XX

IT was almost morning when Caleb Trench reached home, and the low

building where he had his office--he had closed his shop a month

before--was dark and cheerless.

The news of the shooting of Yarnall, and the subsequent rioting, had

traveled and multiplied like a reed blown upon the winds of heaven.

Aunt Charity had heard it and forgotten her charge. Shot was on guard

before the dead ashes in the kitchen stove, and Sammy lay asleep in

his little bed in the adjoining room. Fortunately the child seemed to

have slept through the hours that had elapsed since the old woman’s

departure. Caleb found some cold supper set out for him, in a cheerless

fashion, and shared it with Shot, strangely beset, all the while, with

the thought of the charm and comfort of Broad Acres, as it had been

revealed to him in his infrequent visits.

Diana’s presence in the basement of the court-house had changed his day

for him, and he recalled every expression of her charming face, the

swift shyness of her glance, when his own must have been too eloquent,

and every gesture and movement during their interview. At the same

time he reflected that nothing could have been more unusual than her

presence there in the prisoner’s cage, as it was called, and he was

aware of a feeling of relief that no one had found them there together

at a time when his smallest action was likely to be a matter of common

public interest.

But predominant, even over these thoughts, was the new aspect of

affairs. Yarnall was dead, and as a factor in the gubernatorial fight

he was personally removed, but his tragic death was likely to be as

potent as his presence. He had already proved to the satisfaction of

one jury that his defeat in the convention was due solely to Aylett’s

fraud and to Eaton’s hatred, and it was improbable that, even in a

violently partisan community, justice should not be done at last.

Besides, the frightful manner of his taking off called aloud for

expiation. The tumult at the court-house testified to the passions

that were stirred; the old feud between the Eatons and the Yarnalls

awoke, and men remembered, and related, how Yarnall’s father had

shot Jacob Eaton’s father. A shiver of apprehension ran through the

herded humanity in squares and alleys; superstition stirred. Was this

the requital? The old doctrine, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a

tooth,--how it still appeals to the savage in men’s blood. The crowd

pressed in around the court-house where Yarnall’s body lay in state,

and outside, in a stiff cordon, stood sentries; the setting sun flashed

upon their bayonets as the long tense day wore to its close.

In the court-house Caleb Trench had worked tediously through the

evening with Judge Ladd and Judge Hollis. A thousand matters came up,

a thousand details had to be disposed of, and when he returned home at

midnight he was too exhausted physically and mentally to grapple long

with a problem at once tiresome and apparently insoluble. He dispatched

his supper, therefore, and putting out the light went to his own room.

But, before he could undress, Shot uttered a sharp warning bark, and

Caleb went back to the kitchen carrying a light, for the dog was

perfectly trained and not given to false alarms.

His master found him with his nose to the crack of the outer door,

and the slow but friendly movement of his tail that announced an

acquaintance. At the same time there was a low knock at the door.

“Who is there?” Caleb demanded, setting his light on the table and, at

the same time, preparing to unfasten the lock.

“Fo’ de Lawd, Marse Trench, let me in!” cried a muffled voice from the

outside, and, as Caleb opened the door, Juniper nearly fell across the

room.

“Shet de doah, massa,” he cried, “lock it; dey’s after me!”

It was intensely dark, being just about half an hour before dawn, and

the scent of morning was in the air. It seemed to Caleb, as he glanced

out, that the darkness had a softly dense effect, almost as if it

actually had a substance; he could not see ten yards from the threshold

and the silence was ominous. He shut the door and locked it and drew

down the shade over the kitchen window; afterwards he remembered this

and wondered if it were some impulse of secretiveness that prompted a

movement that he had not considered.

Meanwhile Juniper had fallen together in a miserable huddled heap

by the stove. His head was buried in his arms and he was sobbing in

terror, long-drawn shivering sobs that seemed to tear his very heart

out. Trench stood looking at him, knowing fully what suspicions were

against the black, and the terrible threats that had filled the town,

seething as it was with excitement and a natural hatred of the race.

That Juniper had plotted Yarnall’s death was an absurdity to Trench’s

mind; that he might have been the tool of another was barely possible.

On the other hand, his chances of justice from the mob were too small

to be considered. His very presence under any man’s roof was a danger

as poignant as pestilence. This last thought, however, had no weight

with Caleb Trench. The stray dog guarded his hearth, the nameless child

lay asleep in the next room, and now the hunted negro cowered before

him. It was characteristic of the man that the personal side of it, the

interpretation that might be put upon his conduct, never entered his

calculations. Instead, he looked long and sternly at the negro.

“Juniper,” he said, “you were the only person seen in the window of the

court-house before the assassination of Mr. Yarnall. Were you alone

there?”

Juniper cowered lower in his seat. “Fo’ de Lawd, Marse Trench, I can’t

tell you!” he sobbed.

“Who was in the room with you?” asked Trench sharply.

“I can’t tell!” the negro whimpered; “I don’ know.”

“Yes, you do,” said Caleb, “and you will be forced to tell it in court.

Probably, before you go to court, if the people catch you,” he added

cold-bloodedly.

Juniper fell on his knees; it seemed as if his face had turned lead

color instead of brown, and his teeth chattered. “Dey’s gwine ter lynch

me!” he sobbed, “an’ fo’ de Lawd, massa, I ain’t done it!”

Caleb looked at him unmoved. “If you know who did it, and do not tell,

you are what they call in law an accessory after the fact, and you can

be punished.”

Juniper shook from head to foot. “Marse Caleb,” he said, with sudden

solemnity, “de Lawd made us both, de white an’ de black, I ain’t gwine

ter b’lieb dat He’ll ferget me bekase I’se black! I ain’t murdered no

one.”

Caleb regarded him in silence; the force and eloquence of Juniper’s

simple plea carried its own conviction. Yet, he knew that the negro

could name the murderer and was afraid to. There was a tense moment,

then far off a sound, awful in the darkness of early morning,--the

swift galloping of horses on the hard highroad.

“Dey’s comin’,” said Juniper in a dry whisper, his lips twisting;

“dey’s comin’ ter kill me--de Lawd hab mercy on my soul!”

Nearer drew the sound of horses’ feet, nearer the swift and awful

death. Caleb Trench blew out his light; through the window crevices

showed faint gray streaks. Shot was standing up now, growling. Caleb

sent him into the room with little Sammy, and shut the door on them.

Then he took the almost senseless negro by the collar and dragged him

to the stairs.

“Go up!” he ordered sternly; “go to the attic and drag up the ladder

after you.”

Juniper clung to him. “Save me!” he sobbed, “I ain’t dun it; I ain’t

murdered him!”

“Go!” ordered Caleb sharply.

Already there was a summons at his door, and he heard the trample of

the horses. Juniper went crawling up the stairs and disappeared into

the darkness above. Caleb went to his desk and took down the telephone

receiver, got a reply and sent a brief message; then he quietly put

his pistol in his pocket and went deliberately to the front door and

threw it open. As he did it some one cut the telephone connection,

but it was too late. In the brief interval since he had admitted the

fugitive, day had dawned in the far East, and the first light seemed to

touch the world with the whiteness of wood ashes; even the cottonwoods

showed weirdly across the road. All around the house were mounted men,

and nearly every man wore a black mask. The sight was gruesome, but it

stirred something like wrath in Caleb’s heart; how many men were here

to murder one poor frightened creature, with the intellect of a child

and the soul of a savage!

Caleb’s large figure seemed to fill the door, as he stood with folded

arms and looked out into the gray morning, unmoved as he would look

some day into the Valley of the Shadow. Of physical cowardice he knew

nothing, of moral weakness still less; he had the heroic obstinacy of

an isolated soul. It cost him nothing to be courageous, because he had

never known fear. Unconsciously, he was a born fighter; the scent of

battle was breath to his nostrils. He looked over the masked faces with

kindling eyes; here and there he recognized a man and named him, to the

mask’s infinite dismay.

“Your visit is a little early, gentlemen,” he said quietly, “but I am

at home.”

“Look here, Trench, we want that nigger!” they yelled back.

“You mean Juniper?” said Caleb coolly. “Well, you won’t get him from

me.”

“We know he’s about here!” was the angry retort, “and we’ll have him,

d’ye hear?”

“I hear,” said Caleb, slipping his hand into his pocket. “You can

search the woods; there are about three miles of them behind me,

besides the highroad to Paradise Ridge.”

“We’re going to search your house,” replied the leader; “that’s what

we’re going to do.”

“Are you?” said Caleb, in his usual tone, his eyes traveling over

their heads, through the ghostly outlines of the cottonwoods, past the

tallest pine to the brightening eastern sky.

Something in his aspect, something which is always present in supreme

courage,--that impalpable but strenuous thing which quells the hearts

of men before a leader,--quenched their fury.

“Look here, Caleb Trench, you were Yarnall’s lawyer; you ain’t in the

damned Eaton mess. Where’s that Eaton nigger?”

Caleb’s hand closed on the handle of his revolver in his pocket.

“Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “I happen to know that the negro,

Juniper, did not shoot Mr. Yarnall, and if I know where he is now I

will not tell you.”

“By God, you shall!” yelled the nearest rioter, swinging forward with

uplifted fist.

He swung almost on the muzzle of Caleb’s revolver.

“One step farther and you’re a dead man,” Trench said.

The would-be lyncher lurched backward. In the white light of dawn

Caleb’s gaunt figure loomed, his stern face showed its harshest lines,

and there was fire in his eyes. A stone flew and struck him a little

below the shoulder, another rattled on the shingles beside the door;

there was a low ominous roar from the mob; right and left men were

dismounting, and horses plunged and neighed.

“Give up that damned nigger or die yourself!” was the cry, taken up and

echoed.

Within the house Shot began to bark furiously, and there was suddenly

the shrill crying of a child.

“Jean Bartlett!” some one shouted.

“Ay, let’s hang him, too--for her sake!”

There were cheers and hisses. Caleb neither moved nor shut the door.

“Give us that nigger!” they howled, crowding up.

By a miracle, as it seemed, he had kept them about three yards from

the entrance in a semicircle, and here they thronged now. From the

first they had surrounded the house, and the possibility of an entrance

being forced in the rear flashed upon Caleb. But he counted a little

on the curiosity that kept them hanging on his movements, watching the

leaders. He saw at a glance that there was no real organization, that

a motley crowd had fallen in with the one popular idea of lynching the

negro offender, and that a breath of real fear would dissolve them like

the mists which were rolling along the river bottoms.

“Where’s that nigger?” came the cry again, and then: “It’s time you

remembered Jean Bartlett!”

One of the leaders, a big man whom Caleb failed to recognize, was still

mounted. He rose in his stirrups. “Hell!” he said, “he’s got the child;

if he hadn’t, I’d burn him out.”

“Gentlemen,” said Caleb coolly, raising his hand to command attention,

“I will give the child to your leader’s care if you wish to fire my

house. I do not want to be protected by the boy, nor by any false

impression that I am expiating an offense against Jean Bartlett.”

There was a moment of silence again, then a solitary cheer amid a storm

of hisses. A tumult of shoutings and blasphemies drowned all coherent

speech. Men struggled forward and stopped speechless, staring at the

unmoved figure in the door, and the grim muzzle of his six-shooter.

It was full day now, and murder and riot by daylight are tremendous

things; they make the soul of the coward quake. There were men here and

there in the crowd who shivered, and some never forgot it until their

dying day.

“Give us the nigger!”

Caleb made no reply; his finger was on the trigger. There was a wild

shout and, as they broke and rushed, Caleb fired. One man went down,

another fell back, the mob closed in, pandemonium reigned. Then there

was a warning cry from the rear, the clear note of a bugle, the thunder

of more horses’ hoofs, the flash of bayonets, and a file of troopers

charged down the long lane; there was a volley, a flash of fire and

smoke. Men mounted and rode for life, and others fell beneath the

clubbed bayonets into the trampled dust.

In the doorway Caleb Trench stood, white and disheveled, with blood on

his forehead, but still unharmed.