The Clansman Page 17

  He was now past all reason in love. He followed the movement of Margaret’s queenly figure with pathetic abandonment. Beneath her beautiful manners he swore with a shiver that she was laughing at him. Now and then he caught a funny expression about her eyes, as if she were consumed with a sly sense of humour in her love affairs.

  What he felt to be his manliest traits, his reserve, dignity, and moral earnestness, she must think cold and slow beside the dash, fire, and assurance of these Southerners. He could tell by the way she encouraged the preacher before his eyes that she was criticizing and daring him to let go for once. Instead of doing it, he sank back appalled at the prospect and let the preacher carry her off again.

  He sought solace in Dr. Cameron, who was utterly oblivious of his daughter’s love affairs.

  Phil was constantly amazed at the variety of his knowledge, the genuineness of his culture, his modesty, and the note of youth and cheer with which he still pursued the study of medicine.

  His company was refreshing for its own sake. The slender graceful figure, ruddy face, with piercing, dark-brown eyes in startling contrast to his snow-white hair and beard, had for Phil a perpetual charm. He never tired listening to his talk, and noting the peculiar grace and dignity with which he carried himself, unconscious of the commanding look of his brilliant eyes.

  “I hear that you have used hypnotism in your practice, Doctor,” Phil said to him one day, as he watched with fascination the changing play of his mobile features.

  “Oh, yes! used it for years. Southern doctors have always been pioneers in the science of medicine. Dr. Crawford Long, of Georgia, you know, was the first practitioner in America to apply anesthesia to surgery.”

  “But where did you run up against hypnotism? I thought this a new thing under the sun?”

  The doctor laughed.

  “It’s not a home industry, exactly. I became interested in it in Edinburgh while a medical student, and pursued it with increased interest in Paris.”

  “Did you study medicine abroad?” Phil asked in surprise.

  “Yes; I was poor, but I managed to raise and to borrow enough to take three years on the other side. I put all I had and all my credit in it. I’ve never regretted the sacrifice. The more I saw of the great world, the better I liked my own world. I’ve given these farmers and their families the best God gave to me.”

  “Do you find much use for your powers of hypnosis?” Phil asked.

  “Only in an experimental way. Naturally I am endowed with this gift—especially over certain classes who are easily the subjects of extreme fear. I owned a rascally slave named Gus whom I used to watch stealing. Suddenly confronting him, I’ve thrown him into unconsciousness with a steady gaze of the eye, until he would drop on his face, trembling like a leaf, unable to speak until I allowed him.”

  “How do you account for such powers?”

  “I don’t account for them at all. They belong to the world of spiritual phenomena of which we know so little and yet which touch our material lives at a thousand points every day. How do we account for sleep and dreams, or second sight, or the day dreams which we call visions?”

  Phil was silent, and the doctor went on dreamily:

  “The day my boy Richard was killed at Gettysburg, I saw him lying dead in a field near a house. I saw some soldiers bury him in the corner of that field, and then an old man go to the grave, dig up his body, cart it away into the woods, and throw it into a ditch. I saw it before I heard of the battle or knew that he was in it. He was reported killed, and his body has never been found. It is the one unspeakable horror of the war to me. I’ll never get over it.”

  “How very strange!” exclaimed Phil.

  “And yet the war was nothing, my boy, to the horrors I feel clutching the throat of the South to-day. I’m glad you and your father are down here. Your disinterested view of things may help us at Washington when we need it most. The South seems to have no friend at court.”

  “Your younger men, I find, are hopeful, Doctor,” said Phil.

  “Yes, the young never see danger until it’s time to die. I’m not a pessimist, but I was happier in jail. Scores of my old friends have given up in despair and died. Delicate and cultured women are living on cowpeas, corn bread, and molasses—and of such quality they would not have fed it to a slave. Children go to bed hungry. Droves of brutal negroes roam at large, stealing, murdering, and threatening blacker crimes. We are under the heel of petty military tyrants, few of whom ever smelled gunpowder in a battle. At the approaching election, not a decent white man in this country can take the infamous test oath. I am disfranchised because I gave a cup of water to the lips of one of my dying boys on the battlefield. My slaves are all voters. There will be a negro majority of more than one hundred thousand in this state. Desperadoes are here teaching these negroes insolence and crime in their secret societies. The future is a nightmare.”

  HENRY WALTHALL AS BEN CAMERON.

  “You have my sympathy, sir,” said Phil warmly, extending his hand. “These Reconstruction Acts, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, can bring only shame and disgrace until the last trace of them is wiped from our laws. I hope it will not be necessary to do it in blood.”

  The doctor was deeply touched. He could not be mistaken in the genuineness of any man’s feeling. He never dreamed this earnest straightforward Yankee youngster was in love with Margaret, and it would have made no difference in the accuracy of his judgment.

  “Your sentiments do you honour, sir,” he said with grave courtesy. “And you honour us and our town with your presence and friendship.”

  As Phil hurried home in a warm glow of sympathy for the people whose hospitality had made him their friend and champion, he encountered a negro trooper standing on the corner, watching the Cameron house with furtive glance.

  Instinctively he stopped, surveyed the man from head to foot and asked:

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “None er yo’ business,” the negro answered, slouching across to the opposite side of the street.

  Phil watched him with disgust. He had the short, heavy-set neck of the lower order of animals. His skin was coal black, his lips so thick they curled both ways up and down with crooked blood marks across them. His nose was flat, and its enormous nostrils seemed in perpetual dilation. The sinister bead eyes, with brown splotches in their whites, were set wide apart and gleamed apelike under his scant brows. His enormous cheekbones and jaws seemed to protrude beyond the ears and almost hide them.

  “That we should send such soldiers here to flaunt our uniform in the faces of these people!” he exclaimed, with bitterness.

  He met Ben hurrying home from a visit to Elsie. The two young soldiers whose prejudices had melted in the white heat of battle had become fast friends.

  Phil laughed and winked:

  “I’ll meet you to-night around the family altar!”

  When he reached home, Ben saw, slouching in front of the house, walking back and forth and glancing furtively behind him, the negro trooper whom his friend had passed.

  He walked quickly in front of him, and blinking his eyes rapidly, said:

  “Didn’t I tell you, Gus, not to let me catch you hanging around this house again?”

  The negro drew himself up, pulling his blue uniform into position as his body stretched out of its habitual slouch, and answered:

  “My name ain’t ‘Gus.’”

  Ben gave a quick little chuckle and leaned back against the palings, his hand resting on one that was loose. He glanced at the negro carelessly and said:

  “Well, Augustus Cæsar, I give your majesty thirty seconds to move off the block.”

  Gus’ first impulse was to run, but remembering himself he threw back his shoulders and said:

  “I reckon de streets free——”

  “Yes, and so is kindling wood!”

  Quick as a flash of lightning the paling suddenly left the fence and broke three times in such bewildering rapidity on the n
egro’s head he forgot everything he ever knew or thought he knew save one thing—the way to run. He didn’t fly, but he made remarkable use of the facilities with which he had been endowed.

  Ben watched him disappear toward the camp.

  He picked up the pieces of paling, pulled a strand of black wool from a splinter, looked at it curiously and said:

  “A sprig of his majesty’s hair—I’ll doubtless remember him without it!”

  * * *

  CHAPTER IV

  At the Point of the Bayonet

  Within an hour from Ben’s encounter he was arrested without warrant by the military commandant, handcuffed, and placed on the train for Columbia, more than a hundred miles distant. The first purpose of sending him in charge of a negro guard was abandoned for fear of a riot. A squad of white troops accompanied him.

  Elsie was waiting at the gate, watching for his coming, her heart aglow with happiness.

  When Marion and little Hugh ran to tell the exciting news, she thought it a joke and refused to believe it.

  “Come, dear, don’t tease me; you know it’s not true!”

  “I wish I may die if ’tain’t so!” Hugh solemnly declared. “He run Gus away ’cause he scared Aunt Margaret so. They come and put handcuffs on him and took him to Columbia. I tell you Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Margaret are mad!”

  Elsie called Phil and begged him to see what had happened.

  When Phil reported Ben’s arrest without a warrant, and the indignity to which he had been subjected on the amazing charge of resisting military authority, Elsie hurried with Marion and Hugh to the hotel to express her indignation, and sent Phil to Columbia on the next train to fight for his release.

  By the use of a bribe Phil discovered that a special inquisition had been hastily organized to procure perjured testimony against Ben on the charge of complicity in the murder of a carpet-bag adventurer named Ashburn, who had been killed at Columbia in a row in a disreputable resort. This murder had occurred the week Ben Cameron was in Nashville. The enormous reward of $25,000 had been offered for the conviction of any man who could be implicated in the killing. Scores of venal wretches, eager for this blood money, were using every device of military tyranny to secure evidence on which to convict—no matter who the man might be. Within six hours of his arrival they had pounced on Ben.

  They arrested as a witness an old negro named John Stapler, noted for his loyalty to the Camerons. The doctor had saved his life once in a dangerous illness. They were going to put him to torture and force him to swear that Ben Cameron had tried to bribe him to kill Ashburn. General Howle, the Commandant of the Columbia district, was in Charleston on a visit to headquarters.

  Phil resorted to the ruse of pretending, as a Yankee, the deepest sympathy for Ashburn, and by the payment of a fee of twenty dollars to the Captain, was admitted to the fort to witness the torture.

  They led the old man trembling into the presence of the Captain, who sat on an improvised throne in full uniform.

  “Have you ordered a barber to shave this man’s head?” sternly asked the judge.

  “Please, Marster, fer de Lawd’s sake, I ain’ done nuttin‘—doan’ shave my head. Dat ha’r been wropped lak dat fur ten year! I die sho’ ef I lose my ha’r.”

  “Bring the barber, and take him back until he comes,” was the order. In an hour they led him again into the room blindfolded, and placed him in a chair.

  “Have you let him see a preacher before putting him through?” the Captain asked. “I have an order from the General in Charleston to put him through to-day.”

  “For Gawd’s sake, Marster, doan’ put me froo—I ain’t done nuttin’ en I doan’ know nuttin’!”

  The old negro slipped to his knees, trembling from head to foot.

  The guards caught him by the shoulders and threw him back into the chair. The bandage was removed, and just in front of him stood a brass cannon pointed at his head, a soldier beside it holding the string ready to pull. John threw himself backward, yelling:

  “Goddermighty!”

  When he scrambled to his feet and started to run, another cannon swung on him from the rear. He dropped to his knees and began to pray.

  “Yas, Lawd, I’se er comin’. I hain’t ready—but, Lawd, I got ter come! Save me!”

  “Shave him!” the Captain ordered.

  While the old man sat moaning, they lathered his head with two scrubbing-brushes and shaved it clean.

  “Now stand him up by the wall and measure him for his coffin,” was the order.

  They snatched him from the chair, pushed him against the wall, and measured him. While they were taking his measure, the man next to him whispered:

  “Now’s the time to save your hide—tell all about Ben Cameron trying to hire you to kill Ashburn.”

  “Give him a few minutes,” said the Captain, “and maybe we can hear what Mr. Cameron said about Ashburn.”

  “I doan’ know nuttin’, General,” pleaded the old darkey. “I ain’t heard nuttin’—I ain’t seed Marse Ben fer two monts.”

  “You needn’t lie to us. The rebels have been posting you. But it’s no use. We’ll get it out of you.”

  “‘Fo’ Gawd, Marster, I’se telling de truf!”

  “Put him in the dark cell and keep him there the balance of his life unless he tells,” was the order.

  At the end of four days, Phil was summoned again to witness the show.

  John was carried to another part of the fort and shown the sweat-box.

  “Now tell all you know or in you go!” said his tormentor.

  The negro looked at the engine of torture in abject terror—a closet in the walls of the fort just big enough to admit the body, with an adjustable top to press down too low for the head to be held erect. The door closed tight against the breast of the victim. The only air admitted was through an auger-hole in the door.

  The old man’s lips moved in prayer.

  “Will you tell?” growled the Captain.

  “I cain’t tell ye nuttin’ ‘cept’n’ a lie!” he moaned.

  They thrust him in, slammed the door, and in a loud voice the Captain said:

  “Keep him there for thirty days unless he tells.”

  He was left in the agony of the sweat-box for thirty-three hours and taken out. His limbs were swollen and when he attempted to walk he tottered and fell.

  The guard jerked him to his feet, and the Captain said:

  “I’m afraid we’ve taken him out too soon, but if he don’t tell he can go back and finish the month out.”

  The poor old negro dropped in a faint, and they carried him back to his cell.

  Phil determined to spare no means, fair or foul, to secure Ben’s release from the clutches of these devils. He had as yet been unable to locate his place of confinement.

  He continued his ruse of friendly curiosity, kept in touch with the Captain, and the Captain in touch with his pocketbook.

  Summoned to witness another interesting ceremony, he hurried to the fort.

  The officer winked at him confidentially, and took him out to a row of dungeons built of logs and ceiled inside with heavy boards. A single pane of glass about eight inches square admitted light ten feet from the ground.

  There was a commotion inside, curses, groans, and cries for mercy mingling in rapid succession.

  “What is it?” asked Phil.

  “Hell’s goin’ on in there!” laughed the officer.

  “Evidently.”

  A heavy crash, as though a ton weight had struck the floor, and then all was still.

  “By George, it’s too bad we can’t see it all!” exclaimed the officer.

  “What does it mean?” urged Phil.

  Again the Captain laughed immoderately.

  “I’ve got a blue-blood in there taking the bluin’ out of his system. He gave me some impudence. I’m teaching him who’s running this country!”

  “What are you doing to him?” Phil asked with a sudden suspicion.

 
; “Oh, just having a little fun! I put two big white drunks in there with him—half-fighting drunks, you know—and told them to work on his teeth and manicure his face a little to initiate him into the ranks of the common people, so to speak!”

  Again he laughed.

  Phil, listening at the keyhole, held up his hand:

  “Hush, they’re talking——”

  He could hear Ben Cameron’s voice in the softest drawl:

  “Say it again.”

  “Please, Marster!”

  “Now both together, and a little louder!”

  “Please, Marster,” came the united chorus.

  “Now what kind of a dog did I say you are?”

  “The kind as comes when his marster calls.”

  “Both together—the under dog seems to have too much cover, like his mouth might be full of cotton.”

  They repeated it louder.

  “A common—stump-tailed—cur-dog?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Say it.”

  “A common—stump-tailed—cur-dog—Marster!”

  “A pair of them.”

  “A pair of ’em.”

  “No, the whole thing—all together—‘we—are—a—pair!’”

  “Yes—Marster.” They repeated it in chorus.

  “With apologies to the dogs——”