street.

"Caesar is cunning," Oliveta broke out. "He is not one to be easily

caught. He is brave, too. Ah, God! how I loved him and how I have hated

him!" Ever since Maruffi's capture she had remained in a frame of mind

scarcely rational, fluctuating between a silent, sullen mood of revenge

and a sense of horror at her betrayal of the man who had once possessed

her whole heart.

"It can't be that you still care for him?"

"No, I loathe him, and if he escapes he would surely kill me. Yet

sometimes I wish it." She began mumbling to herself. "Look!" she cried,

suddenly. "What is this?"

A public hack came swinging into view, its horses at a gallop. It drew

up before the main gate of the prison, a man leaped forth and began

pounding for admittance. Some one spoke to him through a grating.

"What does he say?" queried the peasant girl.

"I cannot hear. Perhaps he comes to say there is no--Mother of God!

Listen!"

From somewhere toward the heart of the city came a faint murmur.

"It is the rumble of a wagon on the next street," gasped Oliveta.

The sound died away. The girls stood frozen at attention with their

senses strained. Then it rose again, louder. Soon there was no

mistaking it. A whisper came upon the breeze, it mounted into a

long-drawn humming, which in turn grew to a steady drone of voices

broken by waves of cheering. It gathered volume rapidly, and straggling

figures came running into view, followed by knots and groups of

fleet-footed youths. The driver of the carriage rose on his box, looked

over his shoulder, then whipped his horses into a gallop and fled. As

he did so a slowly moving wagon laden with timbers turned in from a

side street. It was driven by a somnolent negro, who finally halted his

team and stared in dull lack of comprehension at what he saw

approaching.

By now the street beneath the girls was half filled with people; it

echoed to a babble of voices, to the shuffle and tread of a coming

multitude, and an instant later out of every thoroughfare which fronted

upon the grim old prison structure streamed the people of New Orleans.

"See! They are unarmed!" Oliveta's fingers sank into her sister's wrist.

Then through the press came a body of silent men, four abreast and

shoulder to shoulder. The crowd opened to let them through, cheering

frenziedly. They wore an air of sober responsibility; they carried

guns, and looked to neither right nor left. Directly beneath the

waiting women they passed, and at their head marched Norvin Blake and

Bernie Dreux together with two men unknown to the girls.

Vittoria leaned forward horror-stricken, and although she tried to call

she did not hear her voice above the confusion; Oliveta clutched her,

murmuring distractedly.

The avenues were jammed from curb to curb; telegraph-poles, lamp-posts,

trees held a burden of human forms; windows and house-tops were filling

in every direction; a continuous roar beat thunderously against the

prison walls.

The army of vigilantes drew up before the main gate, and a man smote it

with the butt of his shotgun, demanding entrance. The crowd,

anticipating a volley from within, surged back, leaving them isolated.

A dozen bluecoats struggled to clear the sidewalks next the structure,

but they might as well have tried to stem a rising tide with their

naked hands; they were buffeted briefly, then swallowed up.

In answer to a command, the armed men scattered, surrounding the

building with a cordon of steel; then the main body renewed its

assault. But the oaken barrier, stoutly reinforced, withstood them

gallantly, and a brief colloquy occurred, after which they made their

way to a small side door which directly faced the two women across the

street. This was not so heavily constructed as the front gate and

promised an easier entrance; but it was likewise locked and barred.

Then some one spied the wagon and its load of timbers, now hopelessly

wedged into the press, and a rush was made toward it. A beam was raised

upon willing shoulders, and with this as a battering-ram a breach was

begun.

Every crash was the signal for a shout from the multitude, and when the

door finally gave way a triumphant roar arose. The armed men swarmed

into the opening and disappeared one by one, all but two who stood with

backs to the door and faced the crowd warningly. It was evident that

some sort of order prevailed among them, and that this was more than an

unorganized assault.

Through the close-packed ranks, on and on around the massive pile, ran

the word that the vigilantes were within; it was telegraphed from

house-top to house-top. Then a silence descended, the more sinister and

ominous because of the pandemonium which had preceded it.

Thus far Vittoria and her companion had seen and heard all that

occurred, for their position commanded a view of both fronts of the

building; but now they had only their ears to guide them.

"Come, let us leave now! We have seen enough." Vittoria cried, and

strove to drag Oliveta from her post. But the girl would not yield, she

did not seem to hear, her eyes were fixed with strained and fascinated

horror upon that shattered aperture which showed like a gaping wound.

Her bloodless lips were whispering; her fingers, where they gripped the

iron railing, were like claws.

"Quickly! Quickly!" moaned Vittoria. "We did not come to see this

monstrous thing. Oliveta, spare yourself!" In the silence her voice

sounded so loudly and shrilly that people on the adjoining balcony

turned curious, uncomprehending faces toward her.

Moment after moment that hush continued, then from within came a

renewed hammering, hollow, measured; above it sounded the faint cries

of terrified prisoners. This died away after a time, and some one said:

"They're into the corridors at last. It won't be long now."

A moment later a dull, unmistakable reverberation rolled forth like the

smothered sound of a subterranean explosion; it was followed by another

and another--gunshots fired within brick walls and flag-paved

courtyards.

It shattered that sickening, unending suspense which caused the pulse

to flutter and the breath to lag; the crowd gave tongue in a howl of

hoarse delight. Then followed a peculiar shrilling chorus--that

familiar signal known as the "dago whistle"--which was like the

piercing cry of lost souls. "Who killa da Chief?" screamed the

hoodlums, then puckered their lips and piped again that mocking signal.

As the booming of the guns continued, now singly, now in volley, the

maddened populace squeezed toward that narrow entrance through which

the avengers had disappeared; but they were halted by the guards and

forced to content themselves by greeting every shot with an exultant

cry. The streets in all directions were tossing and billowing like the

waves of the sea; men capered and flung their arms aloft, shrieking;

women and children waved their aprons and kerchiefs, sobbing and spent

with excitement. It was a wild and grotesque scene, unspeakably

terrible, inhumanly ferocious.

Through it the two Sicilian girls clung to each other, fainting,

revolted, fascinated. When they could summon strength they descended to

the street and fought their way out of the bedlam.

Norvin Blake was not a willing participant in the lynching, although he

had gone to the meeting at Clay Statue determined to do what he

considered his duty. He had felt no doubt as to the outcome of the

mass-meeting even before he saw its giant proportions, and even before

it had sounded its approval of the first speaker's words, for he knew

how deeply his townspeople were stirred by the astounding miscarriage

of justice. At the rally of the Committee on the afternoon previous it

had been urged to proceed with the execution at once, and the counsel

of the more conservative had barely prevailed. Blake knew perhaps

better than his companions to what lengths the rage of a mob will go,

and he confessed to a secret fear of the result. Therefore, although he

marched in the vanguard of the storming party, it was more to exercise

a restraining influence and to prevent violence against unoffending

foreigners, than to take part in the demonstration. As for the actual

shedding of blood, his instinct revolted from it, while his reason

recognized its necessity and defended it.

Bernie Dreux's amazing assumption of dictatorship had relieved him of

the duty of heading the mob, a thing for which he was profoundly

grateful. When the main body of vigilantes had armed itself, he fell in

beside his friend with some notion of helping and protecting him. But

the little man proved amply equal to the occasion. He was unwaveringly

grim and determined It was he who faced the oaken gate and demanded

entrance in the name of the people; it was he who suggested the use of

the battering-ram; and it was he who first fought his way through the

breach, at the risk of bullets from within. Blake followed to find him

with his fowling-piece at the head of the prison captain, and demanding

the keys to the cells.

The posse had gained a partial entrance, but another iron-ribbed door

withheld them from the body of the prison, and there followed a delay

while this was broken down. Meanwhile, from within came the sound of

turning locks and of clanging steel doors, also a shuffling of many

feet and cries of mortal terror, which told that the prisoners had been

freed to shift for themselves in this extremity.

In truth, a scene was being enacted within more terrible than that

outside, for as the deputies released the prisoners, commanding them to

save themselves if they could, a frightful confusion ensued. Not only

did the eleven Sicilians cry to God, but the other inmates of the place

who feared their crimes had overtaken them joined in the appeal. Men

and women, negroes and whites, felons and minor evil-doers, rushed to

and fro along the galleries and passageways, fighting with one another,

tearing one another from places of refuge, seeking new and securer

points of safety. They huddled in dark corners; they crept under beds,

beneath stairways, and into barrels. They burrowed into rubbish piles

only to be dragged out by the hair or the heels and to see their

jealous companions seize upon these sanctuaries.

Terror is swiftly contagious; the whole place became a seething pit of

dismay. Some knelt and prayed, while others trampled upon them; they

rose from their knees to beat with bleeding fists upon barred doors and

blind partitions; but as their fear of death increased and the chorus

of their despair mounted higher there came another pounding, nearer,

louder--the sound of splitting wood and of rending metal. To escape was

impossible; to remain was madness; of hiding-places there was a fearful

scarcity.

The regulators came rushing into the prison proper, with footsteps

echoing loudly through the barren corridors. Out into the open court

they swarmed, then up the iron stairways to the galleries that ringed

it about, peering into cells as they went, ousting the wretched inmates

from remotest corners. But the chamber in which they knew their quarry

had been housed was empty, so they paused undecided, while from all

sides came the smothered sounds of terror like the mewling and

squeaking of mice hidden in a wall.

Suddenly some one shouted, "There they are!" and pointed to the topmost

gallery, which ran in front of the condemned cells. A rush began, but

at the top of the winding stairs another grating barred the way.

Through this, however, could be seen Salvatore di Marco, Giordano

Bolla, and the elder Cressi. The three Sicilians had fled to this last

stronghold, slammed the steel door behind them, and now crouched in the

shelter of a brick column. Some one hammered at the lock, and the

terrified prisoners started to their feet with an agonized appeal for

mercy. As they exposed themselves to view a man fired through the bars.

His aim was true; Di Marco flung his arms aloft and pitched forward on

his face. Crazed by this, his two companions rushed madly back and

forth; but they were securely penned in, and appeal was futile. Another

shot boomed deafeningly in the close confines of the place, and Cressi

plunged to his death; then Bolla followed, his bloody hands gripping

the bars, his face upturned in a hideous grimace, and his eyes, which

stared through at his slayers, glazing slowly.

Down the ringing stairs marched the grim-featured men who had set

themselves this task, and among them Bernie Dreux strode, issuing

orders. The weapon in his hand was hot, his shoulder was bruised, for

he had long been unaccustomed to the use of firearms.

Then began a systematic search of the men's department of the prison;

but no new victims were discovered, only the ordinary prisoners who

were well-nigh speechless with fright.

"Where are the others?" went up the cry, and some one answered:

"On the women's side."

The band passed through to the adjoining portion of the double

building, and, keys having been secured, the rapidity of their search

increased. Into the twin courtyard they filed; then while some

investigated the cookhouse others climbed to the topmost tier of cells.

As the quest narrowed, six of the Sicilians, who had lain concealed in

a compartment on the first floor, broke out in a desperate endeavor to

escape, but they were caught between the opposing ranks, as in the jaws

of a trap. The cell door clanged to behind them; they found themselves

at bay in the open yard. Resistance was useless; they sank to their

knees and set up a cry for mercy. They shrieked, they sobbed, they

groveled; but their enemies were open to no appeal, untouched by any

sense of compunction. They were men wholly dominated by a single fixed

idea, as merciless as machines.

There followed a nightmare scene; a horrid, bellowing uproar of voices

and detonations, of groans and prayers and curses. The armed men

emptied their weapons blindly into that writhing tangle of forms, and

as one finished he stepped back while another took his place. The

prison rocked with the din of it; the wretches were shot to pieces,

riddled, by that horizontal hail which mowed and mangled like an

invisible scythe. Now a figure struggled to its feet only to become the

target for a fusillade; again one twisted in his agony only to be

filled with missiles fired from so short a range that his garments were

torn to rags. The pavement became wet and slippery; in one brief moment

that section of the yard became a shambles.

Then men went up and poked among the bodies with the hot muzzles of

their rifles, turning the corpses over for identification; and as each

stark face was recognized a name went echoing out through the dingy

corridors to the mob beyond.

Larubio, the cobbler, had attempted a daring ruse. The firing had

ceased when up out of that limp and sodden heap he rose, his gray hair

matted, his garments streaming. They thrust their rifles against his

chest and killed him quickly.

Nine men had died by now, and only two remained, Normando and Maruffi.

The former was found shortly, where he had squeezed himself into a

dog-kennel which stood under the stairs; but the vigilantes, it seemed,

had had enough of slaughter, so he was rushed into the street, where

the crowd tore him to pieces as wolves rend a rabbit. Even his garments

were ripped to rags and distributed as ghastly souvenirs.

Norvin Blake had been a witness to only a part of this brutality, but

what he had seen had sickened him, and had increased his determination

to find Gino Cressi. He shared not at all in the sanguinary exaltation

which possessed his fellow-townsmen; instead he longed for the end and

hoped he would be able to forget what he had seen. He would have fled

but for his fear of what might happen to the Cressi boy. Corridor after

corridor he searched, peering into cells, under cots, into corners and

crannies, while through the cavernous old building the other hunters

stormed. He was hard pressed to keep ahead of them, and when he finally

found the lad they were dose at his heels.

They came upon him with the lad clinging to his knees, and a shout went

up.

"Here's the Cressi kid. He gave the signal; let him have it!"

But Norvin turned upon them, saying:

"You can't kill this boy."

"Step aside, Blake," ordered a red-faced man, raising and cocking his

weapon.

Norvin seized the rifle-barrel and turned it aside roughly. The two

stared at each other with angry eyes.

"He's only a baby, don't you understand? Good God! You have children of

your own."

"I--I--" The fellow hesitated. "So he is. Damnation! What has come over

me?" He lowered his gun and turned against the others who were

clamoring behind him. "This is--awful," he murmured, shakingly, when

the crowd had passed on. "I've done all I intend to." He flung his

rifle from him with a gesture of repugnance, and went out of the cell.

Norvin continued to stand guard over his charge while the search for

Maruffi went on, for he dared not trust these men who had gone mad.

Thus he did not learn that his arch enemy had been taken until he saw

him rushed past in the hands of his captors. Caesar had fought as best

he could against overwhelming odds, and continued to resist now in a

blind fury; but a rope was about his neck, at the end of which were a

dozen running men; a dozen gun-butts hustled him on his way to the open

air. Blake closed the cell door upon Gino Cressi and followed, drawn by

a magnetic force he could not resist.

The main gate of the prison opened before the rush of that tangled,

growling handful of men, and they swept straight out into the turmoil

that filled the streets. An instant later Maruffi was beset by five

thousand maniacs; he was kicked, he was beaten, he was spat upon, he

was overwhelmed by an avalanche of humanity. His progress to the

gallows was a short but a terrible one, marked by a series of violent

whirlpools which set through that river of people. The uproar was

deafening; spectators screamed hoarsely, but did not hear their voices.

From where Blake paused beside the gate he traced the Sicilian's

progress plainly, marveling at the fellow's vitality, for it seemed

impossible that any human being could withstand that onslaught. A coil

of rope sailed upward, a negro perched in a tree passed it over a limb,

and the next instant the head and shoulders of the Capo-Mafia rose

above the dense level of standing forms. He was writhing horribly, but,

seizing the rope with his hands, he drew himself upward; his blackened

face glared down upon his executioners. The grinning negro kicked at

the dark head beneath him, once, twice, three times, so violently that

he lost his balance and fell, whereupon a bellowing shout of laughter

arose more terrible than any sound heretofore. Still the Sicilian clung

to the rope which was strangling him. Then puffs of smoke curled up in

the sunshine, and the crowd rolled back upon itself, leaving the gibbet

ringed with armed men. Maruffi's body was swayed and spun as if by

invisible hands; his fingers slipped; he settled downward.

Blake turned and hid his face against the cold, damp walls, for he was

very sick.