The party under Josh's leadership moved off down the road. Miller, while
entirely convinced that he had acted wisely in declining to accompany
them, was yet conscious of a distinct feeling of shame and envy that he,
too, did not feel impelled to throw away his life in a hopeless
struggle.
Watson left the buggy and disappeared by a path at the roadside. Miller
drove rapidly forward. After entering the town, he passed several small
parties of white men, but escaped scrutiny by sitting well back in his
buggy, the presumption being that a well-dressed man with a good horse
and buggy was white. Torn with anxiety, he reached home at about four
o'clock. Driving the horse into the yard, he sprang down from the buggy
and hastened to the house, which he found locked, front and rear.
A repeated rapping brought no response. At length he broke a window, and
entered the house like a thief.
"Janet, Janet!" he called in alarm, "where are you? It is only
I,--Will!"
There was no reply. He ran from room to room, only to find them all
empty. Again he called his wife's name, and was about rushing from the
house, when a muffled voice came faintly to his ear,--
"Is dat you, Doctuh Miller?"
"Yes. Who are you, and where are my wife and child?"
He was looking around in perplexity, when the door of a low closet under
the kitchen sink was opened from within, and a woolly head was
cautiously protruded.
"Are you _sho'_ dat's you, doctuh?"
"Yes, Sally; where are"--
"An' not some w'ite man come ter bu'n down de house an' kill all de
niggers?"
"No, Sally, it's me all right. Where is my wife? Where is my child?"
"Dey went over ter see Mis' Butler 'long 'bout two o'clock, befo' dis
fuss broke out, suh. Oh, Lawdy, Lawdy, suh! Is all de cullud folks be'n
killt 'cep'n' me an' you, suh? Fer de Lawd's sake, suh, you won' let 'em
kill me, will you, suh? I'll wuk fer you fer nuthin', suh, all my bawn
days, ef you'll save my life, suh!"
"Calm yourself, Sally. You'll be safe enough if you stay right here, I
'we no doubt. They'll not harm women,--of that I'm sure enough,
although I haven't yet got the bearings of this deplorable affair. Stay
here and look after the house. I must find my wife and child!"
The distance across the city to the home of the Mrs. Butler whom his
wife had gone to visit was exactly one mile. Though Miller had a good
horse in front of him, he was two hours in reaching his destination.
Never will the picture of that ride fade from his memory. In his dreams
he repeats it night after night, and sees the sights that wounded his
eyes, and feels the thoughts--the haunting spirits of the thoughts--that
tore his heart as he rode through hell to find those whom he was
seeking. For a short distance he saw nothing, and made rapid progress.
As he turned the first corner, his horse shied at the dead body of a
negro, lying huddled up in the collapse which marks sudden death. What
Miller shuddered at was not so much the thought of death, to the sight
of which his profession had accustomed him, as the suggestion of what it
signified. He had taken with allowance the wild statement of the fleeing
fugitives. Watson, too, had been greatly excited, and Josh Green's group
were desperate men, as much liable to be misled by their courage as the
others by their fears; but here was proof that murder had been
done,--and his wife and children were in the town. Distant shouts, and
the sound of firearms, increased his alarm. He struck his horse with the
whip, and dashed on toward the heart of the city, which he must traverse
in order to reach Janet and the child.
At the next corner lay the body of another man, with the red blood
oozing from a ghastly wound in the forehead. The negroes seemed to have
been killed, as the band plays in circus parades, at the street
intersections, where the example would be most effective. Miller, with a
wild leap of the heart, had barely passed this gruesome spectacle, when
a sharp voice commanded him to halt, and emphasized the order by
covering him with a revolver. Forgetting the prudence he had preached to
others, he had raised his whip to strike the horse, when several hands
seized the bridle.
"Come down, you damn fool," growled an authoritative voice. "Don't you
see we're in earnest? Do you want to get killed?"
"Why should I come down?" asked Miller. "Because we've ordered you to
come down! This is the white people's day, and when they order, a nigger
must obey. We're going to search you for weapons."
"Search away. You'll find nothing but a case of surgeon's tools, which
I'm more than likely to need before this day is over, from all
indications."
"No matter; we'll make sure of it! That's what we're here for. Come
down, if you don't want to be pulled down!"
Miller stepped down from his buggy. His interlocutor, who made no effort
at disguise, was a clerk in a dry-goods store where Miller bought most
of his family and hospital supplies. He made no sign of recognition,
however, and Miller claimed no acquaintance. This man, who had for
several years emptied Miller's pockets in the course of more or less
legitimate trade, now went through them, aided by another man, more
rapidly than ever before, the searchers convincing themselves that
Miller carried no deadly weapon upon his person. Meanwhile, a third
ransacked the buggy with like result. Miller recognized several others
of the party, who made not the slightest attempt at disguise, though no
names were called by any one.
"Where are you going?" demanded the leader.
"I am looking for my wife and child," replied Miller.
"Well, run along, and keep them out of the streets when you find them;
and keep your hands out of this affair, if you wish to live in this
town, which from now on will be a white man's town, as you niggers will
be pretty firmly convinced before night."
Miller drove on as swiftly as might be. At the next corner he was
stopped again. In the white man who held him up, Miller recognized a
neighbor of his own. After a short detention and a perfunctory search,
the white man remarked apologetically:--
"Sorry to have had to trouble you, doctuh, but them's the o'ders. It
ain't men like you that we're after, but the vicious and criminal class
of niggers."
Miller smiled bitterly as he urged his horse forward. He was quite well
aware that the virtuous citizen who had stopped him had only a few weeks
before finished a term in the penitentiary, to which he had been
sentenced for stealing. Miller knew that he could have bought all the
man owned for fifty dollars, and his soul for as much more.
A few rods farther on, he came near running over the body of a wounded
man who lay groaning by the wayside. Every professional instinct urged
him to stop and offer aid to the sufferer; but the uncertainty
concerning his wife and child proved a stronger motive and urged him
resistlessly forward. Here and there the ominous sound of firearms was
audible. He might have thought this merely a part of the show, like the
"powder play" of the Arabs, but for the bloody confirmation of its
earnestness which had already assailed his vision. Somewhere in this
seething caldron of unrestrained passions were his wife and child, and
he must hurry on.
His progress was painfully slow. Three times he was stopped and
searched. More than once his way was barred, and he was ordered to turn
back, each such occasion requiring a detour which consumed many minutes.
The man who last stopped him was a well-known Jewish merchant. A
Jew--God of Moses!--had so far forgotten twenty centuries of history as
to join in the persecution of another oppressed race! When almost
reduced to despair by these innumerable delays, he perceived, coming
toward him, Mr. Ellis, the sub-editor of the Morning Chronicle. Miller
had just been stopped and questioned again, and Ellis came up as he was
starting once more upon his endless ride.
"Dr. Miller," said Ellis kindly, "it is dangerous for you on the
streets. Why tempt the danger?"
"I am looking for my wife and child," returned Miller in desperation.
"They are somewhere in this town,--I don't know where,--and I must find
them."
Ellis had been horror-stricken by the tragedy of the afternoon, the
wholly superfluous slaughter of a harmless people, whom a show of force
would have been quite sufficient to overawe. Elaborate explanations were
afterwards given for these murders, which were said, perhaps truthfully,
not to have been premeditated, and many regrets were expressed. The
young man had been surprised, quite as much as the negroes themselves,
at the ferocity displayed. His own thoughts and feelings were attuned to
anything but slaughter. Only that morning he had received a perfumed
note, calling his attention to what the writer described as a very noble
deed of his, and requesting him to call that evening and receive the
writer's thanks. Had he known that Miss Pemberton, several weeks after
their visit to the Sound, had driven out again to the hotel and made
some inquiries among the servants, he might have understood better the
meaning of this missive. When Miller spoke of his wife and child, some
subtle thread of suggestion coupled the note with Miller's plight.
"I'll go with you, Dr. Miller," he said, "if you'll permit me. In my
company you will not be disturbed."
He took a seat in Miller's buggy, after which it was not molested.
Neither of them spoke. Miller was sick at heart; he could have wept with
grief, even had the welfare of his own dear ones not been involved in
this regrettable affair. With prophetic instinct he foresaw the hatreds
to which this day would give birth; the long years of constraint and
distrust which would still further widen the breach between two peoples
whom fate had thrown together in one community.
There was nothing for Ellis to say. In his heart he could not defend the
deeds of this day. The petty annoyances which the whites had felt at the
spectacle of a few negroes in office; the not unnatural resentment of a
proud people at what had seemed to them a presumptuous freedom of speech
and lack of deference on the part of their inferiors,--these things,
which he knew were to be made the excuse for overturning the city
government, he realized full well were no sort of justification for the
wholesale murder or other horrors which might well ensue before the day
was done. He could not approve the acts of his own people; neither could
he, to a negro, condemn them. Hence he was silent.
"Thank you, Mr. Ellis," exclaimed Miller, when they had reached the
house where he expected to find his wife. "This is the place where I was
going. I am--under a great obligation to you."
"Not at all, Dr. Miller. I need not tell you how much I regret this
deplorable affair."
Ellis went back down the street. Fastening his horse to the fence,
Miller sprang forward to find his wife and child. They would certainly
be there, for no colored woman would be foolhardy enough to venture on
the streets after the riot had broken out.
As he drew nearer, he felt a sudden apprehension. The house seemed
strangely silent and deserted. The doors were closed, and the Venetian
blinds shut tightly. Even a dog which had appeared slunk timidly back
under the house, instead of barking vociferously according to the usual
habit of his kind.