She was sitting thus when she turned at the sound of shuffling footsteps
and saw Sarah coming softly toward her. The countenance of the mulatto
carried a vague, indefinable expression of fear. It was gray with
terror.
“What is it, Sarah?” asked Lily. “In the name of Heaven what is the
matter?”
The woman trembled. “There’s trouble a-brewin’, Miss Lily,” she said.
“The park is full of men. They’ve been comin’ in at the gate and they’re
all over the place.” The woman hesitated again. “Hennery’s watching now.
He sent me to ask if he was to send for the police?”
Lily stood up and fastened the black and silver kimono higher about her
throat.
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know, Miss Lily. Hennery thinks mebbe they’re strikers. He’s
put out the light at the back, so he can watch ’em without bein’ seen.”
For a moment Lily remained silent and thoughtful. Presently she said,
“Put out the lights in here, Sarah. I’ll go and look myself.”
And she went out, leaving the frightened servant to extinguish the
lamps.
A moment later, groping her way through the dark hallway to the
servants’ quarters, she stumbled suddenly upon the terrified figure of
Hennery kneeling down by a window, keeping watch.
“It’s Miss Lily, Hennery,” she said. “Don’t be frightened.”
The window was a blue rectangle against the wall of the hallway. It was
a clear night but moonless, although the bright, cold sky was all
powdered with glistening stars. Outside in the park, among the dead
trunks of the trees, moved scores of figures black against the blue
gray snow. Some of them carried lanterns of one sort or another. There
were even women among them, women with shawls over their heads, wearing
short heavy skirts which cleared the top of the deep snow. Behind them,
the searchlights from the mill yard fingered the blue dome of the sky
nervously, sweeping now up and down, now across striking the black
chimneys and furnace towers, cutting them cleanly in two as if the cold
rays of light were knives.
In the hallway the nervous breathing of Hennery became noisy. It was
clear that something about the scene ... something which had to do with
the silent, cold furnaces, the dead trees and the blackness of the
moving figures aroused all the superstitious terror of the negro.
Outside the number of men increased. They appeared to be congregating
now, in a spot near the deserted kennels. The lanterns moved among the
trees like dancing lights above a swamp.
“It’s all right, Hennery,” said Lily presently. “It’s all right The
police would only make matters worse. I suppose Miss Irene told them to
meet here in the park. The police won’t let them meet anywhere else.
It’s the last place they have.”
“Mebbe,” Hennery muttered, doubtfully. “Mebbe.”
The figure of the mulatto woman appeared shuffling her way along the
wall of the corridor.
“The best thing to do,” said Lily softly, “is for you to go to bed and
forget about it. Nothing will happen. Just don’t interfere. Forget about
it. I’ll go up to my own room.... You might see that all the doors are
locked.”
And with that she left the two negroes crouching on the floor of the
corridor gazing with a sort of fascination at the spectacle in the
barren park.
Upstairs in her own room, she drew up the chaise longue and pulled aside
the curtains from the window. The glass ran to the floor so that she was
able, lying down, to watch everything that took place in the park. The
room was in darkness and the French traveling clock, as if to comfort
her, chimed out ten as she flung herself down, covering her long limbs
with a silk comforter against the chill that crept in everywhere.
Outside the strange pageant continued to grow in size and animation.
Sometimes the searchlight, swinging low in its course, flashed swiftly
across the park, revealing for an instant a hundred swarthy faces and as
many figures wrapped in heavy coats, bits of old blanket, rags ...
anything to shut out the bitter cold. Above each figure hung a little
cloud of steaming breath, a soul hovering above a body. There were
negroes among them,--the negroes doubtless, whom she had seen working in
the choking fumes of the acid vats.
Yet none of the figures held any individuality. They might have been
automatons. Figures in a single mob, none of them possessed a distinct
personality. All this was welded into one vague mass, which carried a
threat of anger and violence. The terror of Hennery was not altogether
beyond conception. They kept moving about too in a restless uncertain
fashion among the dead trees and deserted borders. In the niches of the
dead hedge the figures of the Venus of Cydnos and the Apollo Belvedere
gleamed darkly.
And as Lily watched, the light in her dark eyes brightened slowly and
steadily. She became like one hypnotized. She began to breathe more
quickly as if the old excitement, against which she was so powerless,
had entered her blood. The soft white hand holding the back of the
chaise longue trembled a little.
Slowly the moving figures gathered into a black throng at the side of
the kennels. Somewhere in their midst a light began to glow, increasing
slowly in volume until the tongues of red flame showed above the black
heads of the mob. They had built a great fire for warmth, and near it
some one had set up a barrel for the speakers to stand on. By the light
of the flames she was able to see that the first speaker was a little
man, rather thin and wiry like a bearded gnome, who danced about a great
deal, waving his arms and legs. His manner was explosive. It was
impossible to hear above the flames through the heavy glass of the
window what he was saying, but clearly it produced an effect. The mob
began to churn about and wave its lanterns. Sometimes the sound of
shouts and cries vaguely penetrated the darkened room.
At last the little man finished and was lifted down by a score of
hands. More wood was thrown on the fire and the red flames hungrily
chased a shower of sparks high up among the dead branches of the trees.
A moment later a second man climbed to the top of the barrel. He was an
enormous fellow, a veritable giant who towered far above the mob. At the
sight of him the strikers cheered wildly. Lily, from her point of
vantage, must have recognized in him something vaguely familiar ... the
merest suggestion of memory in the sudden, eloquent gestures, the easy
powerful grace with which he balanced himself as he spoke, the same
grace she had seen one afternoon in the great shed beneath the hill.
More wood was thrown upon the fire. The flames leaped higher and in the
wild light, doubt was no longer possible. It was Krylenko who harangued,
feverishly and desperately, the threatening sullen mob.
L
Inside the warm room, Lily raised herself slowly and felt her way to the
closet where she took down the old sealskin coat with the leg of mutton
sleeves. With this thrown about her shoulders, she went back to the
window, cautiously unfastened the clasp and stepped out upon the snow
covered roof of the wrought iron piazza. The snow was deep and the
silver slippered feet sank to the ankles. But of this she seemed to take
no notice. As if fascinated, she leaned close against the bricks,
sheltering herself from the wind, and stood listening.
Krylenko addressed the strikers in some foreign tongue which might have
been Russian or Polish. He spoke in a clear strong voice that rose and
fell with the sincerity of an overpowering emotion. It was impossible to
know what he was saying, yet the effect was tremendous. The man was a
born leader. In that moment he could have led the mob where he would.
And presently he began to speak Italian ... rather haltingly and with an
air of desperate frustration. This Lily was able to understand in part.
He urged them not to yield. He plead with them to fight to the end. The
victory, he said, was within....
Above the crackling of the fire and the voice of the speaker the air was
ripped suddenly by a solitary rifle shot. Then another and another in
quick succession, until the air became alive and vibrant with the sound
of guns. From the throng rose a solitary scream, followed by a groan or
two and the confused, animal cries of a mob suddenly stricken by a
panic. The figure on the barrel disappeared, engulfed by a swarming mass
of terrified humanity. Lanterns were flung to the ground and trampled.
One or two exploded in bursts of red flame. The little park was alive
with running figures, women in shawls, men in rags. On the gray blue
snow by the deserted kennels lay a solitary black figure. By the arbor
where the wistaria had once flourished was another which stirred
faintly.
Lily, leaning against the dead vines on the house, understood what had
happened. The Mill guards, from the security of the barrier, had fired
upon the helpless mob. The innocent plan of Irene had been, after all,
nothing but a trap.
Something struck the bricks above her head with a sharp spatter and bits
of mortar fell into her hair. Quickly she slipped through the tall
window back into the room and waited.
The little park was empty now, so empty that if it had not been for the
embers in the snow and black still figure lying near by, one might have
believed that there had been no mob at all, no fire and no savage cries
of terror. Lily remained standing inside the window as if she were
unable to move. The dying embers appeared to exert an overpowering
fascination ... the dying embers and the still black figure in the snow.
Presently there crept out from the shelter of the kennels a man, bending
low to the ground as he moved. Cautiously he made his way to the figure
in the snow, halting there for a moment to fumble with the ragged coat
for some sign of life, risking his life in full sight of the guards.
Another shot rang out and then another, and the man still crouching low
to the ground ran toward the shelter of the big house. He came nearer
and nearer until, as he crossed the drive, he was no longer a unit in
the mob. He became an individual. It was Krylenko.
A second later he disappeared beneath the edge of piazza roof and Lily
lay down once more on the chaise longue. She was still trembling. It may
have been the cold.
Outside the night once more settled back into a dreadful stillness. The
searchlights fingered the sky with a new agitation. The house itself
grew still as death. The only sound was the faint, irregular,
untraceable creaking which afflicts old houses in the midst of the
night. The French traveling clock struck eleven and at the same time a
new sound, not at all like the distant unearthly creaking, came faintly
through the open door of Lily’s room. It was an indistinct scraping
sound as if some one were trying a key in a lock.