"MINE ENEMY, O MINE ENEMY!"
The proceedings of the day--planned originally as a "demonstration,"
dignified subsequently as a "revolution," under any name the culmination
of the conspiracy formed by Carteret and his colleagues--had by seven
o'clock in the afternoon developed into a murderous riot. Crowds of
white men and half-grown boys, drunk with whiskey or with license, raged
through the streets, beating, chasing, or killing any negro so
unfortunate as to fall into their hands. Why any particular negro was
assailed, no one stopped to inquire; it was merely a white mob thirsting
for black blood, with no more conscience or discrimination than would be
exercised by a wolf in a sheepfold. It was race against race, the whites
against the negroes; and it was a one-sided affair, for until Josh Green
got together his body of armed men, no effective resistance had been
made by any colored person, and the individuals who had been killed had
so far left no marks upon the enemy by which they might be remembered.
"Kill the niggers!" rang out now and then through the dusk, and far down
the street and along the intersecting thoroughfares distant voices took
up the ominous refrain,--"Kill the niggers! Kill the damned niggers!"
Now, not a dark face had been seen on the street for half an hour,
until the group of men headed by Josh made their appearance in the negro
quarter. Armed with guns and axes, they presented quite a formidable
appearance as they made their way toward the new hospital, near which
stood a schoolhouse and a large church, both used by the colored people.
They did not reach their destination without having met a number of
white men, singly or in twos or threes; and the rumor spread with
incredible swiftness that the negroes in turn were up in arms,
determined to massacre all the whites and burn the town. Some of the
whites became alarmed, and recognizing the power of the negroes, if
armed and conscious of their strength, were impressed by the immediate
necessity of overpowering and overawing them. Others, with appetites
already whetted by slaughter, saw a chance, welcome rather than not, of
shedding more black blood. Spontaneously the white mob flocked toward
the hospital, where rumor had it that a large body of desperate negroes,
breathing threats of blood and fire, had taken a determined stand.
It had been Josh's plan merely to remain quietly and peaceably in the
neighborhood of the little group of public institutions, molesting no
one, unless first attacked, and merely letting the white people see that
they meant to protect their own; but so rapidly did the rumor spread,
and so promptly did the white people act, that by the time Josh and his
supporters had reached the top of the rising ground where the hospital
stood, a crowd of white men much more numerous than their own party were
following them at a short distance.
Josh, with the eye of a general, perceived that some of his party were
becoming a little nervous, and decided that they would feel safer behind
shelter.
"I reckon we better go inside de hospittle, boys," he exclaimed. "Den
we'll be behind brick walls, an' dem other fellows 'll be outside, an' ef
dere's any fightin', we'll have de bes' show. We ain' gwine ter do no
shootin' till we're pestered, an' dey'll be less likely ter pester us
ef dey can't git at us widout runnin' some resk. Come along in! Be men!
De gov'ner er de President is gwine ter sen' soldiers ter stop dese
gwines-on, an' meantime we kin keep dem white devils f'm bu'nin' down
our hospittles an' chu'ch-houses. Wen dey comes an' fin's out dat we
jes' means ter pertect ou' prope'ty, dey'll go 'long 'bout deir own
business. Er, ef dey wants a scrap, dey kin have it! Come erlong, boys!"
Jerry Letlow, who had kept out of sight during the day, had started out,
after night had set in, to find Major Carteret. Jerry was very much
afraid. The events of the day had filled him with terror. Whatever the
limitations of Jerry's mind or character may have been, Jerry had a keen
appreciation of the danger to the negroes when they came in conflict
with the whites, and he had no desire to imperil his own skin. He valued
his life for his own sake, and not for any altruistic theory that it
might be of service to others. In other words, Jerry was something of a
coward. He had kept in hiding all day, but finding, toward evening, that
the riot did not abate, and fearing, from the rumors which came to his
ears, that all the negroes would be exterminated, he had set out,
somewhat desperately, to try to find his white patron and protector. He
had been cautious to avoid meeting any white men, and, anticipating no
danger from those of his own race, went toward the party which he saw
approaching, whose path would cross his own. When they were only a few
yards apart, Josh took a step forward and caught Jerry by the arm.
"Come along, Jerry, we need you! Here's another man, boys. Come on now,
and fight fer yo' race!"
In vain Jerry protested. "I don' wan' ter fight," he howled. "De w'ite
folks ain' gwine ter pester me; dey're my frien's. Tu'n me loose,--tu'n
me loose, er we all gwine ter git killed!"
The party paid no attention to Jerry's protestations. Indeed, with the
crowd of whites following behind, they were simply considering the
question of a position from which they could most effectively defend
themselves and the building which they imagined to be threatened. If
Josh had released his grip of Jerry, that worthy could easily have
escaped from the crowd; but Josh maintained his hold almost
mechanically, and, in the confusion, Jerry found himself swept with the
rest into the hospital, the doors of which were promptly barricaded with
the heavier pieces of furniture, and the windows manned by several men
each, Josh, with the instinct of a born commander, posting his forces so
that they could cover with their guns all the approaches to the
building. Jerry still continuing to make himself troublesome, Josh, in a
moment of impatience, gave him a terrific box on the ear, which
stretched him out upon the floor unconscious.
"Shet up," he said; "ef you can't stan' up like a man, keep still, and
don't interfere wid men w'at will fight!" The hospital, when Josh and
his men took possession, had been found deserted. Fortunately there were
no patients for that day, except one or two convalescents, and these,
with the attendants, had joined the exodus of the colored people from
the town.
A white man advanced from the crowd without toward the main entrance to
the hospital. Big Josh, looking out from a window, grasped his gun more
firmly, as his eyes fell upon the man who had murdered his father and
darkened his mother's life. Mechanically he raised his rifle, but
lowered it as the white man lifted up his hand as a sign that he wished
to speak.
"You niggers," called Captain McBane loudly,--it was that worthy,--"you
niggers are courtin' death, an' you won't have to court her but a minute
er two mo' befo' she'll have you. If you surrender and give up your
arms, you'll be dealt with leniently,--you may get off with the
chain-gang or the penitentiary. If you resist, you'll be shot like
dogs."
"Dat's no news, Mr. White Man," replied Josh, appearing boldly at the
window. "We're use' ter bein' treated like dogs by men like you. If you
w'ite people will go 'long an' ten' ter yo' own business an' let us
alone, we'll ten' ter ou'n. You've got guns, an' we've got jest as
much right ter carry 'em as you have. Lay down yo'n, an' we'll lay down
ou'n,--we didn' take 'em up fust; but we ain' gwine ter let you bu'n
down ou' chu'ches an' school'ouses, er dis hospittle, an' we ain' comin'
out er dis house, where we ain' disturbin' nobody, fer you ter shoot us
down er sen' us ter jail. You hear me!"
"All right," responded McBane. "You've had fair warning. Your blood be
on your"--His speech was interrupted by a shot from the crowd, which
splintered the window-casing close to Josh's head. This was followed by
half a dozen other shots, which were replied to, almost simultaneously,
by a volley from within, by which one of the attacking party was killed
and another wounded.
This roused the mob to frenzy.
"Vengeance! vengeance!" they yelled. "Kill the niggers!"
A negro had killed a white man,--the unpardonable sin, admitting neither
excuse, justification, nor extenuation. From time immemorial it had been
bred in the Southern white consciousness, and in the negro consciousness
also, for that matter, that the person of a white man was sacred from
the touch of a negro, no matter what the provocation. A dozen colored
men lay dead in the streets of Wellington, inoffensive people, slain in
cold blood because they had been bold enough to question the authority
of those who had assailed them, or frightened enough to flee when they
had been ordered to stand still; but their lives counted nothing against
that of a riotous white man, who had courted death by attacking a body
of armed men.
The crowd, too, surrounding the hospital, had changed somewhat in
character. The men who had acted as leaders in the early afternoon,
having accomplished their purpose of overturning the local
administration and establishing a provisional government of their own,
had withdrawn from active participation in the rioting, deeming the
negroes already sufficiently overawed to render unlikely any further
trouble from that source. Several of the ringleaders had indeed begun to
exert themselves to prevent further disorder, or any loss of property,
the possibility of which had become apparent; but those who set in
motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards. The
baser element of the white population, recruited from the wharves and
the saloons, was now predominant.
Captain McBane was the only one of the revolutionary committee who had
remained with the mob, not with any purpose to restore or preserve
order, but because he found the company and the occasion entirely
congenial. He had had no opportunity, at least no tenable excuse, to
kill or maim a negro since the termination of his contract with the
state for convicts, and this occasion had awakened a dormant appetite
for these diversions. We are all puppets in the hands of Fate, and
seldom see the strings that move us. McBane had lived a life of violence
and cruelty. As a man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such
men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not
change their natures until they are converted into dust. One does well
to distrust a tamed tiger.
On the outskirts of the crowd a few of the better class, or at least of
the better clad, were looking on. The double volley described had
already been fired, when the number of these was augmented by the
arrival of Major Carteret and Mr. Ellis, who had just come from the
Chronicle office, where the next day's paper had been in hasty
preparation. They pushed their way towards the front of the crowd.
"This must be stopped, Ellis," said Carteret. "They are burning houses
and killing women and children. Old Jane, good old Mammy Jane, who
nursed my wife at her bosom, and has waited on her and my child within
a few weeks, was killed only a few rods from my house, to which she was
evidently fleeing for protection. It must have been by accident,--I
cannot believe that any white man in town would be dastard enough to
commit such a deed intentionally! I would have defended her with my own
life! We must try to stop this thing!"
"Easier said than done," returned Ellis. "It is in the fever stage, and
must burn itself out. We shall be lucky if it does not burn the town
out. Suppose the negroes should also take a hand at the burning? We have
advised the people to put the negroes down, and they are doing the job
thoroughly."
"My God!" replied the other, with a gesture of impatience, as he
continued to elbow his way through the crowd; "I meant to keep them in
their places,--I did not intend wholesale murder and arson."
Carteret, having reached the front of the mob, made an effort to gain
their attention.
"Gentlemen!" he cried in his loudest tones. His voice, unfortunately,
was neither loud nor piercing.
"Kill the niggers!" clamored the mob.
"Gentlemen, I implore you"--
The crash of a dozen windows, broken by stones and pistol shots, drowned
his voice.
"Gentlemen!" he shouted; "this is murder, it is madness; it is a
disgrace to our city, to our state, to our civilization!"
"That's right!" replied several voices. The mob had recognized the
speaker. "It _is_ a disgrace, and we'll not put up with it a moment
longer. Burn 'em out! Hurrah for Major Carteret, the champion of 'white
supremacy'! Three cheers for the Morning Chronicle and 'no nigger
domination'!"
"Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" yelled the crowd.
In vain the baffled orator gesticulated and shrieked in the effort to
correct the misapprehension. Their oracle had spoken; not hearing what
he said, they assumed it to mean encouragement and coöperation. Their
present course was but the logical outcome of the crusade which the
Morning Chronicle had preached, in season and out of season, for many
months. When Carteret had spoken, and the crowd had cheered him, they
felt that they had done all that courtesy required, and he was
good-naturedly elbowed aside while they proceeded with the work in hand,
which was now to drive out the negroes from the hospital and avenge the
killing of their comrade.
Some brought hay, some kerosene, and others wood from a pile which had
been thrown into a vacant lot near by. Several safe ways of approach to
the building were discovered, and the combustibles placed and fired. The
flames, soon gaining a foothold, leaped upward, catching here and there
at the exposed woodwork, and licking the walls hungrily with long
tongues of flame.
Meanwhile a desultory firing was kept up from the outside, which was
replied to scatteringly from within the hospital. Those inside were
either not good marksmen, or excitement had spoiled their aim. If a face
appeared at a window, a dozen pistol shots from the crowd sought the
spot immediately.
Higher and higher leaped the flames. Suddenly from one of the windows
sprang a black figure, waving a white handkerchief. It was Jerry Letlow.
Regaining consciousness after the effect of Josh's blow had subsided,
Jerry had kept quiet and watched his opportunity. From a safe
vantage-ground he had scanned the crowd without, in search of some
white friend. When he saw Major Carteret moving disconsolately away
after his futile effort to stem the torrent, Jerry made a dash for the
window. He sprang forth, and, waving his handkerchief as a flag of
truce, ran toward Major Carteret, shouting frantically:--
"Majah Carteret--_O_ majah! It's me, suh, Jerry, suh! I didn' go in
dere myse'f, suh--I wuz drag' in dere! I wouldn' do nothin' 'g'inst de
w'ite folks, suh,--no, 'ndeed, I wouldn', suh!"
Jerry's cries were drowned in a roar of rage and a volley of shots from
the mob. Carteret, who had turned away with Ellis, did not even hear his
servant's voice. Jerry's poor flag of truce, his explanations, his
reliance upon his white friends, all failed him in the moment of supreme
need. In that hour, as in any hour when the depths of race hatred are
stirred, a negro was no more than a brute beast, set upon by other brute
beasts whose only instinct was to kill and destroy.
"Let us leave this inferno, Ellis," said Carteret, sick with anger and
disgust. He had just become aware that a negro was being killed, though
he did not know whom. "We can do nothing. The negroes have themselves to
blame,--they tempted us beyond endurance. I counseled firmness, and firm
measures were taken, and our purpose was accomplished. I am not
responsible for these subsequent horrors,--I wash my hands of them. Let
us go!"
The flames gained headway and gradually enveloped the burning building,
until it became evident to those within as well as those without that
the position of the defenders was no longer tenable. Would they die in
the flames, or would they be driven out? The uncertainty soon came to an
end.
The besieged had been willing to fight, so long as there seemed a hope
of successfully defending themselves and their property; for their
purpose was purely one of defense. When they saw the case was hopeless,
inspired by Josh Green's reckless courage, they were still willing to
sell their lives dearly. One or two of them had already been killed, and
as many more disabled. The fate of Jerry Letlow had struck terror to the
hearts of several others, who could scarcely hide their fear. After the
building had been fired, Josh's exhortations were no longer able to keep
them in the hospital. They preferred to fight and be killed in the open,
rather than to be smothered like rats in a hole.
"Boys!" exclaimed Josh,--"men!--fer nobody but men would do w'at you
have done,--the day has gone 'g'inst us. We kin see ou' finish; but fer
my part, I ain' gwine ter leave dis worl' widout takin' a w'ite man
'long wid me, an' I sees my man right out yonder waitin',--I be'n
waitin' fer him twenty years, but he won' have ter wait fer me mo' 'n
'bout twenty seconds. Eve'y one er you pick yo' man! We'll open de do',
an' we'll give some w'ite men a chance ter be sorry dey ever started
dis fuss!"
The door was thrown open suddenly, and through it rushed a dozen or more
black figures, armed with knives, pistols, or clubbed muskets. Taken by
sudden surprise, the white people stood motionless for a moment, but the
approaching negroes had scarcely covered half the distance to which the
heat of the flames had driven back the mob, before they were greeted
with a volley that laid them all low but two. One of these, dazed by
the fate of his companions, turned instinctively to flee, but had
scarcely faced around before he fell, pierced in the back by a dozen
bullets.
Josh Green, the tallest and biggest of them all, had not apparently been
touched. Some of the crowd paused in involuntary admiration of this
black giant, famed on the wharves for his strength, sweeping down upon
them, a smile upon his face, his eyes lit up with a rapt expression
which seemed to take him out of mortal ken. This impression was
heightened by his apparent immunity from the shower of lead which less
susceptible persons had continued to pour at him.
Armed with a huge bowie-knife, a relic of the civil war, which he had
carried on his person for many years for a definite purpose, and which
he had kept sharpened to a razor edge, he reached the line of the crowd.
All but the bravest shrank back. Like a wedge he dashed through the mob,
which parted instinctively before him, and all oblivious of the rain of
lead which fell around him, reached the point where Captain McBane, the
bravest man in the party, stood waiting to meet him. A pistol-flame
flashed in his face, but he went on, and raising his powerful right arm,
buried his knife to the hilt in the heart of his enemy. When the crowd
dashed forward to wreak vengeance on his dead body, they found him with
a smile still upon his face.
One of the two died as the fool dieth. Which was it, or was it both?
"Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, and it had not been left to Him.
But they that do violence must expect to suffer violence. McBane's death
was merciful, compared with the nameless horrors he had heaped upon the
hundreds of helpless mortals who had fallen into his hands during his
career as a contractor of convict labor.
Sobered by this culminating tragedy, the mob shortly afterwards
dispersed. The flames soon completed their work, and this handsome
structure, the fruit of old Adam Miller's industry, the monument of his
son's philanthropy, a promise of good things for the future of the city,
lay smouldering in ruins, a melancholy witness to the fact that our
boasted civilization is but a thin veneer, which cracks and scales off
at the first impact of primal passions.