“Boys!” exclaimed Josh—“men!—fer nobody but men would do w’at you have done—the day has gone ’g’inst us. We kin see ou’ finish; but fer my part, I ain’ gwine ter leave dis worl’ widout takin’ a w’ite man ’long wid me, an’ I sees my man right out yonder waitin’—I be’n waitin’ fer him twenty years, but he won’ have ter wait fer me mo’ ’n ’bout twenty seconds. Eve’y one er you pick yo’ man! We’ll open de do’, an’ we’ll give some w’ite men a chance ter be sorry dey ever started dis fuss!”
The door was thrown open suddenly, and through it rushed a dozen or more black figures, armed with knives, pistols, or clubbed muskets. Taken by sudden surprise, the white people stood motionless for a moment, but the approaching negroes had scarcely covered half the distance to which the heat of the flames had driven back the mob, before they were greeted with a volley that laid them all low but two. One of these, dazed by the fate of his companions, turned instinctively to flee, but had scarcely faced around before he fell, pierced in the back by a dozen bullets.
Josh Green, the tallest and biggest of them all, had not apparently been touched. Some of the crowd paused in involuntary admiration of this black giant, famed on the wharves for his strength, sweeping down upon them, a smile upon his face, his eyes lit up with a rapt expression which seemed to take him out of mortal ken. This impression was heightened by his apparent immunity from the shower of lead which less susceptible persons had continued to pour at him.
Armed with a huge bowie-knife, a relic of the civil war, which he had carried on his person for many years for a definite purpose, and which he had kept sharpened to a razor edge, he reached the line of the crowd. All but the bravest shrank back. Like a wedge he dashed through the mob, which parted instinctively before him, and all oblivious of the rain of lead which fell around him, reached the point where Captain McBane, the bravest man in the party, stood waiting to meet him. A pistol-flame flashed in his face, but he went on, and raising his powerful right arm, buried his knife to the hilt in the heart of his enemy. When the crowd dashed forward to wreak vengeance on his dead body, they found him with a smile still upon his face.
One of the two died as the fool dieth. Which was it, or was it both? “Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord, and it had not been left to Him. But they that do violence must expect to suffer violence. McBane’s death was merciful, compared with the nameless horrors he had heaped upon the hundreds of helpless mortals who had fallen into his hands during his career as a contractor of convict labor.
Sobered by this culminating tragedy, the mob shortly afterwards dispersed. The flames soon completed their work, and this handsome structure, the fruit of old Adam Miller’s industry, the monument of his son’s philanthropy, a promise of good things for the future of the city, lay smouldering in ruins, a melancholy witness to the fact that our boasted civilization is but a thin veneer, which cracks and scales off at the first impact of primal passions.
XXXVI
Fiat Justitia
By the light of the burning building, which illuminated the street for several blocks, Major Carteret and Ellis made their way rapidly until they turned into the street where the major lived. Reaching the house, Carteret tried the door and found it locked. A vigorous ring at the bell brought no immediate response. Carteret had begun to pound impatiently upon the door, when it was cautiously opened by Miss Pemberton, who was pale, and trembled with excitement.
“Where is Olivia?” asked the major.
“She is upstairs, with Dodie and Mrs. Albright’s hospital nurse. Dodie has the croup. Virgie ran away after the riot broke out. Sister Olivia had sent for Mammy Jane, but she did not come. Mrs. Albright let her white nurse come over.”
“I’ll go up at once,” said the major anxiously. “Wait for me, Ellis—I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“Oh, Mr. Ellis,” exclaimed Clara, coming toward him with both hands extended, “can nothing be done to stop this terrible affair?”
“I wish I could do something,” he murmured fervently, taking both her trembling hands in his own broad palms, where they rested with a surrendering trustfulness which he has never since had occasion to doubt. “It has gone too far, already, and the end, I fear, is not yet; but it cannot grow much worse.” The editor hurried upstairs. Mrs. Carteret, wearing a worried and haggard look, met him at the threshold of the nursery.
“Dodie is ill,” she said. “At three o’clock, when the trouble began, I was over at Mrs. Albright’s—I had left Virgie with the baby. When I came back, she and all the other servants had gone. They had heard that the white people were going to kill all the negroes, and fled to seek safety. I found Dodie lying in a draught, before an open window, gasping for breath. I ran back to Mrs. Albright’s—I had found her much better today—and she let her nurse come over. The nurse says that Dodie is
