The World for Sale Part 31

He was so delighted that he felt he must "make the Mayor show off self,"

as he put it afterwards. He did not miscalculate; the Mayor rose to his challenge.

"I'm boss of this show," he said, "and I can go it alone if necessary when the town's in danger and the law's being hustled. I've had a meeting of the Council and I've got the sailing-orders I want. I'm boss of the place, and Mr. Druse is my--" he stopped, because there was a look in the eyes of the Ry which demanded consideration--"And Mr. Druse is lawboss," he added.

The old ineradicable look of command shone in the eyes of Gabriel Druse.

Leadership was written all over him. Power spoke in every motion. The square, unbowed shoulders, the heavily lined face, with the patriarchal beard, the gnarled hands, the rough-hewn limbs, the eye of bright, brooding force proclaimed authority.

Indeed in that moment there came into the face of the old Nomad the look it had not worn for many a day. The self-exiled ruler had paid a heavy price for his daughter's vow, though he had never acknowledged it to himself. His self-ordained impotency, in a camp that was never moved, within walls which never rose with the sunset and fell with the morning; where his feet trod the same roadway day after day; where no man asked for justice or sought his counsel or fell back on his protection; where he drank from the same spring and tethered his horse in the same paddock from morn to morn: all these things had eaten at his heart and bowed his spirit in spite of himself.

He was not now of the Romany world, and he was not of the Gorgio world; but here at last was the old thing come back to him in a new way, and his bones rejoiced. He would ent.i.tle his daughter to her place among the Gorgios. Perhaps also it would be given him, in the name of the law, to deal with a man he hated.

"We've got Mister Marchand now," said Jowett softly to the old chieftain.

The Ry's eyes lighted and his jaw set. He did not speak, but his hands clenched, opened and clenched again. Jowett saw and grinned.

"The Mayor and the law-boss'll win out, I guess," he said to himself.

CHAPTER XVII. THE MONSEIGNEUR AND THE NOMAD

Even more than Dr. Rockwell, Berry, the barber, was the most troubled man in Lebanon on the day of the Orange funeral. Berry was a good example of an unreasoning infatuation. The accident which had come to his idol, with the certain fall of his fortunes, hit him so hard, that, for the first time since he became a barber, his razor nipped the flesh of more than one who sat in his red-upholstered chair.

In his position, Berry was likely to hear whatever gossip was going. Who shall have perfect self-control with a giant bib under the chin, tipped back on a chair that cannot be regulated, with a face covered by lather, and two plantation fingers holding the nose? In these circ.u.mstances, with much diplomacy, Berry corkscrewed his way into confidence, and when he dipped a white cloth in bay-rum and eau-de-cologne, and laid it over the face of the victim, with the finality of a satisfied inquisitor, it was like giving the last smother to human individuality. An artist after his kind, he no sooner got what he wanted than he carefully coaxed his victim away from thoughts of the disclosures into the vague distance of casual gossip once more.

Gradually and slowly he shepherded his patient back to the realms of self-respect and individual personality. The border-line was at the point where the fingers of his customer fluttered at a collar-b.u.t.ton; for Berry, who realized the power that lies in making a man look ridiculous, never allowed a customer to be shaved or have his hair cut with a collar on. When his customers had corns, off came the boots also, and then Berry's triumph over the white man was complete. To call attention to an exaggerated bunion when the odorous towel lay upon the hidden features of what once was a "human," was the last act in the drama of the Unmaking of Man.

Only when the client had felt in his pocket for the price of the flaying, and laid it, with a ten-cent fee, on the ledge beneath the mirror, where all the implements of the inquisition and the restoration were a.s.sembled, did he feel manhood restored. If, however, he tried to keep a vow of silence in the chair of execution, he paid a heavy price; for Berry had his own methods of punishment. A little tighter grasp of the nose; a little rougher sc.r.a.pe of the razor, and some sharp, stinging liquid suddenly slapped with a cold palm on the excoriated spot, with the devilish hypocrisy of healing it; a longer smothering-period under the towel, when the corners of it were tucked behind the ears and a crease of it in the mouth-all these soon induced vocal expression again, and Berry started on his inquisition with gentle certainty. When at last he dusted the face with a little fine flour of oatmeal, "to heal the cuticle and 'manoor' the roots," and smelled with content the hands which had embalmed the hair in verbena-scented oil, a man left his presence feeling that he was ready for the wrath to come.

Such was Berry when he had under his razor one of Ingolby's business foes of Manitou, who had of late been in touch with Felix Marchand. Both were working for the same end, but with different intentions. Marchand worked with that inherent devilishness which sometimes takes possession of low minds; but the other worked as he would have done against his own brother, for his own business success; and it was his view that one man could only succeed by taking the place of another, as though the Age of Expansion had ceased and the Age of Smother had begun.

From this client while in a state of abject subjection, Berry, whose heart was hard that day, but whose diplomacy was impeccable, discovered a thing of moment. There was to be a procession of strikers from two factories in Manitou, who would throw down their tools or leave their machines at a certain moment. Falling into line these strikers would march across the bridge between the towns at such time as would bring them into touch with the line of the Orange funeral--two processions meeting at right angles. If neither procession gave way, the Orange funeral could be broken up, ostensibly not from religious fanaticism, but from the "unhappy accident" of two straight lines colliding. It was a juicy plot; and in a few minutes the Mayor and Gabriel Druse knew of it from the faithful Berry.

The bell of the meeting-house began to toll as the Orangeman whose death had caused such commotion was carried to the waiting carriage where he would ride alone. Almost simultaneously with the starting of the gaudy yet sombre Orange cortege, with its yellow scarfs, glaring banners, charcoal plumes and black clothes, the labour procession approached the Manitou end of the Sagalac bridge. The strikers carried only three or four banners, but they had a band of seven pieces, with a drum and a pair of cymbals. With frequent discord, but with much spirit, the Bleaters, as these musicians were called in Lebanon, inspired the steps of the Manitou fanatics and toughs. As they came upon the bridge they were playing a gross paraphrase of The Ma.r.s.eillaise.

At the head of the Orange procession was a silver-cornet band which the enterprise of Lebanon had made possible. Its leader was a ne'er-do-well young Welshman, who had been dismissed from leadership after leadership of bands in the East till at last he had drifted into Lebanon. Here, strange to say, he had never been drunk but once; and that was the night before he married the widow of a local publican, who had a nice little block of stock in one of Ingolby's railways, which yielded her seven per cent., and who knew how to handle the citizens of the City of Booze.

When she married Tom Straker, her first husband, he drank on an average twenty whiskies a day. She got him down to one; and then he died and had as fine a funeral as a judge. There were those who said that if Tom's whiskies hadn't been cut down so--but there it was: Tom was in the bosom of Abraham, and William Jones, who was never called anything else than w.i.l.l.y Welsh, had been cut down from his unrecorded bibulations to none at all; but he smoked twenty-cent cigars at the ex-widow's expense.

To-day w.i.l.l.y Welsh played with heart and courage, "I'm Going Home to Glory," at the head of the Orange procession; for who that has faced such a widow as was his for one whole year could fear the onset of faction fighters! Besides, as the natives of the South Seas will never eat a Chinaman, so a Western man will never kill a musician. Senators, magistrates, sheriffs, police, gamblers, horse-stealers, bankers, and broncho-riders all die unnatural deaths at times, but a musician in the West is immune from all except the hand of Fate. Not one can be spared.

Even a tough convicted of cheating at cards, or breaking a boom on a river, has escaped punishment because he played the concertina.

The discord and jangle between the two bands was the first collision of this fateful day. While yet there was a s.p.a.ce between the two processions, the bands broke into furious contest. It was then that, through the long funeral line, men with hard-set faces came closer up together, and forty, detaching themselves from the well-kept run of marching lodgemen, closed up around the horses and the hea.r.s.e, making a solid flanking force. At stated intervals also, outside the lodgemen in the lines, were special constables, many of whom had been the stage-drivers, hunters, cattlemen, prospectors, and pioneers of the early days. Most of them had come of good religious stock-Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians; and though they had little piety, and had never been able to regain the religious customs and habits of their childhood, they "Stood for the Thing the Old Folks stand for." They were in a mood which would tear cotton, as the saying was. There was not one of them but expected that broken heads and bloodshed would be the order of the day, and they were stonily, fearlessly prepared for the worst.

Since the appearance of Gabriel Druse on the scene, the feeling had grown that the luck would be with them. When he started at the head of the cortege, they could scarce forbear to cheer. Such a champion in appearance had never been seen in the West, and, the night before, he had proved his right to the t.i.tle by shaking a knot of toughs into spots of disconcerted humanity.

As they approached the crossroads of the bridge, his voice, clear and sonorous, could be heard commanding the Orange band to cease playing.

When the head of the funeral procession was opposite the bridge--the band, the hea.r.s.e, the bodyguard of the hea.r.s.e--Gabriel Druse stood aside, and took his place at the point where the lines of the two processions would intersect.

It was at this moment that the collision came. There were only about sixty feet of s.p.a.ce between the two processions, when a voice rang out in a challenge so offensive, that the men of Manitou got their cue for attack without creating it themselves. Every Orangeman of the Lodge of Lebanon afterwards denied that he had raised the cry; and the chances are that every one spoke the truth. It was like Felix Marchand to arrange for just such an episode, and so throw the burden of responsibility on the Orangemen.

"To h.e.l.l with the Pope! To h.e.l.l with the Pope!" the voice rang out, and it had hardly ceased before the Manitou procession made a rush forward.

The apparent leader of the Manitou roughs was a blackbearded man of middle height, who spoke raucously to the crowd behind him.

Suddenly a powerful voice rang out.

"Halt, in the name of the Queen!" it called. Surprise is the very essence of successful war. The roughs of Manitou had not looked for this. They had foreseen the appearance of the official Chief Constable of Lebanon; they had expected his challenge and warning in the vernacular; but here was something which struck them with consternation--first, the giant of Manitou in the post of command, looking like some berserker; and then the formal reading of that stately doc.u.ment in the name of the Queen.

Far back in the minds of every French habitant present was the old monarchical sense. He makes, at worst, a poor anarchist, though he is a good revolutionist; and the French colonials had never been divorced from monarchical France.

In the eyes of the most forward of those on the Sagalac bridge, there was a sudden wonderment and confusion. To the dramatic French mind, ceremonial is ever welcome; and for a moment it had them in its grip, as old Gabriel Druse read out in his ringing voice, the trenchant royal summons.

It was a strange and dramatic scene--the Orange funeral standing still, garish yet solemn, with hundreds of men, rough and coa.r.s.e, quiet and refined, dissolute and careless, sober and puritanic, broad and tolerant, sharp and fanatical; the labour procession, polyglot in appearance, but with Gallic features and looseness of dress predominating; excitable, brutish, generous, cruel; without intellect, but with an intelligence which in the lowest was acute, and with temperaments responsive to drama.

As Druse read, his eyes now and then flashed, at first he knew not why, to the slim, bearded figure of the apparent leader. At length he caught the feverish eye of the man, and held it for a moment. It was familiar, but it eluded him; he could not place it.

He heard, however, Jowett's voice say to him, scarce above a whisper:

"It's Felix Marchand, boss!"

Jowett also had been puzzled at first by the bearded figure, but it suddenly flashed upon him that the beard and wig were a disguise, that Marchand had resorted to Ingolby's device. It might prove as dangerous a stratagem with him as it had to Ingolby.

There was a moment's hesitation after Druse had finished reading--as though the men of Manitou had not quite recovered from their surprise--then the man with the black beard said something to those nearest him. There was a start forward, and someone cried, "Down with the Orangemen--et bas l'Orange!"

Like a well-disciplined battalion the Orangemen rolled up quickly into a compact ma.s.s, showing that they had planned their defence well, and the moment was black with danger, when, suddenly, Druse strode forward.

Flinging right and left two or three river-drivers, he caught the man with the black beard, s.n.a.t.c.hed him out from among the oncoming crowd, and tore off the black beard and wig. Felix Marchand stood exposed.

A cry of fury rang out from the Orangemen behind, and a dozen men rushed forward, but Gabriel Druse acted with the instant decision of a real commander. Seeing that it would be a mistake to arrest Marchand at that moment, he raised the struggling figure of the wrecker above his head and, with Herculean effort, threw him up over the heads of the Frenchmen in front of him.

So extraordinary was the sight that, as if fascinated, the crowd before and behind followed the action with staring eyes and tense bodies. The faces of all the contending forces were as concentrated for the instant, as though the sun were falling out of the sky. It was so great a feat, one so much in consonance with the spirit of the frontier world, that gasps of praise broke from both crowds. As though it were a thunderbolt, the Manitou roughs standing where Marchand was like to fall, instead of trying to catch him, broke away from beneath the bundle of falling humanity, and Marchand fell on the dusty cement of the bridge with a dull thud, like a bag of bones.

For a moment there was no motion on the part of either procession.

Banners drooped and swayed as the men holding them were lost in the excitement.

Time had only been gained, however. There was no reason to think that the trouble was over, or that the special constables who had gathered close behind Gabriel Druse would not have to strike heavy blows for the cause of peace.

The sudden appearance of a new figure in the narrow, open s.p.a.ce between the factions in that momentary paralysis was not a coincidence. It was what Jowett had planned for, the factor for peace in which he most believed.

A small, spare man in a scarlet ca.s.sock, white chasuble, and black biretta, suddenly stole out from the crowd on the Lebanon side of the bridge, carrying the elements of the Ma.s.s. His face was shining white, and in the eyes was an almost unearthly fire. It was the beloved Monseigneur Lourde.

Raising the elements before him toward his own people on the bridge, he cried in a high, searching voice:

"I prayed with you, I begged you to preserve the peace. Last night I asked you in G.o.d's name to give up your disorderly purposes. I thought then I had done my whole duty; but the voice of G.o.d has spoken to me.

An hour ago I carried the elements to a dying woman here in Lebanon, and gave her peace. As I did so the funeral bell rang out, and it came to me, as though the One above had spoken, that peace would be slain and His name insulted by all of you--by all of you, Catholic and Protestant.

G.o.d's voice bade me come to you from the bed of one who has gone hence from peace to Peace. In the name of Christ, peace, I say! Peace, in the name of Christ!"

He raised the sacred vessel high above his head, so that his eyes looked through the walls of his uplifted arms. "Kneel!" he called in a clear, ringing voice which yet quavered with age.