The Broken Sword Part 26

"Whose name is dat, sar?' the coroner asked pointing to the letters J.

W. S. chiseled into the iron handle.

"Haint dat Semo's name?" he again asked.

"It ar" answered a juror.

"Constable," the coroner stormed with wrath, "Yer fech dat white man fo me, ded er live, und summuns de possy common ta ters to go wid yer sar.

Und bredden," he continued, "we'll pa.s.s de jimmyjon und tak a swipe while wee's erwaiting fur de prisner."

Clarissa looked out of the kitchen window and descried the negro constable and his posse advancing rapidly toward the mansion. With her hands just out of the kneaded flour she ran frantically to her young mistriss with the exclamation,

"Lord have mercy, Miss Alice, yander c.u.ms ole Shermans army; de plantashun is black und blu wid n.i.g.g.e.rs wid der muskits," "Oh, my Lord have mussy on us."

Alice though greatly alarmed, replied as calmly as possible,

"Dont you know Clarissa, we have never harmed these people. Do you think they will kill us in cold blood. Where is father? Come father, come Clarissa, we will go into the verandah and meet them, kindly face to face. Come, father, I know you are brave--and you are a Christian. If they have come to murder us--there is but a pang and all will be over.

In a moment we shall forget our griefs, our humiliations. Let us clasp hands and die altogether."

The negro constable observing the distress of the family and wishing for the time being to avoid excitement, halted his gang at the gate and advanced to the old man with his warrant.

"Mr. Semo," said he, "Yer is scused of ferociously homisiden de corpses in de crick und I'm sent to fetch yer to de crowner."

"All right I will accompany you," the old man said with resignation.

Poor Alice clung to her father's neck crying as if her heart would break, and spoke pleadingly to the negro.

"May I not go with my father? May I not die with him? Oh, my dear, dear father. I cannot bear the separation, the suspense. Please, please Mr.

Constable let my father remain here and let me suffer and die for him."

"Oh my daughter, my child," petulantly cried the old man, "this will not do." "Dry your tears my dear child and be a.s.sured that the coroner cannot do me harm. If he shall find me guilty, I shall remain in jail only to-morrow. The court convenes on Monday next when I shall be discharged and return home. Give me a kiss now, and remember dear, that your father is safe: Good-bye, G.o.d bless you."

As Joshua, a juror, saw the feeble old man with great effort advancing with the negro posse, he began to shed tears and covered his furrowed face with his old beaver:

"Po Mars Jon," he sobbed audibly, "Has it c.u.m to dis, scusing the bestest man in de kentry wid foroshus h.o.m.osiden. Ma.r.s.er, yu shall hab jestice. I'll stan twix yer und def. Yu know'd nuffin about dis ma.s.sacre, jess ez innerson ob dis scusation ez a baby--ebery bit und grane."

"Constable," asked the coroner, "fetch me dat crowbar und de prisner."

"Now den, dis heer crowbar is a witnis agin yer, Mr. Semo, what has yer got to say agin dis scusation sar?"

The Colonel replied with dignity, "I have not seen it before in twelve months, I am sure."

"How c.u.m dis heer crowbar under de bridge, how c.u.m de bridge fell down und how c.u.m dem fokses drounded, answer me dat?" sharply answered the coroner.

"I cannot tell sir, I know nothing whatever about the matter, and----"

"Boss Crowner," interrupted Joshua, "does yer sposing dat ar crowbar was de cashun ob dat dar drounen? Answer me dat fust. I aint agwine ter sot on no man dat aint gilty. Diss heer bisniss is ticklish bisniss, I tell yer dat rite now, und we is all sworn ter find out whedder dat crowbar kilt dose fokses ur whedder dey kilt deyselves. Now yer look er heer, when dis heer gang c.u.m down dat rode a rasin und a hollering lak wild panters, dey want a noticing nuffin und dat ole bridge hez been shackly und cranksided for a mont, und der horses c.u.mmin a prancing und er gallupin wid all dem flags a flying mout er knowed sumfin was agwine to gib way, und ef I wotes ter hang eny body it is agwine to be de oberseer ob de rode, taint agwine to be ole ma.r.s.er. Ef I wotes, I says ef I wotes, I am agwine ter clar ole ma.r.s.er ob dis heer terble scusashun und I am reddy ter wote rite now. I got a plenty ob munny und a plenty ob good wittles, too, und I haint agwine to grunt und root roun de kommissery lak a horg nudder, wid de ole flag a twisted ober de back lak de tail ob a chiken rooster. Ma.r.s.er Jon shall hab jestis ef I hab to go outen dese Nunited States fur it. Mout as well be sarchin fur fleas on a catfish ez fer jestis in dis kote. I move dis honerble kote to turn ole ma.r.s.er Jon loose, und I call for de wote rite now."

This speech of the old negro seemed, as it were, the gift of an oracle.

It grappled with a great subject of principle. Joshua was indeed an immune, having nothing to fear from the negroes, on account of his extreme old age and enjoying the trust of the Colonel and his daughter.

He looked up at the flag as he concluded, as it seemed to him just now to be overcast with the murky vapors of oppression, and pointing his bony finger toward its scarlet-veined folds, exclaimed with the pathos, the spirit of an orator of nature,

"De grate Lawd forbid dat yore stripes, 'Ole Glory,' shall be washed in de blood ob my ole ma.r.s.er. I welcomed yu in de Souf when I seed yu cha.s.sayin in de wild storm; I bowed my ole hed to yu when yu flung yo storry crown toards de hebens; I've marched backards und farrards, tired unto def, when yu led de rigiment, und felt dere wuz power und pride und peace under yo stripes und under yo storrs; und when hongry und starving fur bread, I flung my ole bever in de air und cheered fur de flag ob de Nunion. I lubs my ole ma.r.s.er ez I lubs yu, 'Ole Glory' und he mus not die--he shall not die; ef de blood of Ellick und Efrum wuz upon his hans und upon his soul ez thick ez de mud upon dare gyarments."

Suffice it to say that in the opinion of the jury John W. Seymour had committed the murder alleged in the warrant and was committed to the common jail for the unbailable capital crime.

CHAPTER XX.

"A DANIEL COME TO JUDGMENT."

The Reconstruction period in the South was offensively inst.i.tutional.

There was a fascination about the spoils principle, the "cohesive power of public plunder" that allured all conditions of men who put themselves in juxtaposition to the new order of things. There was not a negro who valued his manhood suffrage that did not yield implicit faith and obedience to all that was told him by the carpet-baggers, who came south as the "waves come when navies are stranded." The elective judiciary too was no mean accessory in the wholesale plunder of the people; in the sale, delay and denial of justice. The presence of the judge in the county town to hold the court was, an event that was commonly distinguished by farcical displays; exhibitions as it were of harlequins, bazaars, organ-grinders and negroes. From the four quarters of the county exhausted mules and oxen were brought into requisition and hitched to primitive vehicles; negroes who were the worthless heads of pauper families, astride the bare backs of horned cattle, arriving in the town before the break of day and thronging the public buildings, thoroughfares and court house. The leaders among the negroes would call upon the judge in his chamber with a disgusting obsequiousness that marked the depravity of their origin. Punishments at times were the refinement of oppression and as often a mockery of the law. Partisan judgments were not unusual or surprising.

An untried judge had come to hold the a.s.sizes; he had come without the blast of a trumpet, but the compact a.s.semblage awaited with every demonstration of joy his presence upon the bench. The judge was a young man, seemingly of great intellectual reserve, possessing a steel gray eye that shot its glances through the subject as if it were but marking a point through which his judgment of a man would enter. There were courage, self poise, wisdom, integrity apparent in the man who had arrived to administer the law. For the first time this judicial officer saw before him an indistinguishable ma.s.s of the freedmen of the south.

He knew by intuition that they were ignorant, vicious and corruptible; he saw that the prosecuting attorney was a negro, the deputies of the sheriff were negroes, the foreman of the grand jury was a negro and doubtless he addressed to himself this interrogatory in the law latin _cui bono_?

"There were indictments almost without number for frauds, embezzlements and forgeries; the travail of reconstruction."

Laflin had been perniciously active all the morning. Before the judge had taken his seat upon the bench, he had interviewed many of the men who had been summoned upon the venire to try a veteran of the lost cause for murder and their pockets were filled with small bribes. He had checked off twelve names and given the list to the solicitor with the heartless remark "Now we'll hang the old secesh higher than Haman, and you and I Mr. Solicitor will divide between us his homestead." At this point of time an interruption came from one of the negro jurors to this effect, "Boss dere's wun secesh n.i.g.g.e.r dat sez he's agwine to hang de jurer epseps yu gin him wun mo dollar."

"Blast the wretch!" came the curse of this man of baleful power, "Where is he?" he enquired.

"See dat man standin dere ergin dat postess, dats him."

"Here you fellow," said Laflin, "How much money have you been paid to find the old secesh guilty?"

The negro in an abstracted way felt in his pockets and told the wretch that one juror had been paid two dollars, while he had received only one dollar, "und he mout conwic de rong man, den yu see boss, de pay mout not be ekal to de sponuality. Fling in wun mo dollar und de jurer gwine to hang dat secesh sho."

This conclave of diabolical spirits was held in the office of the sheriff at the hour of 9 a. m. Back yonder in the common jail, behind the fretted bars, was the veteran in the cell with black felons.

Why should the catalogue of this poor man's misfortune be enlarged, by super-adding to the loss of domestic tranquility, that greatest of all calamities, the loss of his liberty, aggravated by the imputation of crime and its consequent ignominy. He feels that the storm without is fraught with lightning, that renders desolate the face of nature, his mind has lost its elasticity, its spring, its pride; and who is the prisoner, whom the black crowd follow with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, a.s.saulting him now and again with obscene gibes, as he is led from the cell to the dock? He is gifted by the G.o.d of nature with rare endowments, whose unconquered spirit breaks forth in a sentiment such as this,

"Let the hangman lead these miscreants to the gibbet, And let the ravens of the air Fatten upon their flesh until they pick each tainted carca.s.s from the bones."

There were indictments also for capital felonies, and in the dock sat three hardened black criminals, and one aged white man of distinguished presence, who was whispering now and then to a beautiful maiden in tears, a maiden so radiant in personal attractions that she might have sat approvingly for the portrait of Beatrice Cenci that looks down upon the upturned faces in the Art Gallery in Florence. He was a veteran of the civil war; a hero at Malvern Hill; colonel commanding the regiment of cavalry that by an extra hazardous maneuver drove a Federal brigade into the death trap. By his side sat as his attorney a white-haired gentleman, who like a stately man of war, just going out of commission, was sighting his guns upon the enemy for the last time. This spectacle was so full of the pathos of human life that it deserves to be perpetuated in the memory, after the dry rot shall have utterly honey-combed the odious system of reconstruction. The arraignment of the prisoner was proceeded with; the negro solicitor presuming upon the hearty co-operation of the judge ventilated his spleen upon the unfortunate prisoner.

"Stand up, prisoner at the bar," he commanded as he fairly spat his venom like a jungle serpent into the face of the poor man. "Are you guilty or not guilty of the felony and murder with which you stand charged?" he cried.

"Not Guilty," answered the prisoner with a quiet dignity.

"By whom will you be tried," the officer inquired wrathfully.

"By G.o.d and my country," was the answer of this veteran of a hundred battles; this wise counsellor of the law.

Were the twelve black jurors in the box his country? had they ever given direction to his impulses as a patriot? had they ever nerved his arm to strike down the foe, that scourged his home into barrenness and peopled the city of the dead with his kindred? Had they like Joshua and Hur ever stayed the hand of the prisoner, when with drawn sword he guarded the portal of the temple? Great G.o.d! Shall these human chattels, without a single intellectual resource, without one ray of discernment, besotted and bedraggled by fanaticism, superst.i.tion and ignorance bring to this poor man in this extremity a safe deliverance? In conducting the prosecution, in the examination of the witnesses the same brutish treatment was observed by the solicitor for the state toward the aged prisoner, and with an offensive parade of authority he announced that the state had closed its case; thereupon the white-haired Governor arose to ask for the discharge of the prisoner for want of sufficient evidence to convict. Now came the first interruption upon the part of the judge, who up to this moment had observed a reticence quite noteworthy in a high judicial officer who was holding his first court where the negroes ruled.