WHEN Dan Wiley closed the door John turned to his desk and drew from a pigeon hole the mass of legal papers containing the evidence he had gathered of Butler’s theft of his estate.
The dissolution of the Klan had left him only the process of the law by which to recover it. Yet it was only a question of time when the decision of the Supreme Court would hurl the Judge from the Graham home and arraign him for impeachment.
Now that he was ready to file the suit, his mind was in a tumult of hesitation. The soft invisible hand of a girl was holding his hand. He gazed steadily at the documents and saw nothing that was within. The ink lines slowly resolved themselves into the raven glossy hair of Stella piled in curling confusion above her white forehead, and he was trying in vain to find the depths of her wonderful eyes.
Something in the expression of those eyes held his memory in a perpetual spell—their remarkable size and their dilation when she spoke. They seemed to enfold him in a soft mantle of light.
He suddenly bundled the papers, replaced them, and took up his pen.
“I’ve got to see her—that’s all!” he exclaimed. “Who knows? Perhaps I’m answering the great summons of life. I’ll put it to the test. At least I’ll not throw my chance away for a house, some trees and a few acres of dirt. When Love calls life’s too short for revenge.”
On a sheet of delicate old note paper with a crest of yellow and black at the top, he wrote:
My Dear Miss Butler:
You were gracious enough to ask me to call again. I cannot believe your words were mere conventional phrases. Their accent was too genuine and sincere. So I beg the privilege of calling to-day while your father, my valiant political enemy, is busy down town with the delegates to his convention which meets to-morrow. I anxiously await your answer.
Sincerely,
John Graham.
“Unless I’ve mistaken her character, she’ll see me!” he mused as he sealed the note.
He went at once to Mrs. Wilson’s, found Alfred, and gave him the missive.
“Take that to the Judge’s and give it to Miss Stella.”
Alfred stared.
“Down to de ole place!”
“Yes, of course.”
Alfred sat down and laughed.
“Well, fore de Lawd, doan dat beat ye!”
“Shut up, and hurry back—I’ll wait for you at the office.”
“Yassah, right away, sah!”
“And Alfred, not a word to a living soul of this.”
“No, sah, cose not Marse John—I know how tis ’my sef’—de course er true love ain’t run smooth wid me nuther.”
“Quick, now, don’t you lose a minute.”
John returned to his office to await with impatience the word that would mean the beginning of a new chapter in his life.
Alfred placed the note carefully under his hat and hastened to the Judge’s, laughing and chuckling to himself.
For reasons best known to himself he entered by the carriage way.
At the wide double gate still stood the old lodge-keeper’s cottage, a relic of the slave regime. In the cottage Aunt Julie Ann lived with Uncle Isaac, her latest husband. Alfred had once been honoured with that relationship before the war, but Isaac had whipped him and taken Aunt Julie Ann by force of arms.
Alfred was much the larger man of the two, tall, awkward and slow of movement, while Isaac was small and active as a cat. The agility of his movements had swept Aunt Julie Ann’s imagination by storm. The contrast to her own three hundred pounds had no doubt been the secret charm.
She had loudly professed her love for Alfred until she saw Isaac thrash him, and without a word she surrendered to the new lord and refused to recognise her former husband.
This happened two years before the war and Alfred had watched and waited the day of his revenge to dawn. Many a night he had prowled around her cottage spying and listening at the keyhole for her cry of help. He had heard at last that Isaac was beating her unmercifully and he chuckled with grim satisfaction. Every opportunity he got he hung around the cottage and listened for the long expected cry. As he approached the gates this morning in a peculiarly romantic frame of mind, remembering the mission he was on, he heard Uncle Isaac’s voice in sharp accents within, hectoring it over his former spouse.
He crept to the door and listened breathlessly.
“Dar now, I’se jes’ in time ter sabe my lady love!”
He peeped cautiously through the keyhole and saw Aunt Julie Ann’s huge form busy at the ironing board, while Isaac sat majestically in a rocker delivering to her an eloquent discourse on Sanctification in general and his own sinless perfection in particular. Isaac had changed his name several times after the war, following the example of many Negroes who were afraid the use of their old master’s name might some day serve as the badge of slavery. He had lately become a Northern Methodist exhorter of great fame and went from church to church holding revivals, particularly among the sisters of the church, calling them to the life of stainless purity of those who had not merely “salvation,” as the ordinary Methodist or Baptist understood it, but “sanctification” as only those of the inner circle of the Lord knew it.
Isaac had long ago been “sanctified,” and had declared not only his sinless nature but had boldy proclaimed himself a prophet of the new dispensation and had finally fixed his name as “Isaac the Apostle,” which had been simplified by busy clerks in written form to Isaac A. Postle.
Aunt Julie Ann had heard of his wonderful success in his sanctification meetings with misgivings, as the large majority of his converts were invariably among the sisters. She had finally dared to question the authenticity of his apostolic call. Her scepticism had aroused Isaac to a frenzy of religious enthusiasm. That the wife of his bosom should be the only voice to question his divine mission was proof positive that she had in some mysterious way become possessed of the devil—perhaps seven devils.
He determined to cast them out—by moral suasion if possible—if not, by the main strength of his good right arm. He must set his own house in order lest the very source of his inspiration be poisoned by lack of faith. He was devoting this morning to the task when Alfred arrived.
He had just finished a long and fervid explanation of the mystery of Sanctification.
“Fur de las’ time I axes ye, ’oman, what sez ye ter de word er de Lawd?”
Aunt Julie Ann banged the board with the iron and merely grunted:
“Huh!”
Isaac rose and repeated his question with rising wrath:
“What sez ye ter de word er de Lawd?”
“I ain’ heared de Lawd say nuttin yit!”
“An’ why ain’t ye?”
“Case you keep so much fuss I can’t hear nuttin’, Isaac Graham!”
“Doan you call me dat name, you brazen sinner dat sets in de seat er de scornful! Is ye ready ter repent an’ sin no mo?”
Isaac approached her threateningly and Alfred, watching with bulging eyes, clutched the stick he had picked up.
“Tech me if ye dare—I bus’ yo head open wid dis flat-iron!”
Isaac knew his duty now and determined to perform it without further ceremony. The anointed of the Lord had been threatened by the ungodly. He drew a seasoned hickory withe from a crack where he had hidden it and approached his sceptical spouse.
Aunt Julie Ann began to whimper.
“Put down dat flat-iron!” he sternly commanded.
Alfred peering through the keyhole gasped in amazement as he saw her drop the iron heavily on the floor.
Isaac raised his switch and began to whip her. Around and around she flew screaming, begging, pleading for mercy. But Isaac continued to lay on steadily.
Alfred tried to rise and rush to the rescue but somehow he couldn’t move. To his own surprise the performance fascinated him. He sat peering with satisfaction.
“Dat’s paying her back now fur leavin’ me fer dat low live rascal. Give it to her, old man! Give it to her! She sho’ deserves it!”
At length Isaac paused, and eyed her steadily while he shook his switch with unction.
“I axes ye now, does ye believe in de Sanctification er de Saints?”
“Yes, Lawd, I sees it now!” she cried with fervour.
“An’ thanks me fer showin’ ye de error er yo’ way?”
“Yes, honey! I’m gwine ter seek dat Sanctification myself!”
“Glory! We’se er comin’ on!”
Aunt Julie Ann picked up the flat-iron. Isaac eyed her with suspicion but he was too much elated with his victory to notice anything unusual in her manner.
“Ye b’lieves now in de Sanctification er de Lawd’s messenger Isaac A. Postle?”
With a sudden flash of her eye Aunt Julie Ann hurled the flat-iron straight at the head of the Lord’s messenger saying:
“No, I ain’t sed dat yit!”
But Isaac was quick. He dodged in time. The corner of the flat-iron merely tipped his ear and smashed through the window.
He grabbed his ear with sudden pain and gripped his switch with renewed zeal.
“I see I’se des begun—one debble out, but dey’s six mo’ ter come!”
Again he whipped her around the room, threw her down, held her hair and banged her head against the floor.
“Fur de las’ time I axes ye, is de Lawd’s messenger, Isaac A. Postle, a sanctified one?”
Bang! Bang! Bang! went her head against the planks.
“Yes honey, I sees it now!” she cried with enthusiasm.
“Dat’s de way!”
“Does ye lub me fur showin’ ye de light?”
Bang! Bang! went her head.
“Yes, Lawd, I lub ye.”
“Say it strong.”
Bang! Bang! went her head.
“I lubs ye, my honey, yes I do!” shouted Aunt Julie Ann.
“An’ I’se de only man dat ye ebber lub?”
A moment’s pause, and again bang! bang! went her head.
Alfred couldn’t wait for the answer; he gripped his stick, sprang through the door, knocked the Apostle flat on his back, and jumped on him.
Aunt Julie Ann was more astonished than Isaac at her sudden deliverance.
She scrambled to her feet and gazed for a moment in amazement at Alfred as he pummelled Isaac’s head against the floor with one hand and pounded him with the other.
At every thump of his head Isaac yelled:
“God sabe me! de debble done got me! Help, Lawd, help! Save me Lawd—save me now!” Alfred pounded steadily away.
Aunt Julie Ann, when she caught her breath, grasped Alfred’s arm and yelled:
“What yer doin’ here, nigger!”
He wrenched his arm loose from her grasp and hit Isaac a smashing blow in the mouth as he cried again for help.
“Git often my ole man. I tell ye!” screamed Aunt Julie Ann, gripping Alfred by the throat.
“Name er God, ’oman, what yer doin’ when I comes here ter save ye!” cried Alfred, wrenching himself from her grip and returning to his work on Isaac.
“Git often ’im, I tell ye, fo’ I bus’ yer open!” she panted, towering above the writhing pair. She began to pound Alfred over the head with her fists, but he worked steadily away on Isaac without noticing the interruptions.
Suddenly Aunt Julie Ann threw both arms around his neck, bent his lank figure double across Isaac’s prostrate form, and hurled her three hundred pounds squarely across the two writhing men. There was dead silence for a moment and then Isaac groaned:
“God save me now! we’se bof gone! De house done fall on us!”
“Na! honey, it’s me!” cried Aunt Julie Ann, “an’ I got ’im in de gills!”
She rolled over and pulled Alfred with her—both hands gripped to his throat.
In a moment Isaac was on his feet.
“De Lawd hear my cry!” he exclaimed with unction, pouncing on Alfred and pounding him unmercifully while his faithful spouse held him fast. Alfred found his voice at last, and began to yell murder.
Steve Hoyle, who was pacing the walk in front of the Judge’s anxiously waiting an answer to a pleading letter he had sent to Stella asking for an interview, heard the cries and rushed to Alfred’s rescue.
He pulled Isaac and Aunt Julie Ann off in time to save his hat and portions of his clothes.
As he entered the cottage, he had seen instantly the note in John Graham’s handwriting which Alfred had dropped on the floor. He picked it up hastily and put it in his pocket.
When Alfred got out the door, he did not stand on the order of his going. He struck a bee line for John Graham’s office and ran every step of the way without looking back.
John was pacing the floor, his heart beating out the interminable minutes.
Alfred burst into the room, his nose bleeding, a gash across his forehead, his clothes torn and spotted with the blood from his nose. He was still wild with the fear of death which had clutched his soul as the light of day faded under Aunt Julie Ann’s awful grip on his throat.
He dropped, panting and speechless, on the floor. “For God’s sake, Alfred, what’s happened!” John cried, seizing a glass of water and pressing it to his lips.
“Dey kill me, Marse John!”
“Who did it?—what for?”
“De folks at de Judge’s.”
“Where’s my note?”
“Dunno sah!”
“Didn’t you deliver it?”
“Dunno sah!”
“Did you go to the house?”
“Dunno sah!”
“Where did this happen?”
“At de gate, sah, dey wuz layin’ fer me—De Judge mus’ er tole ’em ter kill me.”
“Who did it?”
“Ole Isaac and Julie Ann jump on me fust, but tow’d de last dey wuz er dozen. Six un ’em wuz er beatin’ me on de head at de same time, three er four wuz er settin’ on top er me, two had me by the throat an’ de res’ un ’em wuz er steady kickin’ me in de stummick. Dey’d er had me sho’ by dis time ef I hadn’t kotch my breaf an’ holler’d.”
“And who helped you?”
“Mr. Steve Hoyle wuz dar ter see Miss Stella an’ he run in an’ pulled ’em off. When I lit out for home I wuz er sight sho nuff. I hear Miss Stella come up ter Mr. Steve an’ bust out laffin’ fit ter kill herself.”
“And you don’t know what became of the note?”
“Yassah! cose sah! dey tuck hit away fum me and tore it up—dat’s what I fit ’em ’bout—yassah!” John’s face was white with rage. He sent Alfred home, sat down at his desk, and drew out the papers he had laid aside. The Judge had won. He had covered him with infamy in the eyes of his beautiful daughter and had dared to perpetrate this infamous outrage. He couldn’t understand Aunt Julie Ann’s part in the row, but the evidence of Alfred’s plight could not be mistaken.
For three hours with stern set face he worked completing the case of Graham vs. Butler. At four o’clock he had entered the suit and an officer served the papers on the astonished Judge.
JOHN GRAHAM, as leader of the opposition, as well as for personal reasons, was early on the grounds with half a dozen trusted lieutenants to watch the action of the Republican County Convention. He was curious to observe the effects of his suit on the Judge and his followers. He soon discovered that the scathing recital of fraud which he had incorporated into the form of his complaint as published in the morning’s paper was a mistake. It had been accepted by the mottled crew of nondescript politicians and Negroes as proof positive of his own depravity and the Judge’s spotless purity.
The Convention was seated in the open air on improvised boards. The Judge was peculiarly sensitive to the atmosphere of a crowd of Negroes. He had to associate with them to get their votes, but like all poor white men of Southern birth, he hated them without measure.
This Convention of his home county was the most important crisis in the development of his ambitions as the leader of his party in the South.
He was a candidate for the United States Senate. Delegates were to be elected to-day to the state convention. Unless he could go with a united front from his home county he was doomed.
His opponent, Alexander Larkin, was the boldest, most unscrupulous, and powerful Carpetbag adventurer who had ever entered the South from the slums of the North.
Larkin had made himself the Chairman of the Republican State Executive Committee, and was running neck and neck with the Judge for the Senate. He had determined to break his opponent’s backbone by capturing the whole, or at least a part of the delegates from Butler’s home county. The audacity of this movement had fairly taken the Judge’s breath. He halted Suggs in his thrilling pursuit of Ku Klux evidence and sent him North on an important mission. He meant to be fully prepared for any trick Larkin might spring. Suggs was bustling about among the delegates conscious that he was the trusted lieutenant of the coming man.
The Carpetbagger had so timed his anonymous letter to John Graham that the shadow of disgrace thus thrown over Butler’s name would give him the balance of power. He could not foresee the chain of trivial events which would produce the terrific document John Graham had filed. Every word of its passionate arraignment had the sting of a scorpion, and its effects had been electrical. By instinct the crowd had accepted John’s suit as a blow at the cause and Butler had become their champion.
As the Judge approached the crowd accompanied by Stella and Steve Hoyle, John saw with sinking heart that the first effect of his suit had been to bring Steve and Stella closer together and to dig an impassable gulf between him and the girl he had begun unconsciously to worship. She had evidently laid aside her hatred of politics and become her father’s champion. And he knew that Steve Hoyle had lost no time in this crisis in poisoning her mind forever against him. In fact Steve had spent the morning by her side developing the bitter sentences in his complaint into revelations of hereditary insanity and envenomed malice.
The girl had, however, taken his statements with reservations. She would stand by her father before the world and she would publicly insult John Graham if he ever dared give her the opportunity, but deep down in her heart she half suspected the truth. The memory of the bitter feud between her mother and father over some secret connected with this estate and her father’s shuffling evasions, returned to her now with startling import.
Her mother was of the old regime of the South, an aristocrat of aristocrats to her finger tips. Her people had blotted her very name from their memory for her marriage to Butler. She had fiercely resented to the day of her death this ostracism. The fear that her husband was a scoundrel, which slowly grew into a certainty in later years, at last broke her proud spirit. She gave up the struggle and died.
There were moments in which Stella felt this inherited repugnance to her father when the proud spirit of her mother’s blood ruled in her soul. There were other moments when she felt the necessity of tricks and lies to make life agreeable and accepted her father as of the inevitable order of human existence.
This morning she was her father’s daughter. Whether he was guilty or innocent she would show John Graham and his proud Bourbon set her contempt for them and their opinions.
As the three reached the edge of the crowd she was smiling graciously on Steve in answer to a sally of his cheap wit. She fixed John with a look of contempt and his soul grew sick with the consciousness that he had paid too great a price for his suit against the Judge. In her anger she was superb. The very air about her seemed charged with the intensity of her personality. She radiated it in every direction. It was the consciousness of this intensity of nature which drew John to her with resistless power. No other type of woman could interest him, and Stella was endowed with this subtle magnetism as no human being he had ever met. It spoke in every movement of her body, in every accent of her voice.
As she passed and turned her back on him, the sense of a hopeless and irreparable loss crushed his spirit. The words of the preacher rang in his soul, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and forfeit his life.”
“What are houses and lands after all, before the elemental forces which make life worth while,” he muttered. “I’ve an almost irresistible impulse to knock Steve Hoyle down, seize her in my arms, smother her with kisses and carry her off to some cave on a mountain! To the devil with goods and chattels, houses and lands.”
With a start he came down from the clouds of fancy. She had dismissed Steve, taken the Judge’s arm, and was actually going to walk down the aisle through that mob of Negroes and greasy politicians and accompany him to the platform.
When they reached the centre of the crowd, seated in semicircle about the covered speaker’s stand, pandemonium broke loose. The Judge received the most remarkable ovation of his life.
The throng leaped to their feet and screamed themselves horse.
“Keep your house Judge!” yelled a henchman.
“Houses were built for patriots, and jails for traitors!”
The Judge bowed and again the crowd yelled.
Larkin from the platform watched the demonstration with amazement.
“I’ve miscalculated. They’re all thieves and scoundrels. I’ve made him a hero.”
With a hypocritical smile he seized the Judge’s hand, wrung it heartily, congratulated him, and drew him to the platform. Stella sprang lightly up after him, took a rosebud from her belt, pinned it on her father’s slouchy ill-fitting broadcloth coat, kissed him and amid the cheers of the mob retraced her steps and left the ground with Steve Hoyle.
John watched her lift her parasol above her dainty head with smothered curses at his folly. He had unconsciously taken his own hat off and stood bareheaded in the broiling Southern sun of a June day. The bitterness of his mistake stirred him to more dogged persistence. With an effort he turned to the Judge and the Convention—trying in vain to shake off the impression Stella had left. But he found his mind constantly wandering from the scene. Wherever he looked, within or without, he saw the delicate oval face with those great brown eyes smiling as they did the night he met her in the hall of his old home.
At length he awoke from his reverie with his eye resting unconsciously on Larkin, the Judge’s opponent. He had never seen him before, though his name had become known in every county of the state.
He was a man of more than the average height, of powerful build, high intellectual forehead, a full beard, long, silken, snow white. His hair, also long and white, was inclined to curl at the ends, and a pair of piercing black eyes looked out fearlessly from shaggy brows. He carried himself with instinctive dignity, and his whole appearance proclaimed a bold and powerful leader of men.
Rumour said that he had been a Wesleyan preacher in England but had been expelled in some factional fight and had sought his fortunes in America. Darker rumour whispered that he had a criminal record and that he had never even attained citizenship in the country of his adoption. Such rumours, however, counted for nothing in the tainted atmosphere of the riot and revolution of the Reconstruction period. From the sewers of the North, jail birds and ex-convicts had poured into the stricken South as vultures follow the wake of a victorious army.
In two years Larkin had proven himself a party leader of remarkable executive ability and on the hustings had shown himself an orator of undoubted eloquence. He was fast becoming the idol of the more daring and radical wing of his party. He boldly proclaimed and practiced Negro equality and held up to public scorn any man who dared to quibble on the issue.
So bold and radical were his utterances the Negroes were a little afraid of him. Yet he was steadily gaining in his influence over them. He knew that they constituted nine-tenths of the voting strength of the Republican party in the South, and that ultimately the man who pandered most skilfully to their passions must become master of the situation.
He had laid siege to Uncle Isaac immediately on his arrival and had played on his vanity so deftly that the Apostle of Sanctification had been completely fascinated by the Carpetbagger.
The moment Larkin’s eye rested on Isaac seated in the crowd he saw in a flash the master stroke by which he could break the spell of the Judge’s influence over the delegates. He quickly threaded his way to the Apostle’s side and escorted him to the speakers’ stand with his arm around his waist. He lifted him to the platform, forced the Judge to rise and shake hands, and seated Isaac by Butler’s side. The Negroes burst into a frenzy of applause.
So elated was Isaac by his newly found honours he began to interrupt the meeting by fervid religious exclamations to the intense disgust of the Judge who squirmed with increasing anger at each new outburst. When Isaac recognised any of his dusky acquaintances in the crowd he waved his hand and pointed his remarks in that direction.
“Yas Lawd! De year er juberlee is come, an’ I’se right here!”
A loud guffaw would invariably answer his sally.
Larkin ostentatiously consulted Isaac from time to time as to the conduct of the convention and every Negro watched him spellbound.
The Judge’s henchmen were dismayed at the impending stampede by the Carpetbagger. Butler had assured them the night before that they had nothing to fear from Larkin. But it was only too apparent that he had underestimated his opponent. Larkin’s commanding appearance, his magnetism and eloquence, the boldness and evident sincerity of his profession of Negro equality were steadily winning adherents.
Personally the Judge cut a poor figure beside him with his slouchy ill-fitting clothes, his fawning shuffling walk, his drooping head, shifting eyes, and his vague professions of platitudes.
Butler watched Larkin’s sudden growth of power with sullen rage. He had in reserve a weapon which he had found in the Carpetbagger’s English career, with which he could crush him at a single blow, but he had not expected to be forced to the extreme necessity of using it. For many reasons he wished to beat Larkin in an open fight. The weapon he could use was a dangerous one. He knew that Larkin had learned the facts concerning his confiscation of the Graham estate, and he was not sure how far his resentment would go in retaliation for an attack on his personal character. But he determined to put a stop to Isaac’s insolence which was rapidly becoming unendurable.
The Judge leaned over toward the enthusiastic Apostle and with a frown said:
“Shut your mouth and behave yourself!” Isaac subsided with a look of injured innocence directed in mute appeal toward Larkin.
Again the Carpetbagger saw his opportunity. He approached Isaac, seized his hand, slipped his arm around his shoulder and whispered:
“Brother, I’m going to make a motion to amend the Judge’s list of delegates by substituting six men of colour for six of the poor white men he has chosen. I’ll put your name first. Will you make a speech in favour of my motion?”
“Dat I will!”
“Then repeat that story of the vision you told me last night, and apply it to the Judge—will you do it?”
“Make de movement, an’ I sho’ ye!” whispered Isaac.
Larkin’s bold motion, a direct appeal to the Negro to use his power against the white man, took the Judge’s breath. He stared at his opponent in blank amazement while Larkin smiled at him with good-natured contempt.
“And I have asked,” continued the Carpetbagger, “a distinguished leader of his race, Mr. Isaac A. Postle, a constituent and neighbour of Judge Butler, to address the Convention before the motion is opened to general debate. I am sure the Convention will give its unanimous consent to hear him.”
The roar of applause which greeted this remark left no doubt as to their consent. Larkin seized Isaac and drew him before the speaker’s table with his arm again affectionately around him.
Isaac was in a broad grin and evidently enjoyed his honours. He cleared his throat and glanced at the Judge. The Negroes burst into roars of laughter and the Apostle lifted his hand solemnly for silence.
Butler scowled and shuffled uneasily while Larkin’s face was wreathed in smiles.
“Gemmens an’ feller citizens!” Isaac began with great deliberation. “I’se called by de Lawd dis mawnin’ ter come up on high and expose de vision dat I seed in de dead er de night las’ week. I drempt a dream. I dream dat I die and go ter heaben. An’ as I wuz gwine long up de hill ter de pearly gates who should I meet comin’ down de hill but our good frien’ Judge Butler——”
The Judge gave a sharp little angry cough, pulled his long black whiskers and crossed his legs quickly. Isaac glanced at him and walled his eyes at the dusky crowd who broke into another roar of laughter.
“Yassah!” he went on, “I met Judge Butler comin’ down de hill lookin’ pow’ful sad. An’ he say ter me:
“‘Isaac, whar ye gwine?’
“‘Gwine ter heben,’ sezzi.
“‘Ye can’t git in!’ sezze.
“‘Why so?’ sezzi.
“‘Case ye got ter be er ridin’,’ sezze—‘I jes come down frum dar—an’ hits des lak I tell ye!’
“‘Is dat so?’ sezzi.
“‘But I tell ye what we kin do, Isaac!’ sezze.
“‘I’ll git on yo back an’ ride up to de gate, an’ we bof git in.”
“Dat seem all right ter me fust off so I hump mysef an’ de Jedge git on my back, an’ I gallup up de hill ter de pearly gates, an’ de angel Gabul, he look over de fence an’ say:
“‘Who’s dar?’
“‘Hit’s me, Jedge Butler,’ sezze.
“‘Ridin’ er walkin’?’ de angel say.
“‘Er ridin’!’ sezze.
“An’ I chuckled ter myse’f dat I’se er settin my feet in de gates er glory!
“An’ den de angel say:
“‘Des hitch yer hoss outside an’ come in!’
“An’ bress God! ef de Jedge didn’t hitch me ter de pos’ on de outside an’ go in an’ leave me dar!”
Again the crowd screamed with laughter. Wave after wave swept them while Isaac folded his hands across his little protruding stomach and laughed with them. In vain the chairman rapped for order.
The Judge flushed red with anger and called Suggs to his side. Larkin bent low his face between his hands, convulsed with laughter.
When at length the tumult wore itself out Isaac’s voice rang over the assembly in sharp vibrant triumphant tones:
“An’ I moves yer, sah, dat we all unanimously second de motion er Brer Larkin!”
Amid a shout of approval he sat down.
The Carpetbagger, elated by his success, determined to make a bolder stroke, capture the entire delegation and put the Judge out of the race.
He leaped to his feet and launched at once into an eloquent appeal for the equal rights of man, meaning, of course, the right of the Negro race to rule the white man of the South, the former slave to rule his master. Bold as a lion by instinct, he did not quibble over words. He told the Negro that his hour had come to strike for his right by force of arms if need be. He denounced the Ku Klux Klan in the bitterest terms. Every Negro followed his scathing words with breathless attention. For the moment he was the veritable prophet of the Most High God. Never before had they heard any man in public dare thus to arraign this dreaded order of white and scarlet horsemen. Here was their champion whose valiant soul knew not the fear of man, ghost, clansman or devil. He was transfigured before their yes into the white-haired prophet of the Lord, and they hung on his every word as inspired.
In another moment he would have made his motion for a solid Negro delegation and stampeded the Convention had it not been for the single burst of eloquence with which he closed his speech. Just at the moment when he held every heart in the dusky host in the hollow of his hand, he thundered:
“Against the white traitor of the South who has perpetrated these wrongs on your defenseless heads I hurl the everlasting curse of God! Only a race of dastards and cowards would thus sneak under the cover of night to strike their foes!”
He had scarcely uttered the words when Billy Graham rushed from the outer circle of the crowd where he had sauntered with Mrs. Wilson, surrounded by a dozen fun-making youngsters, and ran toward the platform.
“Wait a minute!” he said, with uplifted hand, his voice quivering with rage.
Larkin’s arm dropped; he halted in amazement, every eye fixed on Billy. John Graham sprang to his feet with a muttered oath of surprise in time to see Billy square himself in front of the speaker and say:
“If you think the Southern people a race of cowards and dastards come down off that platform and knock this chip off my shoulder, you old white-livered cur!”
He placed a chip on his shoulder and strutted before Larkin. The Carpetbagger was too astonished to reply. He gazed at the boy in confusion and muttered an inarticulate protest.
Billy jumped on the platform and walked around him like a game bantam, crying:
“Knock it off—d——— you! knock it off! If you want to test it! A dozen of my friends are out there, yours all around you, a hundred to one, but knock it off! knock it off!”
John Graham had reached the platform by this time, seized Billy and led him back through the crowd to Mrs. Wilson who was in hysterics, the boys vainly trying to quiet her.
“What the devil’s the matter with you—have you gone crazy?” John whispered, shaking Billy fiercely. “Go home and behave yourself!”
“Attend to your own business, John Graham; I’m attending to mine!” was Billy’s sullen answer. And without another word he led Mrs. Wilson away followed by his companions, while John gazed after him with increasing astonishment.
In the confusion which followed Billy’s sudden challenge the Judge saw his chance. He sprang to his feet and moved to adjourn for dinner. Before Larkin could recover himself the motion was carried and the Convention adjourned.
Butler turned to the Carpetbagger and said:
“I wish to see you in my hotel immediately on a matter of the gravest importance.”
“I haven’t time, Judge,” Larkin carelessly answered.
“I’m in no mood to be trifled with,” answered the Judge.
“It’s a waste of time, your Honour—you’re a back number. Why should I talk with you?”
“There’s one reason big enough to interest you,” the Judge answered with sinister suggestion.
Larkin fixed his opponent a moment with his piercing eyes and said with contempt:
“I’ll join you in a moment.”
The Judge beckoned to Suggs who had hovered near, and the detective handed him a package of documents from his inside pocket. The movement was not lost on Larkin who was watching his enemy with uneasiness.
Suggs accompanied the Judge to his room at the hotel and awaited his call outside the door. Larkin looked at him with a scowl as he entered.
The Judge adjusted his slouchy coat, shuffled his feet, and stroked his beard with deliberation as Larkin seated himself.
“I’m going to ask you, Larkin,” he began, “to write out your resignation as Chairman of our State Executive Committee and withdraw from this race.”
The Carpetbagger laughed aloud.
“Well, you are an ass, you fawning, timeserving Scalawag—what do you take me for?”
“For the criminal adventurer you are!” thundered the Judge.
“I’ll not bandy words with you, Butler. I’ve got you now, just where I want you. Five minutes more of that Convention and you’ll be a memory as a politician. You never had a principle in your life. A professed leader of the Republican party in the South composed of Negroes, you loathe the very sight of a Negro. You profess to be a Southerner, yet your ear is always to the ground to hear the slightest whisper from the lowest breed of Yankee demagogues in the North. You lie to the Negro, you lie to the Southern white man, you lie to the Yankee. You’re a pusillanimous, office-seeking turncoat beneath the contempt of a man. Why did you send for me?”
“To tell you that it’s time for you to move on, sir!” cried Butler with spluttering rage. “You Carpetbag vultures have winged your way into the South to tear from the loyal men of native birth the rewards of their long patriotic services. Go back to the slums and prison pens of the North where you belong!”
“What do you mean?” Larkin broke in with sudden energy.
“That you are a criminal adventurer, sir; that’s what I mean!”
Larkin laughed again.
“Is that all?”
“And I have in my pocket the documents to prove that you have never acquired citizenship in the State of New York!”
“True, but irrelevant. I am a citizen now of this state under the Reconstruction Acts, and I’m going to represent the old commonwealth in the next Senate while you sink once more into the obscurity your feeble intelligence has prepared for you. Is this all you have to say?”
“No, sir, it’s not!” whispered the Judge hoarsely with triumphant malice. “I have a letter in my pocket from the warden of the prison in England where you served your time, enclosing your photograph.”
With a sudden cry of anguish Larkin leaped the distance separating them, gripped Butler by the throat, hurled him back in his seat, and held him strangling, spluttering, squirming in mortal terror. In a moment he released him, sank to a chair and buried his face in his hands.
“So! I am your master after all,” the Judge sneered, recovering from his terror.
Larkin lifted his lion-like head a moment and looked at his opponent.
“Yes, I give up. I’ll withdraw from the race if you’ll keep my secret.”
“I’ll make no conditions with you sir; I mean to brand you a felon throughout the length and breadth of this land!”
“Not if you’ve an ounce of manhood in you,” said the Carpetbagger with quiet dignity. “You can’t do it when I tell you the truth. Fifteen years ago I was an honoured minister of the gospel in Australia. An enemy of mine in England published against me an infamous slander. I returned to ask reparation. He not only refused to give it but insulted me by a dastardly blow in a public assembly. In a moment of insane rage I returned his blow with one which resulted in his death. Four months later I found myself, a man of culture, refinement and the highest order of social talents, a convict in prison garb serving a sentence for manslaughter. I emerged more dead than alive—it was late in life, but I lifted up my head, sought a new world and began all over again. Once more I’ve shown my power as a leader of men. It was born in me—a God-given birthright. My hair is white now with the frost of the grave; I’m alone and friendless. Put yourself in my place. It’s my last chance. You are twenty years younger. I ask your pity, your sympathy, your friendship. Come, Judge, you too are a soldier of fortune in conquered territory and have your own secrets. Fight me fair.”
“I’ll fight you with every weapon in my power, fair or foul. You’re in my way; get out of it,” sneered the Judge.
“You contemptible cur!” cried Larkin. “I could strangle you!”
“No doubt,” sneered Butler. “If you dared!”
“Take care, you cowardly dog!” leaped the threat from the lips of the Carpetbagger, with a sudden flash of incontrollable rage; and again his massive figure towered over the Judge’s slouching form. Butler’s shifting eyes blinked in terror as he spluttered:
“I’ll keep your secret on one condition!”
“What is it?” snapped Larkin.
“You’re a man of genius. Use your talents for me, and we’ll be friends.”
“You have told no one the facts you have discovered?”
“No. Suggs knows only of the investigation as to your citizenship.”
“I accept your terms,” was the quiet answer. The Convention ended in unexpected harmony, electing a solid Butler delegation. Larkin lingered in town for several days and, to the surprise and uneasiness of the Judge, stopped with Uncle Isaac in the little cottage by his gate.