by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER III
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
The discovery of the Captain of the African Guards lying in his fulluniform in Lynch's yard send a thrill of terror to the triumphant leagues.Across the breast of the body was pinned a scrap of paper on which waswritten in red ink the letters K. K. K. It was the first actual evidenceof the existence of this dreaded order in Ulster county.
The First Lieutenant of the Guards assumed command and held the fullcompany in their armoury under arms day and night. Beneath his door he hadfound a notice which was also nailed on the courthouse. It appeared in thePiedmont _Eagle_ and in rapid succession in every newspaper not undernegro influence in the State. It read as follows:
"HEADQUARTERS OF REALM NO 4. "DREADFUL ERA, BLACK EPOCH, "HIDEOUS HOUR.
"GENERAL ORDER NO. I.
"The Negro Militia now organized in this State threatens the extinction of civilization. They have avowed their purpose to make war upon and exterminate the Ku Klux Klan, an organization which is now the sole guardian of Society. All negroes are hereby given forty-eight hours from the publication of this notice in their respective counties to surrender their arms at the courthouse door. Those who refuse must take the consequences.
"By order of the G. D. of Realm No. 4.
"By the Grand Scribe."
The white people of Piedmont read this notice with a thrill of exultantjoy. Men walked the streets with an erect bearing which said withoutwords:
"Stand out of the way."
For the first time since the dawn of Black Rule negroes began to yield towhite men and women the right of way on the streets.
On the day following, the old Commoner sent for Phil.
"What is the latest news?" he asked.
"The town is in a fever of excitement--not over the discovery in Lynch'syard--but over the blacker rumour that Marion and her mother committedsuicide to conceal an assault by this fiend."
"A trumped-up lie," said the old man emphatically.
"It's true, sir. I'll take Doctor Cameron's word for it."
"You have just come from the Camerons?"
"Yes."
"Let it be your last visit. The Camerons are on the road to the gallows,father and son. Lynch informs me that the murder committed last night, andthe insolent notice nailed on the courthouse door, could have come onlyfrom their brain. They are the hereditary leaders of these people. Theyalone would have the audacity to fling this crime into the teeth of theworld and threaten worse. We are face to face with Southern barbarism.Every man now to his own standard! The house of Stoneman can have no partwith midnight assassins."
"Nor with black barbarians, father. It is a question of who possesses theright of life and death over the citizen, the organized virtue of thecommunity, or its organized crime. You have mistaken for death thepatience of a generous people. We call ourselves the champions of liberty.Yet for less than they have suffered, kings have lost their heads andempires perished before the wrath of freemen."
"My boy, this is not a question for argument between us," said the fatherwith stern emphasis. "This conspiracy of terror and assassinationthreatens to shatter my work to atoms. The election on which turns thedestiny of Congress, and the success or failure of my life, is but a fewweeks away. Unless this foul conspiracy is crushed, I am ruined, and theNation falls again beneath the heel of a slaveholders' oligarchy."
"Your nightmare of a slaveholders' oligarchy does not disturb me."
"At least you will have the decency to break your affair with MargaretCameron pending the issue of my struggle of life and death with her fatherand brother?"
"Never."
"Then I will do it for you."
"I warn you, sir," Phil cried, with anger, "that if it comes to an issueof race against race, I am a white man. The ghastly tragedy of thecondition of society here is something for which the people of the Southare no longer responsible----"
"I'll take the responsibility!" growled the old cynic.
"Don't ask me to share it," said the younger man emphatically.
The father winced, his lips trembled, and he answered brokenly:
"My boy, this is the bitterest hour of my life that has had little to makeit sweet. To hear such words from you is more than I can bear. I am an oldman now--my sands are nearly run. But two human beings love me, and I lovebut two. On you and your sister I have lavished all the treasures of amaimed and strangled soul--and it has come to this! Read the notice whichone of your friends thrust into the window of my bedroom last night."
He handed Phil a piece of paper on which was written:
"The old club-footed beast who has sneaked into our town, pretending to search for health, in reality the leader of the infernal Union League, will be given forty-eight hours to vacate the house and rid this community of his presence.
"K. K. K."
"Are you an officer of the Union League?" Phil asked in surprise.
"I am its soul."
"How could a Southerner discover this, if your own children didn't knowit?"
"By their spies who have joined the League."
"And do the rank and file know the Black Pope at the head of the order?"
"No, but high officials do."
"Does Lynch?"
"Certainly."
"Then he is the scoundrel who placed that note in your room. It is aclumsy attempt to forge an order of the Klan. The white man does not livein this town capable of that act. I know these people."
"My boy, you are bewitched by the smiles of a woman to deny your own fleshand blood."
"Nonsense, father--you are possessed by an idea which has become an insanemania----"
"Will you respect my wishes?" the old man broke in angrily.
"I will not," was the clear answer. Phil turned and left the room, and theold man's massive head sank on his breast in helpless baffled rage andgrief.
He was more successful in his appeal to Elsie. He convinced her of thegenuineness of the threat against him. The brutal reference to hislameness roused the girl's soul. When the old man, crushed by Phil'sdesertion, broke down the last reserve of his strange cold nature, torehis wounded heart open to her, cried in agony over his deformity, hislameness, and the anguish with which he saw the threatened ruin of hislife-work, she threw her arms around his neck in a flood of tears andcried:
"Hush, father, I will not desert you. I will never leave you, or wedwithout your blessing. If I find that my lover was in any way responsiblefor this insult, I'll tear his image out of my heart and never speak hisname again!"
She wrote a note to Ben, asking him to meet her at sundown on horseback atLover's Leap.
Ben was elated at the unexpected request. He was hungry for an hour withhis sweetheart, whom he had not seen save for a moment since the storm ofexcitement broke following the discovery of the crime.
He hastened through his work of ordering the movement of the Klan for thenight, and determined to surprise Elsie by meeting her in his uniform of aGrand Dragon.
Secure in her loyalty, he would deliberately thus put his life in herhands. Using the water of a brook in the woods for a mirror, he adjustedhis yellow sash and pushed the two revolvers back under the cape out ofsight, saying to himself with a laugh:
"Betray me? Well, if she does, life would not be worth the living!"
When Elsie had recovered from the first shock of surprise at the whitehorse and rider waiting for her under the shadows of the old beech, hersurprise gave way to grief at the certainty of his guilt, and thegreatness of his love in thus placing his life without a question in herhands.
He tied the horses in the woods, and they sat down on the rustic.
He removed his helmet cap, threw back the white cape showing the scarletlining, and the two golden circles with their flaming crosses on hisbreast, with bo
yish pride. The costume was becoming to his slendergraceful figure, and he knew it.
"You see, sweetheart, I hold high rank in the Empire," he whispered.
From beneath his cape he drew a long bundle which he unrolled. It was atriangular flag of brilliant yellow edged in scarlet. In the centre of theyellow ground was the figure of a huge black dragon with fiery red eyesand tongue. Around it was a Latin motto worked in scarlet: "_quod semper,quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_"--what always, what everywhere, what by allhas been held to be true. "The battle-flag of the Klan," he said; "thestandard of the Grand Dragon."
Elsie seized his hand and kissed it, unable to speak.
"Why so serious to-night?"
"Do you love me very much?" she answered.
"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay his life at the feet ofhis beloved," he responded tenderly.
"Yes, yes; I know--and that is why you are breaking my heart. When first Imet you--it seems now ages and ages ago--I was a vain, self-willed, pertlittle thing----"
"It's not so. I took you for an angel--you were one. You are oneto-night."
"Now," she went on slowly, "in what I have lived through you I have growninto an impassioned, serious, self-disciplined, bewildered woman. Yourperfect trust to-night is the sweetest revelation that can come to awoman's soul and yet it brings to me unspeakable pain----"
"For what?"
"You are guilty of murder."
Ben's figure stiffened.
"The judge who pronounces sentence of death on a criminal outlawed bycivilized society is not usually called a murderer, my dear."
"And by whose authority are you a judge?"
"By authority of the sovereign people who created the State of SouthCarolina. The criminals who claim to be our officers are usurpers placedthere by the subversion of law."
"Won't you give this all up for my sake?" she pleaded. "Believe me, youare in great danger."
"Not so great as is the danger of my sister and mother and mysweetheart--it is a man's place to face danger," he gravely answered.
"This violence can only lead to your ruin and shame----"
"I am fighting the battle of a race on whose fate hangs the future of theSouth and the Nation. My ruin and shame will be of small account if theyare saved," was the even answer.
"Come, my dear," she pleaded tenderly, "you know that I have weighed thetreasures of music and art and given them all for one clasp of your hand,one throb of your heart against mine. I should call you cruel did I notknow you are infinitely tender. This is the only thing I have ever askedyou to do for me----"
"Desert my people! You must not ask of me this infamy, if you love me," hecried.
"But, listen; this is wrong--this wild vengeance is a crime you are doing,however great the provocation. We cannot continue to love one another ifyou do this. Listen: I love you better than father, mother, life, orcareer--all my dreams I've lost in you. I've lived through eternity to-daywith my father----"
"You know me guiltless of the vulgar threat against him----"
"Yes, and yet you are the leader of desperate men who might have done it.As I fought this battle to-day, I've lost you, lost myself, and sunk downto the depths of despair, and at the end rang the one weak cry of awoman's heart for her lover! Your frown can darken the brightest sky. Foryour sake I can give up all save the sense of right. I'll walk by yourside in life--lead you gently and tenderly along the way of my dreams if Ican, but if you go your way, it shall be mine; and I shall still be gladbecause you are there! See how humble I am--only you must not commitcrime!"
"Come, sweetheart, you must not use that word," he protested, with a touchof wounded pride.
"You are a conspirator----"
"I am a revolutionist."
"You are committing murder!"
"I am waging war."
Elsie leaped to her feet in a sudden rush of anger and extended her hand:
"Good-bye. I shall not see you again. I do not know you. You are still astranger to me."
He held her hand firmly.
"We must not part in anger," he said slowly. "I have grave work to dobefore the day dawns. We may not see each other again."
She led her horse to the seat quickly and without waiting for hisassistance sprang into the saddle.
"Do you not fear my betrayal of your secret?" she asked.
He rode to her side, bent close, and whispered:
"It's as safe as if locked in the heart of God."
A little sob caught her voice, yet she said slowly in firm tones:
"If another crime is committed in this county by your Klan, we will neversee each other again."
He escorted her to the edge of the town without a word, pressed her handin silence, wheeled his horse, and disappeared on the road to the NorthCarolina line.
