On the outskirts of the crowd a few of the better class, or at least of the better clad, were looking on. The double volley described had already been fired, when the number of these was augmented by the arrival of Major Carteret and Mr. Ellis, who had just come from the Chronicle office, where the next day’s paper had been in hasty preparation. They pushed their way towards the front of the crowd.
“This must be stopped, Ellis,” said Carteret. “They are burning houses and killing women and children. Old Jane, good old Mammy Jane, who nursed my wife at her bosom, and has waited on her and my child within a few weeks, was killed only a few rods from my house, to which she was evidently fleeing for protection. It must have been by accident—I cannot believe that any white man in town would be dastard enough to commit such a deed intentionally! I would have defended her with my own life! We must try to stop this thing!”
“Easier said than done,” returned Ellis. “It is in the fever stage, and must burn itself out. We shall be lucky if it does not burn the town out. Suppose the negroes should also take a hand at the burning? We have advised the people to put the negroes down, and they are doing the job thoroughly.”
“My God!” replied the other, with a gesture of impatience, as he continued to elbow his way through the crowd; “I meant to keep them in their places—I did not intend wholesale murder and arson.”
Carteret, having reached the front of the mob, made an effort to gain their attention.
“Gentlemen!” he cried in his loudest tones. His voice, unfortunately, was neither loud nor piercing.
“Kill the niggers!” clamored the mob.
“Gentlemen, I implore you”—
The crash of a dozen windows, broken by stones and pistol shots, drowned his voice.
“Gentlemen!” he shouted; “this is murder, it is madness; it is a disgrace to our city, to our state, to our civilization!”
“That’s right!” replied several voices. The mob had recognized the speaker. “It is a disgrace, and we’ll not put up with it a moment longer. Burn ’em out! Hurrah for Major Carteret, the champion of ‘white supremacy’! Three cheers for the Morning Chronicle and ‘no nigger domination’!”
“Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!” yelled the crowd.
In vain the baffled orator gesticulated and shrieked in the effort to correct the misapprehension. Their oracle had spoken; not hearing what he said, they assumed it to mean encouragement and cooperation. Their present course was but the logical outcome of the crusade which the Morning Chronicle had preached, in season and out of season, for many months. When Carteret had spoken, and the crowd had cheered him, they felt that they had done all that courtesy required, and he was good-naturedly elbowed aside while they proceeded with the work in hand, which was now to drive out the negroes from the hospital and avenge the killing of their comrade.
Some brought hay, some kerosene, and others wood from a pile which had been thrown into a vacant lot near by. Several safe ways of approach to the building were discovered, and the combustibles placed and fired. The flames, soon gaining a foothold, leaped upward, catching here and there at the exposed woodwork, and licking the walls hungrily with long tongues of flame.
Meanwhile a desultory firing was kept up from the outside, which was replied to scatteringly from within the hospital. Those inside were either not good marksmen, or excitement had spoiled their aim. If a face appeared at a window, a dozen pistol shots from the crowd sought the spot immediately.
Higher and higher leaped the flames. Suddenly from one of the windows sprang a black figure, waving a white handkerchief. It was Jerry Letlow. Regaining consciousness after the effect of Josh’s blow had subsided, Jerry had kept quiet and watched his opportunity. From a safe vantage-ground he had scanned the crowd without, in search of some white friend. When he saw Major Carteret moving disconsolately away after his futile effort to stem the torrent, Jerry made a dash for the window. He sprang forth, and, waving his handkerchief as a flag of truce, ran toward Major Carteret, shouting frantically:—
“Majah Carteret—O majah! It’s me, suh, Jerry, suh! I didn’ go in dere myse’f, suh—I wuz drag’ in dere! I wouldn’ do nothin’ ’g’inst de w’ite folks, suh—no, ’ndeed, I wouldn’, suh!”
Jerry’s cries were drowned in a roar of rage and a volley of shots from the mob. Carteret, who had turned away with Ellis, did not even hear his servant’s voice. Jerry’s poor flag of truce, his explanations, his reliance upon his white friends, all failed him in the moment of supreme need. In that hour, as in any hour when the depths of race hatred are stirred, a negro was no more than a brute beast, set upon by other brute beasts whose only instinct was to kill and destroy.
“Let us leave this inferno, Ellis,” said Carteret, sick with anger and disgust. He had just become aware that a negro was being killed, though he did not know whom. “We can do nothing. The negroes have themselves to blame—they tempted us beyond endurance. I counseled firmness, and firm measures were taken, and our purpose was accomplished. I am not responsible for these subsequent horrors—I wash my hands of them. Let us go!”
The flames gained headway and gradually enveloped the burning building, until it became evident to those within as well as those without that the position of the defenders was no longer tenable. Would they die in the flames, or would they be driven out? The uncertainty soon came to an end.
The besieged had been willing to fight, so long as there seemed a hope of successfully defending themselves
