"O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING?"
Dorlan had just drawn down the curtains to the windows of his room, thus
bringing to a close the contest that the artificial light of the room was
waging with the fading twilight, the last feeble protest of the sun, for
that day deposed. He was standing before his desk which was strewn with
books, pamphlets and newspaper clippings, bearing on the subject engaging
his attention, when suddenly his door was thrust open.
Quickly turning to learn who his unceremonious visitor was, Dorlan saw the
Hon. Hezekiah T. Bloodworth standing in the doorway pointing a pistol
toward him. The pistol hand swayed to and fro, signifying the unsteadiness
of a drunken man, while Bloodworth's bloated face and reddened eyes
emphasized the fact of his debauchery.
"Oh--hic--yes--hic--I've got--hic-hic-hic you--hic.
I'll--hic--kill--hic--hic--you--hic," stammered Bloodworth, attempting to
impart force enough to his unsteady fingers to pull the trigger of the
pistol.
Dorlan started in the direction of the drunken man intending to disarm him.
Just then some one implanted a blow upon the base of Bloodworth's skull,
which sent that gentleman to the floor in a sprawling attitude. The pistol
which was in Bloodworth's hand exploded upon striking the floor, but no
serious damage resulted.
A tall, somewhat slender white man had delivered the blow. This stranger
now forced Bloodworth to rise and accompany him down the stairs. Bloodworth
whined after the manner of a child, as he staggered along. The stranger
hailed a passing policeman and handed Bloodworth over to him. He then
returned to Dorlan's room. As he entered, Dorlan was struck with the look
of sorrow so legibly written in the face of the man. Such utter woe Dorlan
had never before seen depicted in a human countenance. The man, though
invited to sit down, declined to do so.
Looking Dorlan in the face, the stranger said, "My name is Lemuel Dalton. I
perceive that you glean from my countenance that fate has hurled its
harpoon into my soul." Lemuel Dalton's frame shook as a tempest of emotions
swept through him. "My wife," he continued, "the most beautiful, the most
angelic, the most beloved woman of earth, has been needlessly slain."
Dorlan was listening with absorbing interest and evident sympathy.
"Circumstances killed my wife, sir. Circumstances--cold, cruel,
circumstances." Lemuel Dalton paused as though desiring to give his words
ample opportunity to convey their awful message. "It was on this wise," he
resumed. "She met a Negro who was fleeing from justice. She had heard so
much of late of the crimes of Negroes against white women that she was
terribly frightened by the mere fact of seeing this Negro. The Negro was
frightened over the consequences likely to ensue as a result of her fright.
He sought to reassure her. She mistrusted him the more. To keep her from
reaching me in time to institute a successful pursuit, the Negro killed the
horse that she was riding. The horse in falling caught my wife partially
under his huge frame. She was fatally injured."
Lemuel Dalton now turned away from Dorlan to hide the tears that had
gathered in his eyes. "She died," said he, in broken tones. "On her dying
bed she begged me to not prosecute the Negro on the charge of murder. In
her last moments she said to me, 'Lemuel, good bye. Save other homes from a
like fate. Dispel this atmosphere of suspicion in which I have been stifled
unto my death.' I have obeyed her request with regard to the Negro. A
careful investigation demonstrated that he had told my wife and me the
truth in every detail. He is now in prison serving his sentence for the
offenses committed prior to his chance meeting with my wife."
Pointing his finger at Dorlan he raised his tremulous voice and said in
ringing tones, "Do you realize, sir, that the social fabric of which you
are a part, furnished the viper that has stung me in a vital spot? Where,
sir, are your churches, your school rooms, all of your influences that are
supposed to produce worthy beings?" Lemuel Dalton's manner was so frantic
that Dorlan began to feel that he was dangerously near insanity.
Lemuel Dalton divined the thought that was passing through Dorlan's mind
and answered it, lowering his voice as he did so. "Oh, no! I am not at all
unbalanced. To show you that I am not I shall answer my own question. You
Negroes need more from us Southern whites than a feeling of indifference,
or a spirit of 'make it if you can.' I have come to learn at so sad a cost
that the safety and happiness of my race is inexorably bound up with the
virtue and well-being of your race." The look of intensity now faded from
his face; a sort of vacant expression appeared.
As though listlessly looking at something in the distance, he said, half
musingly, "Morlene Dalton sent me to you. I went to her because she told me
years ago that I would come to this. I am here to-night to offer my help to
your race, and to ask what you all desire of me." He spoke slowly and in
solemn tones.
"But, hold! before you speak, let me tell you that about me which is
subject to no compromise," he burst forth excitedly. Said he: "I am an
exclusive; I want no mixture of blood, thought or activities with the Negro
race. I want this white race to keep on manifesting its true inwardness to
the world. I wish our whole civilization to be permeated with our own
peculiar fragrance and that only. Whatever I can do for your people without
jeopardy to this conception I stand ready to do. True, this means that I
desire you to be an alien in our midst. But my present position is an
improvement on my former, in that I am now willing to do all that can be
done to make this alien, happy, prosperous and virtuous; but an alien ever,
remember. Will you kindly point out to a white man standing on this
platform what _he_ may consistently do for the Negro?"
Lemuel Dalton ceased speaking and now sat in the chair which he had
previously refused.
"I am grieved, profoundly grieved that your wife, who may be the prototype
of hundreds, has been drawn into the awful vortex of this race trouble."
Lemuel Dalton arose from his seat and with glaring eyes looked down upon
Dorlan intently.
Again the impression came to Dorlan that he was dealing with a mad man, and
he began to ponder a line of action based on that thought.
"Tut, tut, you persist in thinking I am crazy," said Lemuel Dalton, again
guessing Dorlan's thoughts and bringing his will to bear to cause a more
calm expression to appear on his (Lemuel's) face.
Drawing near to Dorlan, he said: "I came to discuss the race question with
you, but I am in no mood for that." He paused for an instant. Resuming in a
lower tone of voice, he said, slowly, "You colored folks believe in God. I
don't." Again he paused. "That is, I didn't. But the morning Eulalie, my
wife, was brought home wounded, I called God's name for the first time
since my early childhood." Here he paused again.
"Eulalie was a Christian," he said, looking into Dorlan's face piercingly.
"Tell me the truth. Do you, do you," he asked falteringly. "Do you think
that--" here a pause--"I shall meet--Eulalie again?" The last words were
uttered in a loud screeching voice. Without waiting for an answer Lemuel
Dalton turned away to hide his fast falling tears. Out of the room he
walked, out into the darkness he went, alternately imploring and cursing
the great force, whatever it might be, that was operating through all
creation, and had suffered so terrible a load to fall upon his shoulders.
As for Dorlan, he sat far into the night musing on the occurrences of the
evening. "To-night I have been confronted with an epitome of the situation
of the Negro in this country," he said. "One white man comes who is angry
because I will not be his tool. Then follows the exclusive, who feels that
my touch is contaminating. Truly the Negro is between the upper and the
nether millstones.
"Ah, Morlene what a task you have assigned unto this pilot, called by you
to guide the bark of the Negro over this perilous sea. As I take my post,
happy am I, that in my love of humanity I find my chart; in my love for my
race I have a compass; and in my love for you I have a lighthouse on the
shore.
"Shine on, sweet soul, that I may pilot this vessel through the breakers,
above whose hidden heads the waves are ever chanting the solemn song of
death."
Happy was Dorlan in this hour that his inherited riches would enable him to
conquer ills which the poverty of the race had hitherto rendered
insurmountable.