The Hindered Hand Part 11

"You need no vindication. Time was when practically all Southerners were cla.s.sed together by the outside, but that day has pa.s.sed."

The two men walked back home in silence, Mr. Daleman thinking about the future of his home without Alene, and Ramon thinking of his own future home with her. When they got back to the house breakfast was ready and they were soon seated at the table.

"Tell Alene to come down. I know the child is a little shy this morning, but I must have her by my side this once more. Go for her, Arthur,"

said Mr. Daleman, Sr., to his son.

Arthur involuntarily drew back slightly at the request and his father cast an inquiring look at him.

"I hate to disturb the child's slumbers. I doubt whether she slept much last night," said Arthur, in somewhat husky tones.

"He hates to see Alene leave him," thought Mr. Daleman.

Arthur ascended the stairs and, coming to Alene's door found it slightly ajar. He knocked, but received no response. He knocked harder, then again and again. He knew that he had knocked hard enough to awaken one from sleep, so he concluded that Alene must be up and in some other part of the house. As she had left the door open, Arthur decided that the room was prepared for entering. He had a secret desire to step in and glance around the room in which, on the previous night, he stood in such imminent danger of exposure. Pus.h.i.+ng the door open, he stepped in quickly, but far more quickly stepped out, terror stricken. Upon Foresta's bed lay the beautiful Alene, her face covered with blood and her hair falling over her face, dyeing itself a crimson red.

Arthur was speechless with horror. He ran his fingers through his hair, brought his hand down over his face as if seeking by that means to clear his brain so that he could answer the question as to whether he himself had not committed the murder. Recovering his self-possession in a measure, he dragged himself down stairs to where Mr. Daleman was. There was such an awful look upon his face that Mr. Daleman was thoroughly aroused.

"What is the trouble, Arthur?" asked Mr. Daleman.

Arthur said nothing, but made a motion in the direction of the room that looked to be as much a sign of despair as of direction.

Mr. Daleman rushed up the stairway and into the room. A glance told him the awful story. The kindly light that always lingered in his eyes died out and a cold, keen glitter appeared. His form showing the slight curvature of age, now stiffened under the iron influence of his will and he stood erect. The tears tried to come, but he tossed the first away and others feared to come. No more bitter cup was ever handed man to drink; but he quaffed it, dregs and all. One awful unnamable fear, involving the motive of the crime, haunted his soul. The family physician was sent for and said tenderly, as he came from the room of the murdered girl, "It might have been worse." Through the dark sorrow of Mr. Daleman's soul there shot a gleam of joy. The two men clasped hands in silence. The horror was less.

The whole city was soon in a furor of excitement. Bloodhounds were put on the trail and about noon a Negro who had been tracked was apprehended, sitting quietly on a bridge a few miles out from the city.

He made no effort to escape, and manifested no surprise when caught.

"Have they killed anybody else?" was his first and only utterance to the officers who took him in charge. His captors did not deign to make reply. The Negro was handcuffed and led back until the party arrived at the outskirts of the city. The patrol wagon was telephoned for and the Negro was soon safe in the station house. News spread like wildfire that the criminal was in the prison and soon the street was full of thousands. A mob was formed and an a.s.sault was planned upon the prison.

The chief of police came out on the steps of the building and, with drawn pistol, declared that the majesty of the law would be maintained at all hazards. He then retired within.

Nothing daunted the mob surged forward. The chief of police came forth again and in a manner that left no room for mistake, declared that only over his dead body could they take the prisoner. His long record as a daring and faithful officer was well known and the mob now hesitated.

The sheriff of the county was out of the city at the time and one of his deputies was in charge of affairs. This deputy had been laying plans with a view to being the candidate of his party for the office of sheriff at the next election, and he fancied that he now saw an opportunity to curry favor with the ma.s.ses. He elbowed his way through the crowd and held a whispered conference with the leader of the mob.

Thereupon the leader took his place on the steps and harangued the mob as follows:

"Fellow citizens, do not despair. The voice of the people is the voice of G.o.d, and your voice shall be heard this day. I a.s.sure you of this fact. I beg of you, however, that you now disperse. You shall meet again under circ.u.mstances more favorable to your wishes."

The persons in front pa.s.sed the word along, and knowing that some better plan of action had been agreed upon, the crowd dispersed into neighboring streets.

The deputy sheriff, armed with the proper papers, appeared at the station house and demanded and secured the prisoner, as the city had no jurisdiction over murder cases. When he had proceeded about a block with his prisoner, a group of men who understood the matter raised a mighty yell. The mob which had dispersed now reformed.

The prisoner was taken from the deputy sheriff, and was hurried to the bridge connecting the two parts of the city. A rope was secured and the Negro was dropped over the side of the bridge. As his form dangled therefrom, every man in the crowd who could, and who had a pistol, leaned over the railing and fired at the Negro. The rain of bullets made the Negro's form swing to and fro. The crowd finally dispersed, leaving the body suspended from the bridge.

Gus Martin had kept up with the mob from the beginning, walking about with folded arms, betraying no trace of excitement save, perhaps, the rapid chewing of the tobacco which was in his mouth. His blood was stirred, but its Indian infusion contributed stoicism to him on this occasion.

When the whites were through with the body, Gus went to the side of the bridge and drew it up. Calling to his aid another Negro, he procured a stretcher and bore the body to Bud Harper's home.

CHAPTER XVI.

_An Eager Searcher._

Up and down the street on which he lived, Ramon Mansford, the affianced of Alene Daleman, walked as one in a trance. Night was coming and as the shadows deepened the bitterness deepened in his soul.

"Think of it! my father sleeps in an unmarked grave somewhere in the South, and I know that the hope of freeing the slave actuated him to enlist in the army. For the Negro, my father buried his sword to the hilt in the blood of his Southern brother and in turn received a thrust, all for a race from which this vile miscreant has crept to murder Alene, my Alene."

In the darkness of his own calamity distinctions between right and wrong began to fade away, and he found his hatred of the Negro race a.s.suming a more violent form than that manifested by the native Southerner. In his heart there was the harking back to times more than a thousand years ago--to times when his race was a race of exterminators. At this particular time it seemed to him that nothing would have suited him better than to have taken the lead of forces bent on driving every black face from the land. Now and then he would pause and ask himself:

"Is all this horror true? Is the sweet Alene gone? Was the dear one foully murdered while I slept? Great G.o.d of heaven, can all this be true? Must I go through life unsupported by the brave heart of Alene on which I was depending for strength to conquer worlds?"

He sat down upon the curbstone and buried his face in his hands.

About twelve o'clock that night a Negro woman came rus.h.i.+ng along at full speed. Ramon seized her and she uttered a loud scream, falling in a helpless heap at his feet. With a tight grip on her arm he said,

"Have you, too, blighted somebody's happiness? Have you murdered some one?"

With terror stricken eyes the woman looked up into his face and said, "Mistah, please lemme go, please sah!"

"What have you done?" sternly asked Ramon.

"Nothin' sah," said she. "I'se been roun' ter Dilsy Harper's, settin' up ovah Bud Harper's daid body, whut wuz sent home frum de bridge. Wal, sah, ez shuah ez dis here chile is bawn ter die, while we wuz settin' up ovah Bud's body, Bud hisself walked in. We looked at Bud, den at de body, en we wuz skeert ter death. Den de livin' Bud, went up an looked down on de daid Bud, and de daid Bud skeert de livin' Bud, and de livin'

Bud fairly flew outen dat house. Den, bless yer soul, honey, dat ole house wuz soon empty."

This weird tale furnished the needed diversion to Ramon's overburdened mind. His thoughts began to run in another direction.

"Was the mob mistaken? Is the man thought to have been killed yet alive?

If one mistake has been made, who can say that two haven't been made? Is her real murderer yet alive?"

Such were the thoughts that went cras.h.i.+ng through Ramon's mind and his grip on the woman's arm slackened. The woman wrenched herself loose and continued her journey with increased speed.

As late as it was Ramon hurried to the Harpers' home and found the Negroes standing about at a distance from the house, discussing the sudden reappearance and disappearance of Bud Harper, when there, all agreed, lay Bud before their very eyes.

Ramon returned to his home strangely becalmed, and though late in the night he sat down and wrote the following letter to his home in the North.

"MY DEAR NORFLEET: I am in the throes of an overwhelming sorrow. My Alene has been foully murdered. A mystery surrounds the case. We cannot fathom the motive of the crime. To-day (rather yesterday now, for it is two o'clock in the morning) a man accused of murdering her was lynched. To-night the man who was supposed to have been lynched made his appearance at his home. But the mother sticks to it that the real murderer, her son, is the corpse, and appearances seem to bear out the contention. Now it may be that Alene's murderer is yet alive and that an injustice has been wrought upon somebody. My heart is more firmly knit to my Southern white brethren than ever before. I fling ambition to the winds. Tell my friends that I shall not make the race for Congress, and thank them for me for the way in which they have always seconded my aspirations. It pains me much to not be in a position to attempt to scale the heights which their loving hearts fancied I could make with ease. I shall walk with my kith and kin of the South in the shadow, for in the furnace of a common sorrow, my heart has been melted into one with theirs. We of the South (you see I call myself one of them), know not what the future has in store for our beloved section, but we face the ordeal with the grim determination of our race. If you believe in prayer, pray that I may be just and may even in darkness do the right.

"RAMON, 'THE MAD.'"

When Alene had been laid to rest, Ramon, after lingering in Almaville for a few weeks, disappeared completely, leaving behind no trace of himself. He had previously given Mr. Daleman and friends a.s.surances that he would do no violence to himself. So while they knew not where he was nor what was his mission, they were not unduly apprehensive as to his welfare.

Ramon Mansford had simply stained himself a chocolate brown and had thus pa.s.sed from the Anglo-Saxon to the Negro race. He had gone to fathom the mystery of Alene's murder.

CHAPTER XVII.

_Peculiar Divorce Proceedings._