THE HANGING
The mob, grim, silent and determined, advanced upon the house from the
upper reaches of the swamp, a swaying, unwieldy mass that surged up the
slope and thinned into a compact, snake-like column in the narrow road.
Since ten o’clock men by twos and threes and fours had been making their
way through back streets and lanes to an appointed spot an eighth of a
mile east of the Baxter home, the tree-bordered swale that marked the
extreme northern end of the slough. There were no lights, and none spoke
save in cautious whispers, nor was there one in all the grim three
hundred who did not tremble under the strain of suppressed
excitement—as the dog trembles when he is held in leash with the scent
of the quarry in his quivering nostrils.
Scouts, creeping up to the house, had witnessed the departure of
Oliver’s guests. Like swift, scarcely visible shadows they sped back
through the darkness of the swamp road with their report. Whispers
swelled into hoarse, guttural mutterings as the mob, headed by its
set-faced, scowling leaders, left the swale and started on its deadly
march. Followed the shuffle of a multitude of feet through dry grass and
over the loose surface of the dirt road; the harsh breathing of hundreds
of throats through tense nostrils or open, sag-lipped mouths; the swish
and rustle of dead leaves; in all, the hushed thunder of men in motion.
The leaders—two men from the hardware store of Oliver Baxter!—strode
out in front, crowded close by the swift-moving horde that from time to
time almost overran them in its eagerness to have the dirty business
over with. There were guns and axes and sledge-hammers in the hands of
men at the head of the column.
Sight of the lighted upstairs windows threw the mob into a frenzy. They
had come to kill and their prey was up there behind a thin barricade of
glass and parchment-colored linen! And they were near three hundred
strong! A few scattered ill-timed shouts, were checked by a mighty,
sibilant hiss that swept through the crowd; those who had ignored strict
orders fell back into pinched silence.
Quickly the house was surrounded. No avenue of escape was left
unguarded. A small, detached group advanced toward the porch, above the
roof of which were lights in the windows of what every one knew to be
young Oliver Baxter’s bedroom.
A loud voice called out:
“Oliver Baxter!”
The hush of death settled upon the crowd. Even the breathing seemed to
have ceased.
A window shade flew up in one of the windows and the figure of a man
stood fully revealed. He stooped, his face close to the pane as he
peered intently out into the blackness below. Shading his eyes with one
hand, he continued his search of the night. He was without coat or vest;
his white shirt was open at the throat.
A man in the crowd below took a fresh grip on the rope he carried in his
hand.
Again the loud, firm voice:
“Come out! We want to see you, Oliver Baxter.”
Oliver raised the window and leaned out. “Who is it? What do you want?”
he demanded.
“We are your father’s friends,” came the reply. “That’s all you need to
know. Come out!”
“What have you got down there? A mob? I’ll see you in hell before I’ll
come out! If you’re after me, you’ll have to come and get me. But I warn
you! I’ve got a gun up here and, so help me God, I’ll shoot to kill. I’m
not afraid of you. Wait till to-morrow, men. You will be glad if you do.
It is not my father’s body they found. It will be proved to you. Go
home, for God’s sake, and don’t attempt to do this thing you are—”
A deep growl rose from a hundred throats, stilled almost instantly as
the clear voice of the leader rang out again.
“We will give you one minute to come out. If you are not out here on the
porch by that time we’ll smash your damned doors in and we’ll drag you
out.”
Oliver glanced over his shoulder. Mrs. Grimes and Lizzie, with blanched
faces, had come to his bedroom door.
“Telephone for the police, Lizzie,” he cried out sharply. “No! Wait! Get
out of the house yourselves. Don’t think of me. You mustn’t be here if
that mob breaks in and—”
He did not finish the sentence. In the middle of it he uttered a shout
of alarm and sprang toward the bureau on the opposite side of the room.
There was a rush of footsteps in the hall, then the two women were flung
aside and into the room leaped three, four, half a dozen men. As Lizzie
fell back against the wall, she shrieked:
“The back door! I forgot to—”
Oliver knocked the first man sprawling, but the others were upon him
like an avalanche.... As they led him, now unresisting, from the room
his wild, beaten gaze fell upon the huddled form of Serepta Grimes lying
inert in the hall.
“For God’s sake, be decent enough to look after her,” he panted. “Don’t
leave her lying—”
The crash of splintering blows upon the outer door, the jangle of
shattered glass, the suddenly released howls of human
hounds—pandemonium so devilish that Oliver’s fearless heart quailed and
he began to cry for mercy.
“Don’t kill me like this! Don’t! Don’t! Give me a chance! Let me speak!
Oh, my God!” Then rage succeeded terror. “Let go of me, you dirty dogs!
Let go of me, Charlie! Steve! God damn your souls to hell—give me a
chance!”
They dragged him down the stairs. The front door gave way as they neared
the bottom and over the wreckage stumbled men with sledges, grunting,
snarling men whose teeth showed between stretched, drawn lips, and who
stopped short at sight of those descending.
“We’ve got him,” shouted one of his captors. “Make way! Let us through!”
There was no light in the hall, only that from the open bedroom door
above. Some one below flashed an electric torch on the face of the
captive. It was ghastly white.
“It’s him, all right,” cried several voices. “Open up! We’ve got him!
Make way out there!”
Out of the house and down into the yard they hurried him. There they
paused long enough to tie his hands securely behind his back. An awed
silence had fallen upon the crowd—the shouts ceased, curses died on
men’s lips. They had him! Tragedy was at hand. More than one heart
quaked in the presence of it, and more than one stomach turned in
revolt. It was grim business that lay ahead of them and they were good
citizens!
“No lights!” shouted a loud-voiced man. “Come on! Hustle up! Let’s get
it over with.”
Oliver strained at his bonds. His chest heaved, his throat swelled.
“In Christ’s name, men—what are you going to do with me?” he cried out
in a strange, piercing voice.
“Shut up!”
“You are making a horrible mistake,” cried the captive, as he stumbled
along between the men who held his arms. “You are committing the most
horrible—”
Something fell upon his head, scraped down over his face. He stifled a
scream. He felt the slack noose tighten about his bare throat.
“Damn you all to hell,” he raged, sinking his heels in the earth and
holding back with all his might. “You beasts! You damned fools! Let go
of me! Let me speak! Isn’t there a sensible man among you? Are you
all—”
He was shoved forward, protesting shrilly, impatiently.
They had picked the spot: the place where father and son parted on that
distant night. And the tree: the sturdy old oak whose limbs overhung the
road. They had picked the limb.
There was no delay.... The stout rope was thrown over the limb, the
noose was drawn close about his neck by cold, nervous fingers.... A
prayer was strangled on his writhing lips. Strong hands hauled at the
rope. He swung in the air....
A great white flare of light burst upon the grewsome spectacle—the roar
of a charging monster—the din of shrieking klaxons—and then the
piercing scream of a woman.
The dense mob in the road broke, fighting frantically to get out of the
path of Lansing’s car. Some were struck and hurled screaming aside—and
on came the car, forging its way slowly but relentlessly through the
struggling mass.
A man standing up in the tonneau was crying in a stentorian,
far-reaching voice:
“Fools! Accursed fools! Ye know not what ye do! Stop this hideous
outrage! God forgive you if we are too late! God forgive—”
Again the woman’s scream.
“He is hanging! Hanging! Oh, God!”
Up to the swaying, wriggling form shot the car, a force irresistible
guided by a man who thought not of the human beings he might crush to
death in his desire to reach the one he sought to save.
“Let go of that rope!” yelled this man.
Behind him came another car. Panic seized the mob. The compact mass
broke and scattered. Like sheep, men plunged down the slope—now a
frightened, safety-seeking horde of cowards.
A writhing, tortured figure lay in the middle of the road, a loose rope
swinging free from the limb. The bewildered, startled men who had held
it in their hands fell back—uncertain, bewildered.
Lansing, unafraid, sprang from the car and rushed to the prostrate form.
In a second he was tugging at the noose, cursing frightfully. No one
opposed him. The mob seemed suddenly to have become paralyzed, afflicted
by the stupor of indecision. Many were already fleeing madly from the
scene—down the road, across the slough—yellow-hearted deserters whose
only thought was to escape the consequences of recognition. A few score,
falling back a little in stubborn disorder, stood glowering and blinking
outside the shafts of light. Men with guns and pistols and axes they
were, but cowed by the swift realization that they dared not use them.
The tall, gaunt figure in the tonneau was praying, his hands uplifted.
By his side stood a woman.
Now a woman flung herself down beside the man with the rope around his
neck, sobbing, moaning, her arms straining to lift his shoulders from
the ground.
A baffled roar went up from the mob. Men surged forward and hands were
laid upon the rope—too late. The noose was off—and Sammy Parr standing
over the doctor and the distracted girl, had a revolver in his hand.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Come on, you dirty cowards! You swine! You damned
Huns! Come on and get a man-sized pill!”
From all sides boomed the shouts and curses of a quickly revived
purpose.
“Rush ’em!”
“Kill the—”
“Beat their heads off!”
“Get him! Get him!”
“String him up!”
Suddenly a strange voice rose above the clamor. A voice that seemed to
come from nowhere and yet was everywhere—the like of which no man there
had ever heard before. Rich, full, vibrant, it fell upon puzzled ears
and once again there was pause. The keyless chorus of execrations ceased
abruptly, as if a mighty hand were clapped upon a hundred mouths.
All eyes were upon the owner of this wondrous, clarion voice. A
startling figure she was, standing erect upon the front seat of
Lansing’s car. Magically tall and mysterious as she towered above and
out of the path of light thrown by the car behind.
“Men of Rumley! Hold! Hold, I command you! Is there one among you who
has not heard of the gypsy’s prophecy of thirty years ago? Let him speak
who will, and let him speak for all.”
A score of voices answered.
“Aye!” she went on. “You all have heard it. It is as familiar to you,
old and young, as the story of the Crucifixion. There are old men among
you. Men who were here when that truthful prophecy was uttered thirty
years ago. You old men heard of the gypsy’s prophecy within twenty-four
hours after it was spoken in the house you have ravished to-night. You
heard it word for word, faithfully repeated by men and women who were
present and who have never forgotten what she said. I ask one of
you—any one of you—to stand forth and tell the rest of this craven mob
what the gypsy fortune-teller said on that wild and stormy night.”
Two or three men stepped forward as if fascinated.
“She said the baby son of Oliver Baxter would be hung for murder before
he was thirty years old,” bawled one of them.
“He killed his father. He ought to be hung. The gypsy was right,”
shouted another.
“And what else did she say?” rang out the voice of Josephine Judge.
“Oh, a lot of things that don’t matter now,” yelled a man back in the
crowd. “Get busy, boys. We can’t—”
“Stop! Wait, and I will tell you what she said. She said one thing that
all of you old men ought to remember. It was the most important thing of
all, the most horrible. I was there. This man of God, my husband, was
there. Other honest people, friends of yours, were there. They heard her
words and they repeated them to you the next day. Silence! Listen to me,
varlets! You believe she spoke the truth when she uttered that prophecy?
Answer!”
“Yes!” came from a hundred throats.
“Then, in God’s name, =why are you murdering oliver october
baxter?=”
“We gave him a fair trial,” answered one of the leaders. “We know all
the facts. He is guilty of killing his father. We don’t need any more
proof—”
“Are you one of the men who heard the story thirty years ago?”
“Yes, I am—and I heard it straight.”
“Then you must know that this poor boy was adjudged innocent of this
crime on the day he was born,” fell slowly, distinctly from the lips of
Josephine. “I will repeat the words of the gypsy woman. She said: ‘He
will not commit a murder. He will be hanged for a crime he did not
commit.’ Speak! Are not those the words of the gypsy?”
Absolute silence ensued. It was as if the crowd had turned to stone.
“And so,” she cried, leveling her finger at the men in the front rank,
“you have done your part toward making the prophecy come true. You have
hung Oliver October Baxter in spite of the fact that you were told
thirty years ago that he would be innocent. It has all come out as the
fortune-teller said it would. She read his future in the stars. She read
it all from his own star—and, look ye, fools of Rumley, in yonder black
dome a single star is shining. See! With your own blind eyes—see!”
She lifted a hand and pointed majestically. Every eye followed the
direction indicated by that dramatic forefinger. A star gleamed brightly
in the southern sky, a single star in a desert of black.
“That is the star of Oliver October Baxter. He was born under that star
and, God help us all, I fear he has died beneath it. Out of all the
great and endless firmament, that one star reveals itself to-night.
Slink home, assassins! Murderers all! May the curse of that shining star
fall upon ye—now, henceforth and forever! May ye never escape from the
light of that great accusing eye, looking down upon you from Heaven!
Slink home to your wives and children and tell them what ye have done
this night!”
But the mob stood rooted to the ground. A sudden shout went up from
those in the front rank—a strange shout of relief.
Oliver October was struggling to his feet, assisted by Jane and Lansing.
His arms, released from their bonds, were thrown across their shoulders,
his chin was high, he was coughing violently.
“He’s all right!” yelled a man, and started eagerly forward only to fall
back as Jane Sage held up her hand and screamed:
“Keep away! You will have to kill me before you can touch him again, you
beasts!”
“Aw, I only want to help get him into the car—”
“Stand back!” commanded Lansing. “We don’t need your help.”
Three or four eager voices cried out shakily and in unison:
“Take him to a doctor’s!”
Then a tenser silence than before fell over the scene, for Jane was
crying:
“Are you all right, Oliver? Can you speak? What is it, dearest? What are
you trying to say?”
“Don’t try to speak yet, Baxter,” cautioned Lansing. “Plenty of time.
You’re all right. You’ll be yourself in a few minutes. Thank God, we got
here when we did.”
“Keep quiet!” ordered a voice in the mob. “He wants to say something.
He’s alive, and he wants to say something. Sh!”
“Drop that rope!” roared Sammy as one of the crowd left the circle and
hastily reached for the rope. The fellow leaped back as if stung.
“I was only meanin’ to take it back to Ollie’s store,” he whined. “It
belongs to him.”
“Take him to a doctor’s!” roared a dozen anxious men.
“Clear the road!” roared others.
“Slink back into the foul fastnesses of yon accursed swamp,” rang out
the voice of the great Josephine Judge. They got Oliver into the forward
car, where he huddled down between Jane and her mother. They heard him
whisper hoarsely, jerkily:
“Never mind about me—I’m—all right. They won’t try—it again. Look
after Aunt—Serepta first. She’s hurt. They left her—lying up—”
“Don’t worry, old top,” cried Sammy eagerly. “I’ll go back and look out
for her. You go along with Doc. He’ll fix you up. All you need is a good
stiff—”
“Clear the road!” roared a score of voices as Lansing’s car moved slowly
forward, and off the sides, down the slope and up the bank, slunk the
obedient lynchers. Down through the lane of men who carefully shielded
their faces from the glare of the head-lights, Lansing’s car advanced.
It picked up speed and soon the little red tail-light was lost to sight.
Having watched it until it disappeared, the mob, as one man, turned its
anxious eyes heavenward—not in supplication but for a somewhat
surreptitious look at Oliver’s shining star. They stared open-mouthed. A
miracle had happened. The sky was full of merry, twinkling little
stars—and more, like fairies, came out to play and dance even as the
watchers below gazed up in wonder.
Two men slouched side-by-side behind all the others as the once
bloodthirsty horde bore off swiftly, apprehensively, but still dubiously
through the night which now seemed to mock them with its silence. One of
these men said to the other:
“I’ve worked in that store for twenty-two years. Where the dickens do
you suppose I’ll find another job at my age?”
“You won’t need one,” said the other gloomily, “if my prophecy comes
true.”
“Your prophecy? What are you talking about?”
“I prophesy we’ll all be in jail for this night’s work.”
A long silence. “Well,” said the other, “old man Sikes and Silas Link
can rest in peace from now on. He’s been hung.”
“Yep. He’s out of all his troubles and ours are just beginning. I guess
it must have been a lucky star he was born under.”
An hour later Sammy Parr expressed himself somewhat irrelevantly in the
parsonage sitting-room.
“Say, Miss Judge, you were great. I never heard anything like that
speech of yours. And your voice—why, it gave me the queerest kind of
shivers.”
Josephine was pacing the floor, her fine brow knitted in thought. She
was muttering to herself. Oliver, lying on a couch, smiled up into
Jane’s lovely eyes. She sat beside him, holding his hand in both of
hers. Serepta Grimes, having stubbornly refused to go to bed, sat in a
morris chair across the room and, perhaps for the first time in her long
life, was being forced to accept her own medicine at the hands of a
suddenly important Samaritan in the person of Lizzie Meggs, who, without
rime or reason, had been plying her with aromatic spirits of ammonia for
the better part of an hour, reserving to herself the diminishing
contents of a silver hip-flask produced by the efficient Mr. Parr. The
Reverend Mr. Sage stood apart with Dr. Lansing, deep in a low-voiced
argument as to whether God or man, Providence or science, had saved the
life of Oliver October. In the crook of the parson’s arm snuggled Henry
the Eighth, who, between intermittent fits of dozing, licked the hand
that had spanked devotion into him.
Miss Judge paused.
“It was rather good, wasn’t it?” she observed. “I am trying to fix that
speech in my mind. I shall have a play written around it. I know the
very man who can do it. He has been eager to write a play for me. I
shall telegraph him to-morrow to come to Rumley at once. In my mind’s
eye I can visualize that remarkable scene, I can—”
“Josephine!” cried Mr. Sage, aghast. “You are not thinking of going
back—going back—”
She held up her hand. “Not to London, old thing—not to London. It is
possible I may consent to make a farewell tour of America. Sarah
Bernhardt, Ellen Terry—why not I? My own company—”
At this juncture, Oliver sat up and claimed the audience.
“Sammy,” he cried out thickly but with the ring of enthusiasm in his
voice, “do me a favor, will you?”
“Sure,” cried Sammy, springing to his feet.
“Stand up with me. I’m going to be married. I’ve been best man for you
twice—”
“Great!” cried Sammy. “I’ll not only stand up with you, old boy, but
I’ll let you lean on me.”
“Now?” gasped Serepta Grimes, in great agitation.
“At once,” declared Oliver, struggling to his feet. “I came near to
losing her to-night. I’ll take no more chances.”
“Yes—now!” cried Jane softly, and for the first time that night the
color came back to her cheeks.