The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER I

  THE HUNT FOR THE ANIMAL

  Aunt Cindy came at seven o'clock to get breakfast, and finding the houseclosed and no one at home, supposed Mrs. Lenoir and Marion had remained atthe Cameron House for the night. She sat down on the steps, waitedgrumblingly an hour, and then hurried to the hotel to scold her formermistress for keeping her out so long.

  Accustomed to enter familiarly, she thrust her head into the dining-room,where the family were at breakfast with a solitary guest, muttering thespeech she had been rehearsing on the way:

  "I lak ter know what sort er way dis--whar's Miss Jeannie?"

  Ben leaped to his feet.

  "Isn't she at home?"

  "Been waitin' dar two hours."

  "Great God!" he groaned, springing through the door and rushing to saddlethe mare. As he left he called to his father: "Let no one know till Ireturn."

  At the house he could find no trace of the crime he had suspected. Everyroom was in perfect order. He searched the yard carefully and under thecedar by the window he saw the barefoot tracks of a negro. The white manwas never born who could make that track. The enormous heel projectedbackward, and in the hollow of the instep where the dirt would scarcely betouched by an Aryan was the deep wide mark of the African's flat foot. Hecarefully measured it, brought from an outhouse a box, and fastened itover the spot.

  It might have been an ordinary chicken thief, of course. He could nottell, but it was a fact of big import. A sudden hope flashed through hismind that they might have risen with the sun and strolled to theirfavourite haunt at Lover's Leap.

  In two minutes he was there, gazing with hard-set eyes at Marion's hat andhandkerchief lying on the shelving rock.

  The mare bent her glistening neck, touched the hat with her nose, liftedher head, dilated her delicate nostrils, looked out over the cliff withher great soft half-human eyes and whinnied gently.

  Ben leaped to the ground, picked up the handkerchief, and looked at theinitials, "M. L.," worked in the corner. He knew what lay on the river'sbrink below as well as if he stood over the dead bodies. He kissed theletters of her name, crushed the handkerchief in his locked hands, andcried:

  "Now, Lord God, give me strength for the service of my people!"

  He hurriedly examined the ground, amazed to find no trace of a struggle orcrime. Could it be possible they had ventured too near the brink andfallen over?

  He hurried to report to his father his discoveries, instructed his motherand Margaret to keep the servants quiet until the truth was known, and thetwo men returned along the river's brink to the foot of the cliff.

  They found the bodies close to the water's edge, Marion had been killedinstantly. Her fair blonde head lay in a crimson circle sharply defined inthe white sand. But the mother was still warm with life. She had scarcelyceased to breathe. In one last desperate throb of love the trembling soulhad dragged the dying body to the girl's side, and she had died with herhead resting on the fair round neck as though she had kissed her andfallen asleep.

  Father and son clasped hands and stood for a moment with uncovered heads.The doctor said at length:

  "Go to the coroner at once and see that he summons the jury _you_ selectand hand to him. Bring them immediately. I will examine the bodies beforethey arrive."

  Ben took the negro coroner into his office alone, turned the key, told himof the discovery, and handed him the list of the jury.

  "I'll hatter see Mr. Lynch fust, sah," he answered.

  Ben placed his hand on his hip pocket and said coldly:

  "Put your cross-mark on those forms I've made out there for you, go withme immediately, and summon these men. If you dare put a negro on thisjury, or open your mouth as to what has occurred in this room, I'll killyou."

  The negro tremblingly did as he was commanded.

  The coroner's jury reported that the mother and daughter had been killedby accidentally failing over the cliff.

  In all the throng of grief-stricken friends who came to the little cottagethat day, but two men knew the hell-lit secret beneath the tragedy.

  When the bodies reached the home, Doctor Cameron placed Mrs. Cameron andMargaret outside to receive visitors and prevent any one from disturbinghim. He took Ben into the room and locked the doors.

  "My boy, I wish you to witness an experiment."

  He drew from its case a powerful microscope of French make.

  "What on earth are you going to do, sir?"

  The doctor's brilliant eyes flashed with a mystic light as he replied:

  "Find the fiend who did this crime--and then we will hang him on a gallowsso high that all men from the rivers to ends of the earth shall see andfeel and know the might of an unconquerable race of men."

  "But there's no trace of him here."

  "We shall see," said the doctor, adjusting his instrument.

  "I believe that a microscope of sufficient power will reveal on the retinaof these dead eyes the image of this devil as if etched there by fire. Theexperiment has been made successfully in France. No word or deed of man islost. A German scholar has a memory so wonderful he can repeat wholevolumes of Latin, German, and French without an error. A Russian officerhas been known to repeat the roll-call of any regiment by reading ittwice. Psychologists hold that nothing is lost from the memory of man.Impressions remain in the brain like words written on paper in invisibleink. So I believe of images in the eye if we can trace them early enough.If no impression were made subsequently on the mother's eye by the lightof day, I believe the fire-etched record of this crime can yet betraced."

  Ben watched him with breathless interest.

  He first examined Marion's eyes. But in the cold azure blue of their puredepths he could find nothing.

  "It's as I feared with the child," he said. "I can see nothing. It is onthe mother I rely. In the splendour of life, at thirty-seven she was thefull-blown perfection of womanhood, with every vital force at its highesttension----"

  He looked long and patiently into the dead mother's eye, rose and wipedthe perspiration from his face.

  "What is it, sir?" asked Ben.

  Without reply, as if in a trance, he returned to the microscope and againrose with the little, quick, nervous cough he gave only in the greatestexcitement, and whispered:

  "Look now and tell me what you see."

  Ben looked and said:

  "I can see nothing."

  "Your powers of vision are not trained as mine," replied the doctor,resuming his place at the instrument.

  "What do you see?" asked the younger man, bending nervously.

  "The bestial figure of a negro--his huge black hand plainly defined--theupper part of the face is dim, as if obscured by a gray mist of dawn--butthe massive jaws and lips are clear--merciful God--yes--it's Gus!"

  The doctor leaped to his feet livid with excitement.

  Ben bent again, looked long and eagerly, but could see nothing.

  "I'm afraid the image is in your eye, sir, not the mother's," said Bensadly.

  "That's possible, of course," said the doctor, "yet I don't believe it."

  "I've thought of the same scoundrel and tried blood hounds on that track,but for some reason they couldn't follow it. I suspected him from thefirst, and especially since learning that he left for Columbia on theearly morning train on pretended official business."

  "Then I'm not mistaken," insisted the doctor, trembling with excitement."Now do as I tell you. Find when he returns. Capture him, bind, gag, andcarry him to your meeting-place under the cliff, and let me know."

  On the afternoon of the funeral, two days later, Ben received a cyphertelegram from the conductor on the train telling him that Gus was on theevening mail due at Piedmont at nine o'clock.

  The papers had been filled with accounts of the accident, and an enormouscrowd from the county and many admirers of the fiery lyrics of the poetfather had come from distant parts to honour his name. All business wassuspended, and the entire white population of the village followed the
bodies to their last resting-place.

  As the crowds returned to their homes, no notice was taken of a dozen menon horseback who rode out of town by different ways about dusk. At eighto'clock they met in the woods near the first little flag-station locatedon McAllister's farm four miles from Piedmont, where a buggy awaited them.Two men of powerful build, who were strangers in the county, alighted fromthe buggy and walked along the track to board the train at the stationthree miles beyond and confer with the conductor.

  The men, who gathered in the woods, dismounted, removed their saddles, andfrom the folds of the blankets took a white disguise for horse and man. Ina moment it was fitted on each horse, with buckles at the throat, breast,and tail, and the saddles replaced. The white robe for the man was made inthe form of an ulster overcoat with cape, the skirt extending to the topof the shoes. From the red belt at the waist were swung two revolverswhich had been concealed in their pockets. On each man's breast was ascarlet circle within which shone a white cross. The same scarlet circleand cross appeared on the horse's breast, while on his flanks flamed thethree red mystic letters, K. K. K. Each man wore a white cap, from theedges of which fell a piece of cloth extending to the shoulders. Beneaththe visor was an opening for the eyes and lower down one for the mouth. Onthe front of the caps of two of the men appeared the red wings of a hawkas the ensign of rank. From the top of each cap rose eighteen inches higha single spike held erect by a twisted wire. The disguises for man andhorse were made of cheap unbleached domestic and weighed less than threepounds. They were easily folded within a blanket and kept under the saddlein a crowd without discovery. It required less than two minutes to removethe saddles, place the disguises, and remount.

  At the signal of a whistle, the men and horses arrayed in white andscarlet swung into double-file cavalry formation and stood awaitingorders. The moon was now shining brightly, and its light shimmering on thesilent horses and men with their tall spiked caps made a picture such asthe world had not seen since the Knights of the Middle Ages rode on theirHoly Crusades.

  As the train neared the flag-station, which was dark and unattended, theconductor approached Gus, leaned over, and said: "I've just gotten amessage from the sheriff telling me to warn you to get off at this stationand slip into town. There's a crowd at the depot there waiting for you andthey mean trouble."

  Gus trembled and whispered:

  "Den fur Gawd's sake lemme off here."

  The two men who got on at the station below stepped out before the negro,and as he alighted from the car, seized, tripped, and threw him to theground. The engineer blew a sharp signal, and the train pulled on.

  In a minute Gus was bound and gagged.

  One of the men drew a whistle and blew twice. A single tremulous call likethe cry of an owl answered. The swift beat of horses' feet followed, andfour white-and-scarlet clansmen swept in a circle around the group.

  One of the strangers turned to the horseman with red-winged ensign on hiscap, saluted, and said:

  "Here's your man, Night Hawk."

  "Thanks, gentlemen," was the answer. "Let us know when we can be ofservice to your county."

  The strangers sprang into their buggy and disappeared toward the NorthCarolina line.

  The clansmen blindfolded the negro, placed him on a horse, tied his legssecurely, and his arms behind him to the ring in the saddle.

  The Night Hawk blew his whistle four sharp blasts, and his picketsgalloped from their positions and joined him.

  Again the signal rang, and his men wheeled with the precision of trainedcavalrymen into column formation three abreast, and rode toward Piedmont,the single black figure tied and gagged in the centre of thewhite-and-scarlet squadron.