The Clansman Part 37

_To the People of Ulster County_:

The censures of the press, directed against the servants of the people, may be endured; but the military force in command of this district are not the servants of the people of South Carolina. WE ARE YOUR MASTERS. The impertinence of newspaper comment on the military will not be brooked UNDER ANY CIRc.u.mSTANCES WHATEVER.

G. C. Gilbert, Captain in Command.

Not content with this display of power, he determined to make an example of Dr. Cameron, as the leader of public opinion in the county.

He ordered a squad of his negro troops to arrest him immediately and take him to Columbia for obstructing the execution of the Reconstruction Acts.

He placed the squad under command of Gus, whom he promoted to be a corporal, with instructions to wait until the doctor was inside his house, boldly enter it and arrest him.

When Gus marched his black janizaries into the house, no one was in the office. Margaret had gone for a ride with Phil, and Ben had strolled with Elsie to Lover's Leap, unconscious of the excitement in town.

Dr. Cameron himself had heard nothing of it, having just reached home from a visit to a country patient.

Gus stationed his men at each door, and with another trooper walked straight into Mrs. Cameron's bedroom, where the doctor was resting on a lounge.

Had an imp of perdition suddenly sprung through the floor, the master of the house of Cameron would not have been more enraged or surprised.

A sudden leap, as the spring of a panther, and he stood before his former slave, his slender frame erect, his face a livid spot in its snow-white hair, his brilliant eyes flashing with fury.

Gus suddenly lost control of his knees.

His old master transfixed him with his eyes, and in a voice, whose tones gripped him by the throat, said:

"How dare you?"

The gun fell from the negro's hand, and he dropped to the floor on his face.

His companion uttered a yell and sprang through the door, rallying the men as he went:

"Fall back! Fall back! He's killed Gus! Shot him dead wid his eye. He's conjured him! Git de whole army quick."

They fled to the Commandant.

Gilbert ordered the negroes to their tents and led his whole company of white regulars to the hotel, arrested Dr. Cameron, and rescued his fainting trooper, who had been revived and placed under a tree on the lawn.

The little Captain had a wicked look on his face. He refused to allow the doctor a moment's delay to leave instructions for his wife, who had gone to visit a neighbour. He was placed in the guard-house, and a detail of twenty soldiers stationed around it.

The arrest was made so quickly, not a dozen people in town had heard of it. As fast as it was known, people poured into the house, one by one, to express their sympathy. But a greater surprise awaited them.

Within thirty minutes after he had been placed in prison, a Lieutenant entered, accompanied by a soldier and a negro blacksmith who carried in his hand two big chains with shackles on each end.

The doctor gazed at the intruders a moment with incredulity, and then, as the enormity of the outrage dawned on him, he flushed and drew himself erect, his face livid and rigid.

He clutched his throat with his slender fingers, slowly recovered himself, glanced at the shackles in the black hands and then at the young Lieutenant's face, and said slowly, with heaving breast:

"My G.o.d! Have you been sent to place these irons on me?"

"Such are my orders, sir," replied the officer, motioning to the negro smith to approach. He stepped forward, unlocked the padlock, and prepared the fetters to be placed on his arms and legs. These fetters were of enormous weight, made of iron rods three quarters of an inch thick and connected together by chains of like weight.

"This is monstrous!" groaned the doctor, with choking agony, glancing helplessly about the bare cell for some weapon with which to defend himself.

Suddenly looking the Lieutenant in the face, he said:

"I demand, sir, to see your commanding officer. He cannot pretend that these shackles are needed to hold a weak unarmed man in prison, guarded by two hundred soldiers?"

"It is useless. I have his orders direct."

"But I must see him. No such outrage has ever been recorded in the history of the American people. I appeal to the Magna Charta rights of every man who speaks the English tongue--no man shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his own household, or of his liberties, unless by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land!"

"The bayonet is your only law. My orders admit of no delay. For your own sake, I advise you to submit. As a soldier, Dr. Cameron, you know I must execute orders."

"These are not the orders of a soldier!" shouted the prisoner, enraged beyond all control. "They are orders for a jailer, a hangman, a scullion--no soldier who wears the sword of a civilized nation can take such orders. The war is over; the South is conquered; I have no country save America. For the honour of the flag, for which I once poured out my blood on the heights of Buena Vista, I protest against this shame!"

The Lieutenant fell back a moment before the burst of his anger.

"Kill me! Kill me!" he went on pa.s.sionately, throwing his arms wide open and exposing his breast. "Kill--I am in your power. I have no desire to live under such conditions. Kill, but you must not inflict on me and on my people this insult worse than death!"

"Do your duty, blacksmith," said the officer, turning his back and walking toward the door.

The negro advanced with the chains cautiously, and attempted to snap one of the shackles on the doctor's right arm.

With sudden maniac frenzy, Dr. Cameron seized the negro by the throat, hurled him to the floor, and backed against the wall.

The Lieutenant approached and remonstrated:

"Why compel me to add the indignity of personal violence? You must submit."

"I am your prisoner," fiercely retorted the doctor. "I have been a soldier in the armies of America, and I know how to die. Kill me, and my last breath will be a blessing. But while I have life to resist, for myself and for my people, this thing shall not be done!"

The Lieutenant called a sergeant and a file of soldiers, and the sergeant stepped forward to seize the prisoner.

Dr. Cameron sprang on him with the ferocity of a tiger, seized his musket, and attempted to wrench it from his grasp.

The men closed in on him. A short pa.s.sionate fight and the slender, proud, gray-haired man lay panting on the floor.

Four powerful a.s.sailants held his hands and feet, and the negro smith, with a grin, secured the rivet on the right ankle and turned the key in the padlock on the left.

As he drove the rivet into the shackle on his left arm, a spurt of bruised blood from the old Mexican War wound stained the iron.

Dr. Cameron lay for a moment in a stupor. At length he slowly rose. The clank of the heavy chains seemed to choke him with horror. He sank on the floor, covering his face with his hands and groaned:

"The shame! The shame! O G.o.d, that I might have died! My poor, poor wife!"

Captain Gilbert entered and said with a sneer:

"I will take you now to see your wife and friends if you would like to call before setting out for Columbia."