"Did she tell you that?" he asked quizzically.
"Yes, and I"m sorry for her. She wants a good home among decent white people and I"m not going to give her up. I don"t care what you say."
The husband ignored the finality of this decision and went on with his argument as though she had not spoken.
"Old Peeler is not only a low white scoundrel who would marry this girl"s mulatto mother if he dared, but he is trying to break into politics as a negro champion. He denies it, but he is a henchman of the Governor. I"m in a fight with this man to the death. There"s not room for us both in the state----"
"And you think this laughing child cares anything about the Governor or his dirty politics? Such a thing has never entered her head."
"I"m not sure of that."
"You"re crazy, Dan."
"But I"m not so crazy, my dear, that I can"t see that this girl"s presence in our house is dangerous. She already knows too much about my affairs--enough, in fact, to endanger my life if she should turn traitor."
"But she won"t tell, I tell you--she"s loyal--I"d trust her with my life, or yours, or the baby"s, without hesitation. She proved her loyalty to me and to you last night."
"Yes, and that"s just why she"s so dangerous." He spoke slowly, as if talking to himself. "You can"t understand, dear, I am entering now the last phase of a desperate struggle with the little Scalawag who sits in the Governor"s chair for the mastery of this state and its life. The next two weeks and this election will decide whether white civilization shall live or a permanent negroid mongrel government, after the pattern of Haiti and San Domingo, shall be established. If we submit, we are not worth saving.
We ought to die and our civilization with us! We are not going to submit, we are not going to die, we are going to win. I want you to help me now by getting rid of this girl."
"I won"t give her up. There"s no sense in it. A man who fought four years in the war is not afraid of a laughing girl who loves his baby and his wife! I can"t risk a green, incompetent girl in the nursery now. I can"t think of breaking in a new one. I like Cleo. She"s a breath of fresh air when she comes into my room; she"s clean and neat; she sings beautifully; her voice is soft and low and deep; I love her touch when she dresses me; the baby worships her--is all this nothing to you?"
"Is my work nothing to you?" he answered soberly.
"Bah! It"s a joke! Your work has nothing to do with this girl. She knows nothing, cares nothing for politics--it"s absurd!"
"My dear, you must listen to me now----"
"I won"t listen. I"ll have my way about my servants. It"s none of your business. Look after your politics and let the nursery alone!"
"Please be reasonable, my love. I a.s.sure you I"m in dead earnest. The danger is a real one, or I wouldn"t ask this of you--please----"
"No--no--no--no!" she fairly shrieked.
His voice was very quiet when he spoke at last:
"I"m sorry to cross you in this, but the girl must leave to-night."
The tones of his voice and the firm snap of his strong jaw left further argument out of the question and the little woman played her trump card.
She sprang to her feet, pale with rage, and gave way to a fit of hysteria.
He attempted to soothe her, in grave alarm over the possible effects on her health of such a temper.
With a piercing scream she threw herself across the bed and he bent over her tenderly:
"Please, don"t act this way!"
Her only answer was another scream, her little fists opening and closing like a bird"s talons gripping the white counterpane in her trembling fingers.
The man stood in helpless misery and sickening fear, bent low and whispered:
"Please, please, darling--it"s all right--she can stay. I won"t say another word. Don"t make yourself ill. Please don"t!"
The sobbing ceased for a moment, and he added:
"I"ll go into the nursery and send her here to put you to bed."
He turned to the door and met Cleo entering.
"Miss Jean called me?" she asked with a curious smile playing about her greenish eyes.
"Yes. She wishes you to put her to bed."
The girl threw him a look of triumphant tenderness and he knew that she had heard and understood.
CHAPTER VIII
A NEW WEAPON
From the moment the jail doors opened the Governor felt the chill of defeat. With his armed guard of fifty thousand "Loyal" white men he hoped to stem the rising tide of Anglo-Saxon fury. But the hope was faint. There was no a.s.surance in its warmth. Every leader he had arrested without warrant and held without bail was now a firebrand in a powder magazine.
Ma.s.s meetings, barbecues and parades were scheduled for every day by his enemies in every county.
The state was ablaze with wrath from the mountains to the sea. The orators of the white race spoke with tongues of flame.
The record of negro misrule under an African Legislature was told with brutal detail and maddening effects. The state treasury was empty, the school funds had been squandered, millions in bonds had been voted and stolen and the thieves had fled the state in terror.
All this the Governor knew from the first, but he also knew that an ignorant negro majority would ask no questions and believe no evil of their allies.
The adventurers from the North had done their work of alienating the races with a thoroughness that was nothing short of a miracle. The one man on earth who had always been his best friend, every negro now held his bitterest foe. He would consult his old master about any subject under the sun and take his advice against the world except in politics. He would come to the back door, beg him for a suit of clothes, take it with joyous thanks, put it on and march straight to the polls and vote against the hand that gave it.
He asked no questions as to his own ticket. It was all right if it was against the white man of the South. The few Scalawags who trained with negroes to get office didn"t count.
The negro had always despised such trash. The Governor knew his solid black const.i.tuency would vote like sheep, exactly as they were told by their new teachers.
But the nightmare that disturbed him now, waking or dreaming, was the fear that this full negro vote could not be polled. The daring speeches by the enraged leaders of the white race were inflaming the minds of the people beyond the bounds of all reason. These leaders had sworn to carry the election and dared the Governor to show one of his scurvy guards near a polling place on the day they should cast their ballots.
The Ku Klux Klan openly defied all authority. Their men paraded the county roads nightly and ended their parades by lining their hors.e.m.e.n in cavalry formation, galloping through the towns and striking terror to every denizen of the crowded negro quarters.
In vain the Governor issued frantic appeals for the preservation of the sanct.i.ty of the ballot. His speeches in which he made this appeal were openly hissed.
The ballot was no longer a sacred thing. The time was in American history when it was the badge of citizen kingship. At this moment the best men in the state were disfranchised and hundreds of thousands of negroes, with the instincts of the savage and the intelligence of the child, had been given the ballot. Never in the history of civilization had the ballot fallen so low in any republic. The very atmosphere of a polling place was a stench in the nostrils of decent men.
The determination of the leaders of the Klan to clear the polls by force if need be was openly proclaimed before the day of election. The philosophy by which they justified this stand was simple, and unanswerable, for it was founded in the eternal verities. Men are not made free by writing a const.i.tution on a piece of paper. Freedom is inside. A ballot is only a symbol. That symbol stands for physical force directed by the highest intelligence. The ballot, therefore, is force--physical force. Back of every ballot is a bayonet and the red blood of the man who holds it.
Therefore, a minority submits to the verdict of a majority at the polls. If there is not an intelligent, powerful fighting unit back of the sc.r.a.p of paper that falls into a box, there"s nothing there and that man"s ballot has no more meaning than if it had been deposited by a trained pig or a dog.