Doctor Cameron leaped forward and beat them off:
"Men! Men! You must not kill him in this condition!"
Some of the white figures had fallen prostrate on the ground, sobbing in a frenzy of uncontrollable emotion. Some were leaning against the walls, their faces buried in their arms.
Again old McAllister was on his knees crying over and over again:
"G.o.d have mercy on my people!"
When at length quiet was restored, the negro was revived, and again bound, blindfolded, gagged, and thrown to the ground before the Grand Cyclops.
A sudden inspiration flashed in Doctor Cameron"s eyes. Turning to the figure with yellow sash and double cross he said:
"Issue your orders and despatch your courier to-night with the old Scottish rite of the Fiery Cross. It will send a thrill of inspiration to every clansman in the hills."
"Good--prepare it quickly!" was the answer.
Doctor Cameron opened his medicine case, drew the silver drinking-cover from a flask, and pa.s.sed out of the cave to the dark circle of blood still shining in the sand by the water"s edge. He knelt and filled the cup half full of the crimson grains, and dipped it into the river. From a saddle he took the lightwood torch, returned within, and placed the cup on the boulder on which the Grand Cyclops had sat. He loosed the bundle of lightwood, took two pieces, tied them into the form of a cross, and laid it beside a lighted candle near the silver cup.
The silent figures watched his every movement. He lifted the cup and said:
"Brethren, I hold in my hand the water of your river bearing the red stain of the life of a Southern woman, a priceless sacrifice on the altar of outraged civilization. Hear the message of your chief."
The tall figure with the yellow sash and double cross stepped before the strange altar, while the white forms of the clansmen gathered about him in a circle. He lifted his cap, and laid it on the boulder, and his men gazed on the flushed face of Ben Cameron, the Grand Dragon of the Realm.
He stood for a moment silent, erect, a smouldering fierceness in his eyes, something cruel and yet magnetic in his alert bearing.
He looked on the prostrate negro lying in his uniform at his feet, seized the cross, lighted the three upper ends and held it blazing in his hand, while, in a voice full of the fires of feeling, he said:
"Men of the South, the time for words has pa.s.sed, the hour for action has struck. The Grand Turk will execute this negro to-night and fling his body on the lawn of the black Lieutenant-Governor of the State."
The Grand Turk bowed.
"I ask for the swiftest messenger of this Den who can ride till dawn."
The man whom Doctor Cameron had already chosen stepped forward:
"Carry my summons to the Grand t.i.tan of the adjoining province in North Carolina whom you will find at Hambright. Tell him the story of this crime and what you have seen and heard. Ask him to report to me here the second night from this, at eleven o"clock, with six Grand Giants from his adjoining counties, each accompanied by two hundred picked men. In olden times when the Chieftain of our people summoned the clan on an errand of life and death, the Fiery Cross, extinguished in sacrificial blood, was sent by swift courier from village to village. This call was never made in vain, nor will it be to-night, in the new world. Here, on this spot made holy ground by the blood of those we hold dearer than life, I raise the ancient symbol of an unconquered race of men----"
High above his head in the darkness of the cave he lifted the blazing emblem----
"The Fiery Cross of old Scotland"s hills! I quench its flames in the sweetest blood that ever stained the sands of Time."
He dipped its ends in the silver cup, extinguished the fire, and handed the charred symbol to the courier, who quickly disappeared.
CHAPTER III
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
The discovery of the Captain of the African Guards lying in his full uniform in Lynch"s yard send a thrill of terror to the triumphant leagues.
Across the breast of the body was pinned a sc.r.a.p of paper on which was written in red ink the letters K. K. K. It was the first actual evidence of the existence of this dreaded order in Ulster county.
The First Lieutenant of the Guards a.s.sumed command and held the full company in their armoury under arms day and night. Beneath his door he had found a notice which was also nailed on the courthouse. It appeared in the Piedmont _Eagle_ and in rapid succession in every newspaper not under negro influence in the State. It read as follows:
"HEADQUARTERS OF REALM NO 4.
"DREADFUL ERA, BLACK EPOCH, "HIDEOUS HOUR.
"GENERAL ORDER NO. I.
"The Negro Militia now organized in this State threatens the extinction of civilization. They have avowed their purpose to make war upon and exterminate the Ku Klux Klan, an organization which is now the sole guardian of Society. All negroes are hereby given forty-eight hours from the publication of this notice in their respective counties to surrender their arms at the courthouse door. Those who refuse must take the consequences.
"By order of the G. D. of Realm No. 4.
"By the Grand Scribe."
The white people of Piedmont read this notice with a thrill of exultant joy. Men walked the streets with an erect bearing which said without words:
"Stand out of the way."
For the first time since the dawn of Black Rule negroes began to yield to white men and women the right of way on the streets.
On the day following, the old Commoner sent for Phil.
"What is the latest news?" he asked.
"The town is in a fever of excitement--not over the discovery in Lynch"s yard--but over the blacker rumour that Marion and her mother committed suicide to conceal an a.s.sault by this fiend."
"A trumped-up lie," said the old man emphatically.
"It"s true, sir. I"ll take Doctor Cameron"s word for it."
"You have just come from the Camerons?"
"Yes."
"Let it be your last visit. The Camerons are on the road to the gallows, father and son. Lynch informs me that the murder committed last night, and the insolent notice nailed on the courthouse door, could have come only from their brain. They are the hereditary leaders of these people. They alone would have the audacity to fling this crime into the teeth of the world and threaten worse. We are face to face with Southern barbarism.
Every man now to his own standard! The house of Stoneman can have no part with midnight a.s.sa.s.sins."
"Nor with black barbarians, father. It is a question of who possesses the right of life and death over the citizen, the organized virtue of the community, or its organized crime. You have mistaken for death the patience of a generous people. We call ourselves the champions of liberty.
Yet for less than they have suffered, kings have lost their heads and empires perished before the wrath of freemen."
"My boy, this is not a question for argument between us," said the father with stern emphasis. "This conspiracy of terror and a.s.sa.s.sination threatens to shatter my work to atoms. The election on which turns the destiny of Congress, and the success or failure of my life, is but a few weeks away. Unless this foul conspiracy is crushed, I am ruined, and the Nation falls again beneath the heel of a slaveholders" oligarchy."
"Your nightmare of a slaveholders" oligarchy does not disturb me."