About ten o'clock on the morning of the discovery of the murder, Captain
McBane and General Belmont, as though moved by a common impulse, found
themselves at the office of the Morning Chronicle. Carteret was
expecting them, though there had been no appointment made. These three
resourceful and energetic minds, representing no organized body, and
clothed with no legal authority, had so completely arrogated to
themselves the leadership of white public sentiment as to come together
instinctively when an event happened which concerned the public, and, as
this murder presumably did, involved the matter of race.
"Well, gentlemen," demanded McBane impatiently, "what are we going to do
with the scoundrel when we catch him?"
"They've got the murderer," announced a reporter, entering the room.
"Who is he?" they demanded in a breath.
"A nigger by the name of Sandy Campbell, a servant of old Mr. Delamere."
"How did they catch him?"
"Our Jerry saw him last night, going toward Mrs. Ochiltree's house, and
a white man saw him coming away, half an hour later."
"Has he confessed?"
"No, but he might as well. When the posse went to arrest him, they found
him cleaning the clothes he had worn last night, and discovered in his
room a part of the plunder. He denies it strenuously, but it seems a
clear case."
"There can be no doubt," said Ellis, who had come into the room behind
the reporter. "I saw the negro last night, at twelve o'clock, going into
Mr. Delamere's yard, with a bundle in his hand."
"He is the last negro I should have suspected," said Carteret. "Mr.
Delamere had implicit confidence in him."
"All niggers are alike," remarked McBane sententiously. "The only way to
keep them from stealing is not to give them the chance. A nigger will
steal a cent off a dead man's eye. He has assaulted and murdered a white
woman,--an example should be made of him."
Carteret recalled very distinctly the presence of this negro at his own
residence on the occasion of little Theodore's christening dinner. He
remembered having questioned the prudence of letting a servant know that
Mrs. Ochiltree kept money in the house. Mr. Delamere had insisted
strenuously upon the honesty of this particular negro. The whole race,
in the major's opinion, was morally undeveloped, and only held within
bounds by the restraining influence of the white people. Under Mr.
Delamere's thumb this Sandy had been a model servant,--faithful, docile,
respectful, and self-respecting; but Mr. Delamere had grown old, and had
probably lost in a measure his moral influence over his servant. Left to
his own degraded ancestral instincts, Sandy had begun to deteriorate,
and a rapid decline had culminated in this robbery and murder,--and who
knew what other horror? The criminal was a negro, the victim a white
woman;--it was only reasonable to expect the worst.
"He'll swing for it," observed the general.
Ellis went into another room, where his duty called him.
"He should burn for it," averred McBane. "I say, burn the nigger."
"This," said Carteret, "is something more than an ordinary crime, to be
dealt with by the ordinary processes of law. It is a murderous and fatal
assault upon a woman of our race,--upon our race in the person of its
womanhood, its crown and flower. If such crimes are not punished with
swift and terrible directness, the whole white womanhood of the South is
in danger."
"Burn the nigger," repeated McBane automatically.
"Neither is this a mere sporadic crime," Carteret went on. "It is
symptomatic; it is the logical and inevitable result of the conditions
which have prevailed in this town for the past year. It is the last
straw."
"Burn the nigger," reiterated McBane. "We seem to have the right nigger,
but whether we have or not, burn _a_ nigger. It is an assault upon the
white race, in the person of old Mrs. Ochiltree, committed by the black
race, in the person of some nigger. It would justify the white people in
burning _any_ nigger. The example would be all the more powerful if we
got the wrong one. It would serve notice on the niggers that we shall
hold the whole race responsible for the misdeeds of each individual."
"In ancient Rome," said the general, "when a master was killed by a
slave, all his slaves were put to the sword."
"We couldn't afford that before the war," said McBane, "but the niggers
don't belong to anybody now, and there's nothing to prevent our doing as
we please with them. A dead nigger is no loss to any white man. I say,
burn the nigger."
"I do not believe," said Carteret, who had gone to the window and was
looking out,--"I do not believe that we need trouble ourselves
personally about his punishment. I should judge, from the commotion in
the street, that the public will take the matter into its own hands. I,
for one, would prefer that any violence, however justifiable, should
take place without my active intervention."
"It won't take place without mine, if I know it," exclaimed McBane,
starting for the door.
"Hold on a minute, captain," exclaimed Carteret. "There's more at stake
in this matter than the life of a black scoundrel. Wellington is in the
hands of negroes and scalawags. What better time to rescue it?"
"It's a trifle premature," replied the general. "I should have preferred
to have this take place, if it was to happen, say three months hence, on
the eve of the election,--but discussion always provokes thirst with me;
I wonder if I could get Jerry to bring us some drinks?"
Carteret summoned the porter. Jerry's usual manner had taken on an
element of self-importance, resulting in what one might describe as a
sort of condescending obsequiousness. Though still a porter, he was also
a hero, and wore his aureole.
"Jerry," said the general kindly, "the white people are very much
pleased with the assistance you have given them in apprehending this
scoundrel Campbell. You have rendered a great public service, Jerry, and
we wish you to know that it is appreciated."
"Thank y', gin'l, thank y', suh! I alluz tries ter do my duty, suh, an'
stan' by dem dat stan's by me. Dat low-down nigger oughter be lynch',
suh, don't you think, er e'se bu'nt? Dere ain' nothin' too bad ter
happen ter 'im."
"No doubt he will be punished as he deserves, Jerry," returned the
general, "and we will see that you are suitably rewarded. Go across the
street and get me three Calhoun cocktails. I seem to have nothing less
than a two-dollar bill, but you may keep the change, Jerry,--all the
change."
Jerry was very happy. He had distinguished himself in the public view,
for to Jerry, as to the white people themselves, the white people were
the public. He had won the goodwill of the best people, and had already
begun to reap a tangible reward. It is true that several strange white
men looked at him with lowering brows as he crossed the street, which
was curiously empty of colored people; but he nevertheless went firmly
forward, panoplied in the consciousness of his own rectitude, and
serenely confident of the protection of the major and the major's
friends.
"Jerry is about the only negro I have seen since nine o'clock," observed
the general when the porter had gone. "If this were election day, where
would the negro vote be?"
"In hiding, where most of the negro population is to-day," answered
McBane. "It's a pity, if old Mrs. Ochiltree had to go this way, that it
couldn't have been deferred a month or six weeks." Carteret frowned
at this remark, which, coming from McBane, seemed lacking in human
feeling, as well as in respect to his wife's dead relative.
"But," resumed the general, "if this negro is lynched, as he well
deserves to be, it will not be without its effect. We still have in
reserve for the election a weapon which this affair will only render
more effective. What became of the piece in the negro paper?"
"I have it here," answered Carteret. "I was just about to use it as the
text for an editorial."
"Save it awhile longer," responded the general. "This crime itself will
give you text enough for a four-volume work."
When this conference ended, Carteret immediately put into press an extra
edition of the Morning Chronicle, which was soon upon the streets,
giving details of the crime, which was characterized as an atrocious
assault upon a defenseless old lady, whose age and sex would have
protected her from harm at the hands of any one but a brute in the
lowest human form. This event, the Chronicle suggested, had only
confirmed the opinion, which had been of late growing upon the white
people, that drastic efforts were necessary to protect the white women
of the South against brutal, lascivious, and murderous assaults at the
hands of negro men. It was only another significant example of the
results which might have been foreseen from the application of a false
and pernicious political theory, by which ignorance, clothed in a little
brief authority, was sought to be exalted over knowledge, vice over
virtue, an inferior and degraded race above the heaven-crowned
Anglo-Saxon. If an outraged people, justly infuriated, and impatient of
the slow processes of the courts, should assert their inherent
sovereignty, which the law after all was merely intended to embody, and
should choose, in obedience to the higher law, to set aside,
temporarily, the ordinary judicial procedure, it would serve as a
warning and an example to the vicious elements of the community, of the
swift and terrible punishment which would fall, like the judgment of
God, upon any one who laid sacrilegious hands upon white womanhood.