Warren looked about him in the light of the flaming torches. Men
poured down to the water’s edge as fast as they could come. The crowds
which surged through the streets day and night were rushing toward the
wagon where lay the prisoner, their faces distorted like demons with
evil passions.
Bill Thomson mounted the wagon-seat and with an oratorical flourish
recounted the prisoner’s sins against the “principles of the
institootion.”
“Gentlemen, take notice!” said Gid Holmes as Bill finished. “This
yere man is a abolitionist an’ a nigger thief, two crimes we never
overlooks, bein’ dangerous to our peace and principles. What’s your
will, gentlemen? Speak out.”
“Give him a thrashing first!” “Hang him!” “Burn him!”
And the ruffians dragged the wounded man from the wagon and threw
themselves upon him--kicking him in the body--in the face and
head--spitting upon him and maltreating him in every way. He defended
himself well for a while; his bright head would rise from their
buffeting.
“To the cross-roads!” came the hoarse cry from a thousand throats.
Tramp, tramp, on they rushed like a dark river, with cries whose horror
was indescribable. It was not the voices of human beings, but more
like the cries of wild animals, the screaming of enraged hyenas, the
snarling of tigers, the angry, inarticulate cries of thousands of wild
beasts in infuriated pursuit of their prey, yet with a something in it
more sinister and blood curdling, for they were men, and added a human
ferocity.
On they rushed from north, south, east and west, eyes aflame, faces
distorted, the brute latent in every human being coming out from his
lair to blot out the man, the awful cries, waning, waxing.
Maxwell was in the midst, half-running, half-dragged by a rope knotted
about his neck. He fell; the thirsty executioners lifted him up,
loosened the rope and gave him time to breathe.
The tall young figure looked at the crowd with scorn. The British idea
of fair play was in his mind.
“Thousands against one,” he seemed to say, “Cowards!”
The crowd moved on a little more slowly, and Warren was able to keep
his feet without a tremor.
Some ran on before, and began gathering wood, for it was determined to
burn the prisoner as a more fearful example of the death that awaited
the men who dared interfere with the “institution.” Warren was dragged
to the foot of the cross-roads sign and securely bound; the wood was
piled about him. The circle was not built as high as his knees, for
a slow fire steadily increased, would prolong the enjoyment. Thomson
himself carried the brand to light the pile. His eyes met Warren’s
as he knelt with the blazing pine. Not a word passed between them. A
horrible and engrossing interest kept every eye on the glowing light.
Presently the barrier of flame began to rise. A thousand voiced cry of
brutal triumph arose--not to the skies, so vile a thing could never
find the heavenly blue; it must have fallen to the regions of the lost.
They who speak or think lightly of a mob have never heard its voice nor
seen its horrible work.
From the town came the ringing of bells set in motion when the party
landed, still startling the night with their brazen clamor. The wildest
excitement prevailed--armed riders dashed recklessly up and down in
front of the place of execution, yelling, cursing, threatening.
The most trivial incidents accompany the progress of death. Warren
noticed the faint light of the morning chasing away the stars. His
keen sight lost not one change in the landscape. Children were in the
crowd worming their way among the promiscuous legs and arms in the
endeavor to gain a peep at the proceedings; one wee tot had fallen
over backwards felled by the unexpected movement of the particular
legs that obstructed his view. Warren was conscious of a deep sense of
pity for the infants whom ignorance tortured from childhood’s simple
holiness as cruelly as the mob was about to torture him. There came to
him then a realizing sense of all the Immortal Son must have suffered
on His way to Golgotha to die a shameful death through the ignorance
and cruelty of a heartless world. If the story of the crucifixion had
at times presented difficulties to an inquiring, analytical mind, this
experience cleared away the shadows and the application of the story
of the Redeemer came to him as a live coal from the altar of Infinite
Truth.
The crew of the ferry-boat was hurrying forward with the wood stored
aboard for the fires under the boilers; sounds of chopping came to his
ears above the yells and shouts of the mob, and reverberated along the
edges of the sky. Men were chopping fuel, others ran with arm-loads of
it to build around the stake which had the festive air of a May-pole.
Another group thought that the spectacle needed illumination at its
beginning and were heaping fuel on a camp-fire, and its crackle could
be heard almost as far as its light reached.
Men swaggered about with vast bluster and deep curses, howling for
the sacrifice, quenching their thirst and fanning their fury anew at
a temporary bar in the wagon where an enterprising individual was
dispensing drinks to the crowd at a nominal price.
The sky overhead began to assume a roseate tinge. Swarming figures
became more and more distinct. The fragrant wind encroaching from the
woods, bringing its sweet odors, swept the smoke sidewise like an
inverted curtain.
All was ready. There came a deafening cheer when Thomson moved
pompously forward and with a theatrical gesture applied the torch;
then followed silence deep and breathless as they waited to gloat over
the victim’s first awful shriek of agony.
The flames rose. Warren ground his teeth, determined to die and make
no moan to please and gratify the crowd. The sweat of physical anguish
and faintness moved in drops on his forehead. His face was distinctly
visible in the fierce glare. His arms were bound down against his
sides, the wounded one causing him frightful torture. His shirt was
open at the throat, showing the ivory firmness of his chest and the
beating pulse in the white brawn. As the flames gathered headway the
sky grew brighter and the shadows melted away; the crowing of cocks
came faintly, above the horrid din, borne on the young morning air.
Suddenly off to the right came the sound of galloping hoofs. So
imperative was the clatter that the attention of the crowd was forced
for a moment from the victim at the stake.
On, on swept the riders in mad haste to the scene of torture, now
distinctly visible through the cloud of dust that had at first
partially concealed them from view; and now they rose in their stirrups
shouting and waving their hats as if in warning. The fiends about the
funeral pile made way for the cavalcade which was headed by Colonel
Titus. All the party wore the uniform of State constables. “Halt!”
cried the Colonel as he sprang from his horse at the edge of the crowd
and cleared the open space immediately in front of the sign-post at one
bound, followed by his companions. The crowd fell back respectfully.
He and his men kicked the blazing wood from the stake, and scattered
it with hands and feet as far as they could throw it. His own clothing
smoked, and his face flamed with the exertion. The colonel cut Warren’s
bonds, while his men continued to stamp out the fire. The crowd watched
them in sullen silence.
“Fools!” he shouted, when at length the fire’s headway was subdued,
“what are you doing?”
“Burning a nigger-thief,” shouted Gideon Holmes in reply.
“None of your monkeyin’, Bill Thomson; speak up. You had charge of this
affair,” said Titus, not deigning to notice Holmes. Bill answered with
a vile oath.
The crowd stood about in curious clusters. As the fire died down, the
dawn became more pronounced. The brutal carnival seemed about to die
out with the darkness as quickly as it had arisen.
“And you have been allowing your men to do that which will put us in
the power of every Northern mudsill of an abolitionist, and eventually
turn the tide which is now in our favor, against us!” The Colonel
wheeled about and faced Thomson. “Was this the understanding when you
started on the expedition?”
Bill still stood sullen-faced and silent before his accuser.
“Have we not jails strong enough to hold prisoners?” Titus asked,
significantly.
“Dead men tell no tales,” declared Thomson, with a long look into his
questioner’s eyes.
“True,” returned the Colonel with an answering glance. “But let all
things be done in decency and order and according to the process of
law. This man ain’t no army. There warn’t no need of your raisin’ and
chasin’ and burnin’ him like a parcel of idiots.”
“’Pears to me you’re d----d finicky ’bout law an’ all that jes’ this
particular time,” sneered Bill, with an evil leer on his face.
The Colonel eyed him keenly while a look of disgust spread slowly over
his speaking face.
“Thomson, I gave you credit for having more sense. This man is a
British subject. How are we to impress the world with our fair and
impartial dealing with all mankind, and the slavery question in
particular, if you and a lot more hot-headed galoots go to work and
call us liars by breaking the slate?”
There were murmurs of approval from the crowd.
“Fac’ is thar’s nothin’ fer us to do but to light out, ain’t that the
idee, Colonel?” asked Jim Murphy.
“That’s the idea, Murphy; burn the wind the whole caboodle of you!” The
crowd began to disperse slowly.
“All very good,” broke in Thomson with a swagger. “I’ll take mine
without the law. I’d ruther stay right here and carry out the
programme, it’d be more satisfactory to the boys in the long run. Law
is a delusion, as the poet says, an’ a snare. We git plenty o’ law an’
no jestice. S’pose the law lets the prisoner go free? You’ll be a real
pop’lar candidate fer Missouri’s next gov’ner.”
“No fear of that in this State,” replied the Colonel with an ugly,
brutal look that caused a shudder to creep over Warren who was
surrounded by the constables. So full of malice were the tone and look
that all signs of the polished elderly gentleman and doting father
were lost, and one felt that this man could perpetrate any crime,
however foul. In spite of the quiet tones the Colonel’s blood was at
boiling point because of Thomson’s stubbornness. Titus turned to the
constables: “Gentlemen, secure the prisoner. Thomson, fall in there and
lend a hand; be quick about it. We’ve had too much of your fool talk
a’ready. When I give my men an order, I ’low for them to obey me right
up to the chalk mark.”
Bill gave him a long look and without a word mounted his horse, and
rode away--not with the troop.
The constables instantly obeyed the Colonel’s order, and in a second
Warren was lifted to the floor of the wagon and driven rapidly toward
the jail.