"I ought not to have told you this, ma"am," said Blount, rising. "But then, maybe it"s just as well that I did. You never can tell what will come out of these things. We live over a black volcano in this country all the time. Now, I didn"t bring in either one of my prisoners. I hoped that maybe they would take this fence rail argument as a sort of temporary equivalent to a term in jail. But to- morrow I"m going down in there and bring that Sands boy in. We never dare give an inch in a matter of this kind."
"Do you think they will make any trouble?" said Mrs. Ellison.
"Never you mind about the _trouble_ part of it," said Blount, quietly.
"I reckon he"ll come in. I"m going to take a _wagon_ this time. So that"s the kind of luck we had on this b"ah hunt."
He arose to go, and left Mrs. Ellison sitting still in the shaded room, her fan now at rest, her eyes bent down thoughtfully, but her foot tapping at the floor. The incidents just related pa.s.sed quickly from her mind. She remembered only that, as they talked, this man"s eye had wandered from her own. He was occupied with problems of politics, of business, of sport, and was letting go that great game for a strong man, the game of love! She could scarce tell at the moment whether she most felt for him contempt or hatred--or something far different from either.
At length she arose and paced the room, swiftly as the press of strange events which were hurrying her along. Indeed, she might, without any great shrewdness, have found warning in certain things happening of late in and around the Big House; but Alice Ellison ever most loved her own fancy as counsel. The blacks might rise if they liked; Miss Lady might do as she listed, after all. Delphine and young Decherd might go their several ways; but as for her, and as for this man Calvin Blount--ah, well!
She yawned and stretched out her arms, feline, easy, graceful, and so at length sank into her easy chair, half purring as she shifted now and again to a more comfortable position.
CHAPTER VI
THE DRUM
John Eddring, the heat of his late encounter past, sat moodily staring out from the platform of the little station to which he had returned. He was angry with all the world, and angry with himself most of all. It had been his duty to deal amicably with a man of the position of Colonel Calvin Blount, yet how had he comported himself?
Like a school-boy! But for that he might have been the accepted guest now, there at the Big House, instead of being the only man ever known to turn back upon its door. But for his sudden choler, he reflected, he might perhaps at this very moment be within seeing and speaking distance of this tall girl of the scarlet ribbons, the very same whose presence he had vaguely felt about the place all that morning, in the occasional sound of a distant song, or the rush of feet upon the gallery, or the whisk of skirts frequently heard. The memory of that picture clung fast and would not vanish. She was so very beautiful, he reflected. It had been pleasanter to sit at table in such company than thus here alone, hungry, like an outcast.
He felt his gaze, like that of a love-sick boy, turning again and again toward the spot where he had seen her last. The realization of this angered him. He rebuked himself sternly, as having been unworthy of himself, as having been light, as having been unmanly, in thus allowing himself to be influenced by a mere irrational fancy. He summoned his strength to banish this chimera, and then with sudden horror which sent his brow half-moist, he realized that his faculties did not obey, that he was thinking of the same picture, that his eyes were still coveting it, his heart--ah, could there be truth in these stories of sudden and uncontrollable impulses of the heart? The very whisper of it gave him terror. His brow grew moister. For him, John Eddring--what could the world hold for him but this one thing of duty?
Duty! He laughed at the thought. These two iron bands before his eyes irked his soul, binding him, as they did, hard and fast to another world full of unwelcome things. There came again and again to his mind this picture of the maid with the bright ribbons. He gazed at the distant spot beneath the evergreens where he had seen her. He could picture so distinctly her high-headed carriage, the straight gaze of her eyes, the glow on her cheeks; could restore so clearly the very sweep of the dark hair tumbled about her brow. Smitten of this sight, he would fain have had view again. Alas! it was as when, upon a crowded street, one gazes at the pa.s.sing figure of him whose presence smites with the swift call of friendship--and turns, only to see this unknown friend swallowed up in the crowd for ever. Thus had pa.s.sed the view of this young girl of the Big House; and there remained no sort of footing upon which he could base a hope of a better fortune. Henceforth he must count himself apart from all Big House affairs. He was an outcast, a pariah. Disgusted, he rose from his rude seat at the window ledge and walked up the platform. He found it too sunny, and returned to take a seat again upon a broken truck near by.
There was a little country store close to the platform, so built that it almost adjoined the ware-room of the railway station; this being the place where the colored folk of the neighborhood purchased their supplies. At the present moment, this building seemed to lack much of its usual occupancy, yet there arose, now and again, sounds of low conversation partly audible through the open window. The voices were those of negroes, and they spoke guardedly, but eagerly, with some peculiar quality in their speech which caught the sixth sense of the Southerner, accustomed always to living upon the verge of a certain danger. The fact that they were speaking thus in so public a place, and at the mid-hour of the working day, was of itself enough to attract the attention of any white dweller of that region.
"I tell yuh," said one, "it"s gone fah "nough. Who runs de fahms, who makes de cotton, who does de wu"k for all dis heah lan"? Who used to run de gov"ment, and who orter now, if it ain"t us black folks? Dey throw us out, an" dey won"t let us vote, an" we-all know we gotter right to vote. Dey say a n.i.g.g.e.r ain"t fitten ter do nothin" but wu"k, wu"k, wu"k. n.i.g.g.e.r got good a right to live de way he want ter as de white man is. Now it"s time fer change. De Queen, you-all knows, she done say de time come fer a change."
A low growl, as from the throats of feeding beasts, greeted this comment. Footfalls, shuffling, approached the speaker.
"Tom Sands is daid, dat"s whut he is," resumed the first speaker, "leastways as good as daid, "cause he"s just a-layin" thah an" kain"t move er speak. An" look at me, look at my haid. De ol" man hit him pow"ful hahd, an" ef he didn"t hit me jest de same, it wasn"t no fault o" his"n, I tell you. He jes" soon killed bof of us n.i.g.g.e.rs thah as not. Whaffor? He want we-all to come inter town an" git fined, git into jail ag"in." More growls than one greeted this, and then there came silence for a while.
"My ol" daddy done tol" me twenty-five yeah ago," said the first speaker, "dat de time was a-goin" ter come. Dey wus onct a white man f"om up Norf come all over dis country, fifty yeah ago, an" he preached it ter de n.i.g.g.e.rs befo" de wah dat some day de time gwine come. We wus ter raise up all over the Souf an" kill all de white folks, an" den all de white women--
"We wus ter kill all de white men," at length resumed the same voice.
"De white men f"om de Norf wus ter ride intoe de towns den an" rob all de banks an" divide de money wid we-all, an" dey wus to open de sto"s and give ebery n.i.g.g.e.r all de goods he want wifout paying nuthin" fer "em; and den n.i.g.g.e.r ain"t gwine to wu"k no mo".
"Dat white man and his folks, my ol" daddy said, fifty yeah ago, dey wu"k secret all over the Souf, from Tenn"ssee ter Louisian". Dat was fifty yeah ago, but my ol" daddy say when he was a piccaninny, dis heah thing got out somehow an" de white folks down Souf dey cotch dis white man f"om de Norf, an" done hang him, an" dey done hang and burn a heap o" n.i.g.g.e.rs all over de Souf.
"Dat wus long time befo" de wah. Dey tol" us-all dat de time wuz sho"
comin" den; but den de preachers and de doctors dey tol" us-all it mightn"t be come den, but it would come some day. Den "long come de wah, an" de preachers an" de doctors an" de white folks up Norf dey done tol" us, n.i.g.g.e.r gwine ter be free, not to have ter wu"k no mo".
Huh! Now look at us! We wu"k jest as hard as we ever did, an" we git no mo" fer it dan whut we eat an" weah. We kain"t vote. Dey done robbed us outen dat. We kain"t be n.o.body. We kain"t git "long. We hatter wu"k jest same, wu"k, wu"k, wu"k, all de time. n.i.g.g.e.r jest as well be daid as hatter wu"k all de time--got no vote, ner nuthin".
Dat"s whut de Queen she done tol" me right plain las" meetin" we had.
She say white folks up Norf gwine to help n.i.g.g.e.r now, right erlong.
Things gwine be different now, right soon."
Murmurs, singularly stirring, peculiarly ominous, answered this extended speech. Encouraged, the orator went on. "We ain"t good as slaves, we-all ain"t. We wu"k jest ez hahd. Dey gin us a taste o" de white bread, an" den dey done s.n.a.t.c.h it "way f"om us. We want ter be like white folks. Up Norf dey tell us we gwine ter be, but down heah dey won"t let us."
Now suddenly the voice broke into a wail and rose again in a half- chant. Evidently the storekeeper was absent, perhaps across the way for his dinner. The building was left to the blacks. Without premeditation, those present had dropped into one of those "meetings"
which white men of that region never encourage.
"Dey brung us heah in chains, O Lord!" shouted the orator. "Yea, in chains dey done weigh us down! O Lord, make us delivery. O Lord, smite down ouah oppressohs."
"Lord! Lord! yea, O Lord, smite down!" responded the ready chorus.
And there were sobs and strange savage gutterals which no white ear may ever fully understand. The white listener on the station platform understood enough, and his eager face grew tense and grave. A meeting of the blacks, thus bold at such a time, meant nothing but danger, perhaps danger immediate and most serious.
The wild chant rose and fell in a sudden gust, and then the voice went on. "De time is heah; I seen it in a dream, I seen it in a vision f"om de Lord. De Lord done tell it to de Queen, and done say ter me, "Rise, rise and slay mightily. Take de land o" de oppressoh, take his women away f"om him an" lay de oppressoh in de dus"! Cease dy labors, Gideon, cease an" take dy rest! Enter into de lan", O Gideon, an" take it foh dyself! O, Lord, give us de arm of de Avengeh. I seen it, I seen it on de sky! I done seen it foh yeahs, an" now I seen it plain! De moon have it writ on her face las" night, de birds sing it in de trees, de chicken act it in his talk dis vehy mawnin". De dog he howl it out las" night. De sun he show it plain dis vehy day. De trees say it, now weeks an" weeks. All de worl" say to n.i.g.g.e.r now, jes" like he heah it fifty yeah ago, jes" like he heah it in de wah we made--"De Time, de Time!" I heah it in my ears. I kain"t heah nuthin" else but dat--"De Time, de Time am heah!" Nuthin"
but jes" dis heah, "De Time, de Time am heah!""
And now there ensued a yet stranger thing. There was no further voice of the orator; but thee arose a wild, plaintive sound of chanting, a song which none but those who sang it might have understood. Its savage unison rose and fell for just one bar or so, and then sank to sudden silence. There came a quick shuffling of feet in separation.
The group fell apart. The store was empty! Out in the open air, under the warm summons of the sun, there pa.s.sed a merry, laughing group of negroes, happy, care-free, each humming the burden of some simple song, each slouching across the road, as though ease and the warm sun filled all his soul! Dissimulation and secretiveness, seeded in savagery, nourished in oppression, ingrained in the soul for generations, are part of a nature as opaque to the average Caucasian eye as is the sable skin of Africa itself.
They scattered, but a keen eye followed them. Eddring saw that they began to come together again at different points, group joining group, and all bending their steps toward the edge of the surrounding forest. Had the owner of the Big House, or any planter thereabout, seen this gathering at the midday hour, when the people should have been at their work, he would a.s.suredly have stopped them and made sharp questioning. But at the moment the storekeeper was at home asleep in his noonday nap; the owner of the Big House had problems of his own, and, as it chanced, none of the neighboring planters was at the railroad station. John Eddring, now fully alert, looked sharply about him, then slipped down from the railway platform. He crossed a little field by a faint path, and hurried off to the shadow of the woods, his course paralleling the forest road as nearly as might be.
At half-past three that afternoon, at a point five miles from the railway station, there was enacted a scene which might more properly have claimed as its home a country far distant from this. Yet there was something fitting in this environment. All around swept the heavy, solemn forest, its giant oaks draped here and there with the funereal Spanish moss. A ghostly sycamore, a mammoth gum-tree now and then thrust up a giant head above the lesser growth. Smaller trees, the ash, the rough hickory, the hack-berry, the mulberry, and in the open glades the slender persimmon and the stringy southern birches crowded close together. Over all swept the ma.s.ses of thick cane growth, interlaced with tough vines of grape and creeping, thorned briers. It was the jungle. This might have been Africa itself!
And it might have been Africa itself which produced the sound that now broke upon the ear--a deep, single, booming note which caused the brooding air of the ancient wood to shiver as though in apprehension.
There had been faint forest sounds before that note broke out: the small birds running up and down the tree-trunks had chirped and chattered faintly; the squirrels on the nut trees had dropped some bits of bark which rustled faintly as they fell from leaf to leaf; a rabbit ambling across the way had left a vine a-tremble as it disappeared, and a far-off crow had uttered its hoa.r.s.e note as it alighted on a naked limb. But as this deep, reverberant, single note boomed out across the jungle, there came a sudden hush of all nature.
It was as though each living thing caught terror at the sound. Only far above, as though they heard a summons, the black-winged buzzards idly circled over.
The note came again, single, deep, vibrant, smiting a world gone silent. There had been the interval of a full minute between the two echoes of the giant drum. A minute followed before it spoke again.
And thus there boomed out across the jungle, deep, solemn, ominous, miles-wide in its far-reaching quality, this note of the savage drum; the drum never made by white hands, never seen by the eyes of white men; the drum whose note has never yet been heard in the North, but which some day, perhaps, may be; whose note is not yet understood by those of the North, over-wise, arrogant in the arrogance of an utter ignorance, who may yet one day hear its strange and frenzied summons!
The drum spoke on--the drum of the savage people, of the ancient savage tribes. The rolling vibration of its speech swung and extended, causing the leaves to shiver in its strange power. The sound could have been heard for miles--was heard for miles. Slipping down the little leafy paths in the cane, pushing along the edges of the highway for a time, ready to step out of sight upon the instant did occasion arise for concealment; coming down the paths made by deer and bear and panther; moving slowly but speedily and with confidence through this cover of vine and jungle, to which the black man takes by instinct, but which is never really understood by the white man; knowing the secrets of this savage wilderness, yielding to its summons and to this summons of the compelling drum, whose note shivered and throbbed through all the heavy air of the afternoon-- these people, these inhabitants of the jungle, slipped and slunk and hesitated and came on, until at last this little, secret, unknown building which served as their hidden temple was fairly packed with them; and a circle, open-eared, alert for any sudden danger, made a human framing half-hidden in the shrouding of the mighty canes.
One blast of the horn of white hunter or of chance traveler, and the spot had been deserted on the instant, its peopling vanished beyond discovery. But there was no horn of hunter, no sound even of tinkling cow-bell, no voice of youth in song or conversation. Only the sound of the great drum, the drum made years ago and hidden in a spot known to few, spoke out its sullen summons, slowly, in savage deliberation.
Its sound had a carrying quality of its own, unknown in white men"s instruments. It was heard at the Big House, five miles away, though it was not recognized as an actual and distinct sound, white ears not being attuned to it. Even here at the hidden temple it seemed not more than the whisper of a sound, scarce louder than it appeared miles away. It was bell and drum in one, and trump of doom as well.
The drum spoke on, the drum of the jungle. It whispered of revenge to those who crept up to the dusky drummer and stood waiting to drink in at each long interval this deep intoxicating stimulus, the note of the priestly drum. And each deep throb of the drum carried a greater frenzy, a frenzy still suppressed, yet mysteriously growing. The riot of the ominous clanging sank into the blood of these people, though still it only caused them to shiver and now and then to sob--to sob!
these giants, these tremendous human beings, these black or bronze t.i.tans of the field, transplanted--in time, perhaps, to have their vengeance of the ages! They stood, their eyes rolling, their mouths slavering slightly, the muscles of their shoulders now and again rolling or relaxing, their hands coming tight together, palm smitten to palm, jaw clenched hard upon its fellow.
The drum spoke on. Inside the low log building certain preparations progressed, mummeries peculiar to the tribesmen, not to be described, strange, grotesque, sickening, horrible. A few donned fantastic uniforms cut out from colored oil-cloths. They placed upon their heads plumed hats of shapes such as white men do not create. They buckled about their bodies belts spangled with bits of shining things such as white men do not wear. They drew slowly together and pa.s.sed apart. They seated themselves now, in long rows, upon logs hewn out as benches, on either side of the long room; but restless of this, they rose again and again to pace, walking, walking, uneasy, anxious.
Now and then an arm was flung up. Outside, where ranks of eyes gazed unwinking, hypnotized, upon the door of the temple, there rose no sound save now and then this strange sobbing.
And still the drum throbbed on, the drum of the jungle, whose sound not all white men have heard as yet. The forest shivered across its miles of matted growth, as it heard the growling voice which called, "The Time! The Time!" Relentless, measured, so spoke the savage drum.
CHAPTER VII
THE BELL
Meanwhile at the Big House there was no suspicion of what was going forward in the forest beyond; indeed the occupants had certain problems of their own to absorb them. A strange unrest seemed in possession of the place. Decherd had disappeared for a time. Mrs.