Keeping his eyes resolutely in front of him, he talked wearily and wearisomely of the meeting he had attended the night before, of how troublesome and irritating Mrs. Amos had been that day with her rheumatism, of his having at last persuaded Mrs. Hiram Tucker to go to Atlanta to have the operation she had so many times postponed. Jane answered him abstractedly and in monosyllables. At last she moved, almost with obvious meaning, to the canvas porch swing and there rested against the pillows piled in one corner. And yet Kenneth talked drearily on and on and on. He spoke at length of a conversation he had had with Bob that morning—of how glad he was that Bob was going away to school. Jane swung gently back and forth—and said nothing. Mr. Phillips came out on the porch and offered Kenneth a cigar, which he accepted and lighted. Mr. Phillips sat down and talked garrulously while the two men smoked. Jane felt that she could hardly keep from screaming. After what seemed an hour, Mr. Phillips, his topics of conversation exhausted, and at a sign from Jane that was not to be disregarded, rose heavily and lumbered into the house again.
Kenneth threw away the stump of his cigar. It had suddenly occurred to him that Jane hadn’t said very much for the past hour. He rose to go.
Jane sat silent as though unmindful of his having risen. He looked closely at her. Tears of he knew not what stood in her eyes. He dropped to the seat beside her, wondering what he had done to hurt her so. “Jane, what’s the matter?” he asked in a troubled voice. “What have I done?” She looked at him. … He didn’t know what happened next. Suddenly he found her in his arms. He strained her to him with all the passion he had been restraining for the months that seemed like years. He kissed her hair. He mumbled incoherently, yet with perfect understanding, to Jane, tender endearments. At length she raised her face from where it had been buried on his chest, gazed straight into his eyes. Their lips met in a long, clinging, rapturous kiss. …
“How long have you known?” he asked her. Men are such idiots—they are never satisfied to take what comes to them—they must ask silly and nonsensical questions.
She told him. Of her long struggle, of her decision, of her annoyance at his blindness. They talked eagerly until long past the hour of ten. He heard Mr. Phillips moving chairs and dropping his shoes—obvious hints that the time to go had long since passed. They paid no attention to these danger signals but laughed softly to themselves.
Everything must end eventually. Kenneth walked homewards through the soft light of the September moon. Amusedly, the phrase “walking on air” occurred to him. He laughed aloud. “Walking on air” was as the rheumatic stumping along of old Mrs. Amos compared to the way he felt. …
XV
It was the next night. In the gully on the road leading from that one out of Central City which went northward, there was being held a hastily called meeting of Central City Klan, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Realm of Georgia. Before, there had been three hundred robed figures. Tonight, three months later, the popularity of organized intolerance was attested to by the presence of fully five hundred. What had happened to Nancy Ware had acted as a powerful incentive to the recruiting of new converts. It was mighty fine to have a strong and powerful organization to shut mouths of those who talked too much about the nighttime deeds of loyal Klansmen. And, by gum, if you’re doing anything you don’t want known or stopped, you’d better be on the inside.
A figure whose arms waved excitedly as he talked was haranguing the crowd, which paid close attention to him. Had Tom Tracy been there, he would certainly have recognized the voice of the speaker. Ed Stewart’s wife, had she been there, would also have recognized it and dragged the speaker home by force had he resisted.
“White civilization in the South is tottering on its throne!” he shouted. “We who hold in our hands the future of civilization have been asleep! While we have gone about our ways, the damn niggers are plottin’ to kill us all in our beds! Right now they’re bringing into our fair city great passels of guns and ammunition marked ‘sewin’ m’chines’ and ‘ploughs’! They’re meetin’ ev’ry night in these nigger churches all over the county and they’re plottin’ an’ plannin’ to kill ev’ry white man, woman an’ chile in this county and take the lan’ for themselves! They’re led by a damn nigger doctor right here in Central City named Harper! I know it’s so, ’cause another nigger doctor named Williams tol’ me yestiddy mornin’ all about it and said that this nigger Harper was leadin’ this vile plot! He’s been goin’ all over the county stirrin’ up the damn niggers and incitin’ them to murder all of us! What’re you men goin’ to do?” he challenged in a voice that shrilled in pretended rage and terror.
A deep-throated roar answered him. Cries of “Kill the bastards!” “Lynch ’em!” “Kill every black bastard befo’ mornin!” It was the age-long voice of the mob bent on murder—the pack in full cry. But it was more than the voice of the mob of the Roman Colosseum, for that ancient cry was one of pleasure at the death of a single Christian. This was the shout of those intent on a wild, murderous rampage that spared neither man, woman, nor child.
“Klansmen!”
A voice like
