The Traitor (Dixon, 1907)/Book 1/Chapter 6
JOHN GRAHAM, as leader of the opposition, as well as for personal reasons, was early on the grounds with half a dozen trusted lieuten—ants to watch the action of the Republican County Convention. He was curious to observe the effects of his suit on the Judge and his followers. He soon discovered that the scathing recital of fraud which he had incorporated into the form of his complaint as published in the morning's paper was a mistake. It had been accepted by the mottled crew of nondescript politicians and Negroes as proof positive of his own depravity and the Judge's spotless purity.
The Convention was seated in the open air on improvised boards. The Judge was peculiarly sensitive to the atmosphere of a crowd of Negroes. He had to associate with them to get their votes, but like all poor white men of Southern birth, he hated them without measure.
This Convention of his home county was the most important crisis in the development of his ambitions as the leader of his party in the South. He was a candidate for the United States Senate. Delegates were to be elected to-day to the state convention. Unless he could go with a united front from his home county he was doomed.
His opponent, Alexander Larkin, was the boldest, most unscrupulous, and powerful Carpetbag adventurer who had ever entered the South from the slums of the North.
Larkin had made himself the Chairman of the Republican State Executive Committee, and was running neck and neck with the Judge for the Senate. He had determined to break his opponent's backbone by capturing the whole, or at least a part of the delegates from Butler's home county. The audacity of this movement had fairly taken the Judge's breath. He halted Suggs in his thrilling pursuit of Ku Klux evidence and sent him North on an important mission. He meant to be fully prepared for any trick Larkin might spring. Suggs was bustling about among the delegates conscious that he was the trusted lieutenant of the coming man.
The Carpetbagger had so timed his anonymous letter to John Graham that the shadow of disgrace thus thrown over Butler's name would give him the balance of power. He could not foresee the chain of trivial events which would produce the terrific document John Graham had filed. Every word of its passionate arraignment had the sting of a scorpion, and its effects had been electrical. By instinct the crowd had accepted John's suit as a blow at the cause and Butler had become their champion.
As the Judge approached the crowd accompanied by Stella and Steve Hoyle, John saw with sinking heart that the first effect of his suit had been to bring Steve and Stella closer together and to dig an impassable gulf between him and the girl he had begun unconsciously to worship. She had evidently laid aside her hatred of politics and become her father's champion. And he knew that Steve Hoyle had lost no time in this crisis in poisoning her mind forever against him. In fact Steve had spent the morning by her side developing the bitter sentences in his complaint into revelations of hereditary insanity and envenomed malice.
The girl had, however, taken his statements with reservations. She would stand by her father before the world and she would publicly insult John Graham if he ever dared give her the opportunity, but deep down in her heart she half suspected the truth. The memory of the bitter feud between her mother and father over some secret connected with this estate and her father's shuffling evasions, returned to her now with startling import.
Her mother was of the old régime of the South, an aristocrat of aristocrats to her finger tips. Her people had blotted her very name from their memory for her marriage to Butler. She had fiercely resented to the day of her death this ostracism. The fear that her husband was a scoundrel, which slowly grew into a certainty in later years, at last broke her proud spirit. She gave up the struggle and died.
There were moments in which Stella felt this inherited repugnance to her father when the proud spirit of her mother's blood ruled in her soul. There were other moments when she felt the necessity of tricks and lies to make life agreeable and accepted her father as of the inevitable order of human existence.
This morning she was her father's daughter. Whether he was guilty or innocent she would show John Graham and his proud Bourbon set her contempt for them and their opinions.
As the three reached the edge of the crowd she was smiling graciously on Steve in answer to a sally of his cheap wit. She fixed John with a look of contempt and his soul grew sick with the consciousness that he had paid too great a price for his suit against the Judge. In her anger she was superb. The very air about her seemed charged with the intensity of her personality. She radiated it in every direction. It was the consciousness of this intensity of nature which drew John to her with resistless power. No other type of woman could interest him, and Stella was endowed with this subtle magnetism as no human being he had ever met. It spoke in every movement of her body, in every accent of her voice.
As she passed and turned her back on him, the sense of a hopeless and irreparable loss crushed his spirit. The words of the preacher rang in his soul, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and forfeit his life."
"What are houses and lands after all, before the elemental forces which make life worth while," he muttered. "I've an almost irresistible impulse to knock Steve Hoyle down, seize her in my arms, smother her with kisses and carry her off to some cave on a mountain! To the devil with goods and chattels, houses and lands."
With a start he came down from the clouds of fancy. She had dismissed Steve, taken the Judge's arm, and was actually going to walk down the aisle through that mob of Negroes and greasy politicians and accompany him to the platform.
When they reached the centre of the crowd, seated in semicircle about the covered speaker's stand, pandemonium broke loose. The Judge received the most remarkable ovation of his life. The throng leaped to their feet and screamed themselves horse.
"Keep your house Judge!" yelled a henchman.
"Houses were built for patriots, and jails for traitors!"
The Judge bowed and again the crowd yelled.
Larkin from the platform watched the demonstration with amazement.
"I've miscalculated. They're all thieves and scoundrels. I've made him a hero."
With a hypocritical smile he seized the Judge's hand, wrung it heartily, congratulated him, and drew him to the platform. Stella sprang lightly up after him, took a rosebud from her belt, pinned it on her father's slouchy ill-fitting broadcloth coat, kissed him and amid the cheers of the mob retraced her steps and left the ground with Steve Hoyle.
John watched her lift her parasol above her dainty head with smothered curses at his folly. He had unconsciously taken his own hat off and stood bareheaded in the broiling Southern sun of a June day. The bitterness of his mistake stirred him to more dogged persistence. With an effort he turned to the Judge and the Convention—trying in vain to shake off the impression Stella had left. But he found his mind constantly wandering from the scene. Wherever he looked, within or without, he saw the delicate oval face with those great brown eyes smiling as they did the night he met her in the hall of his old home.
At length he awoke from his reverie with his eye resting unconsciously on Larkin, the Judge's opponent. He had never seen him before, though his name had become known in every county of the state.
He was a man of more than the average height, of powerful build, high intellectual forehead, a full beard, long, silken, snow white. His hair, also long and white, was inclined to curl at the ends, and a pair of piercing black eyes looked out fearlessly from shaggy brows. He carried himself with instinctive dignity, and his whole appearance proclaimed a bold and powerful leader of men.
Rumour said that he had been a Wesleyan preacher in England but had been expelled in some factional fight and had sought his fortunes in America. Darker rumour whispered that he had a criminal record and that he had never even attained citizenship in the country of his adoption. Such rumours, however, counted for nothing in the tainted atmosphere of the riot and revolution of the Reconstruction period. From the sewers of the North, jail birds and ex-convicts had poured into the stricken South as vultures follow the wake of a victorious army.
In two years Larkin had proven himself a party leader of remarkable executive ability and on the hustings had shown himself an orator of undoubted eloquence. He was fast becoming the idol of the more daring and radical wing of his party. He boldly proclaimed and practiced Negro equality and held up to public scorn any man who dared to quibble on the issue.
So bold and radical were his utterances the Negroes were a little afraid of him. Yet he was steadily gaining in his influence over them. He knew that they constituted nine-tenths of the voting strength of the Republican party in the South, and that ultimately the man who pandered most skilfully to their passions must become master of the situation.
He had laid siege to Uncle Isaac immediately on his arrival and had played on his vanity so deftly that the Apostle of Sanctification had been completely fascinated by the Carpetbagger.
The moment Larkin's eye rested on Isaac seated in the crowd he saw in a flash the master stroke by which he could break the spell of the Judge's influence over the delegates. He quickly threaded his way to the Apostle's side and escorted him to the speakers' stand with his arm around his waist. He lifted him to the platform, forced the Judge to rise and shake hands, and seated Isaac by Butler's side. The Negroes burst into a frenzy of applause.
So elated was Isaac by his newly found honours he began to interrupt the meeting by fervid religious exclamations to the intense disgust of the Judge who squirmed, with increasing anger at each new outburst. When Isaac recognised any of his dusky acquaintances in the crowd he waved his hand and pointed his remarks in that direction.
"Yas Lawd! De year er juberlee is come, an' I'se right here!"
A loud guffaw would invariably answer his sally.
Larkin ostentatiously consulted Isaac from time to time as to the conduct of the convention and every Negro watched him spellbound.
The Judge's henchmen were dismayed at the impending stampede by the Carpetbagger. Butler had assured them the night before that they had nothing to fear from Larkin. But it was only too apparent that he had underestimated his opponent. Larkin's commanding appearance, his magnetism and eloquence, the boldness and evident sincerity of his profession of Negro equality were steadily winning adherents.
Personally the Judge cut a poor figure beside him with his slouchy ill-fitting clothes, his fawning shuffling walk, his drooping head, shifting eyes, and his vague professions of platitudes.
Butler watched Larkin's sudden growth of power with sullen rage. He had in reserve a weapon which he had found in the Carpetbagger's English career, with which he could crush him at a single blow, but he had not expected to be forced to the extreme necessity of using it. For many reasons he wished to beat Larkin in an open fight. The weapon he could use was a dangerous one. He knew that Larkin had learned the facts concerning his confiscation of the Graham estate, and he was not sure how far his resentment would go in retaliation for an attack on his personal character. But he determined to put a stop to Isaac's insolence which was rapidly becoming unendurable.
The Judge leaned over toward the enthusiastic Apostle and with a frown said:
"Shut your mouth and behave yourself!"
Isaac subsided with a look of injured innocence directed in mute appeal toward Larkin.
Again the Carpetbagger saw his opportunity. He approached Isaac, seized his hand, slipped his arm around his shoulder and whispered:
"Brother, I'm going to make a motion to amend the Judge's list of delegates by substituting six men of colour for six of the poor white men he has chosen. I'll put your name first. Will you make a speech in favour of my motion?"
"Dat I will!"
"Then repeat that story of the vision you told me last night, and apply it to the Judge—will you do it?"
"Make de movement, an' I sho' ye!" whispered Isaac.
Larkin's bold motion, a direct appeal to the Negro to use his power against the white man, took the Judge's breath. He stared at his opponent in blank amazement while Larkin smiled at him with good-natured contempt.
"And I have asked," continued the Carpetbagger, "a distinguished leader of his race, Mr. Isaac A. Postle, a constituent and neighbour of Judge Butler, to address the Convention before the motion is opened to general debate. I am sure the Convention will give its unanimous consent to hear him."
The roar of applause which greeted this remark left no doubt as to their consent. Larkin seized Isaac and drew him before the speaker's table with his arm again affectionately around him.
Isaac was in a broad grin and evidently enjoyed his honours. He cleared his throat and glanced at the Judge. The Negroes burst into roars of laughter and the Apostle lifted his hand solemnly for silence.
Butler scowled and shuffled uneasily while Larkin's face was wreathed in smiles.
"Gemmens an' feller citizens!" Isaac began with great deliberation. "I'se called by de Lawd dis mawnin' ter come up on high and expose de vision dat I seed in de dead er de night las' week. I drempt a dream. I dream dat I die and go ter heaben. An' as I wuz gwine long up de hill ter de pearly gates who should I meet comin' down de hill but our good frien' Judge Butler"
The Judge gave a sharp little angry cough, pulled his long black whiskers and crossed his legs quickly. Isaac glanced at him and walled his eyes at the dusky crowd who broke into another roar of laughter.
"Yassah!" he went on, "I met Judge Butler comin' down de hill lookin' pow'ful sad. An' he say ter me:
"'Isaac, whar ye gwine?'
"'Gwine ter heben,' sezzi.
"'Ye can't git in!' sezze.
"'Why so?' sezzi.
"'Case ye got ter be er ridin',' sezze—'I jes come down frum dar—an' hits des lak I tell ye!'
"'Is dat so?' sezzi.
"'But I tell ye what we kin do, Isaac!' sezze.
"'I'll git on yo back an' ride up to de gate, an' we bof git in."
"Dat seem all right ter me fust off so I hump mysef an' de Jedge git on my back, an' I gallup up de hill ter de pearly gates, an' de angel Gabul, he look over de fence an' say:
"'Who's dar?'
"'Hit's me, Jedge Butler,' sezze.
"'Ridin' er walkin'?' de angel say.
"'Er ridin'!' sezze.
An' I chuckled ter myse'f dat I'se er settin my feet in de gates er glory!
An' den de angel say:
"'Des hitch yer hoss outside an' come in!'
"An' bress God! ef de Jedge didn't hitch me ter de pos' on de outside an' go in an' leave me dar!"
Again the crowd screamed with laughter. Wave after wave swept them while Isaac folded his hands across his little protruding stomach and laughed with them. In vain the chairman rapped for order.
The Judge flushed red with anger and called Suggs to his side. Larkin bent low his face between his hands, convulsed with laughter.
When at length the tumult wore itself out Isaac's voice rang over the assembly in sharp vibrant triumphant tones:
"An' I moves yer, sah, dat we all unanimously second de motion er Brer Larkin!"
Amid a shout of approval he sat down.
The Carpetbagger, elated by his success, determined to make a bolder stroke, capture the entire delegation and put the Judge out of the race.
He leaped to his feet and launched at once into an eloquent appeal for the equal rights of man, meaning, of course, the right of the Negro race to tule the white man of the South, the former slave to rule his master. Bold as a lion by instinct, he did not quibble over words. He told the Negro that his hour had come to strike for his right by force of arms if need be. He denounced the Ku Klux Klan in the bitterest terms. Every Negro followed his scathing words with breathless attention. For the moment he was the veritable prophet of the Most High God. Never before had they heard any man in public dare thus to arraign this dreaded order of white and scarlet horsemen. Here was their champion whose valiant soul knew not the fear of man, ghost, clansman or devil. He was transfigured before their eyes into the white-haired prophet of the Lord, and they hung on his every word as inspired.
In another moment he would have made his motion for a solid Negro delegation and stampeded the Convention had it not been for the single burst of eloquence with which he closed his speech. Just at the moment when he held every heart in the dusky host in the hollow of his hand, he thundered:
"Against the white traitor of the South who has perpetrated these wrongs on your defenseless heads I hurl the everlasting curse of God! Only a race of dastards and cowards would thus sneak under the cover of night to strike their foes!"
He had scarcely uttered the words when Billy Graham rushed from the outer circle of the crowd where he had sauntered with Mrs. Wilson, surrounded by a dozen fun-making youngsters, and ran toward the platform.
"Wait a minute!" he said, with uplifted hand, his voice quivering with rage.
Larkin's arm dropped; he halted in amazement, every eye fixed on Billy. John Graham sprang to his feet with a muttered oath of surprise in time to see Billy square himself in front of the speaker and say:
"If you think the Southern people a race of cowards and dastards come down off that platform and knock this chip off my shoulder, you old white-livered cur!"
He placed a chip on his shoulder and strutted before Larkin. The Carpetbagger was too astonished to reply. He gazed at the boy in confusion and muttered an inarticulate protest.
Billy jumped on the platform and walked around him like a game bantam, crying:
"Knock it off—dyou! knock it off! If you want to test it! A dozen of my friends are out there, yours all around you, a hundred to one, but knock it off! knock it off!"
John Graham had reached the platform by this time, seized Billy and led him back through the crowd to Mrs. Wilson who was in hysterics, the boys vainly trying to quiet her.
"What the devil's the matter with you—have you gone crazy?" John whispered, shaking Billy fiercely. "Go home and behave yourself!"
"Attend to your own business, John Graham; I'm attending to mine!" was Billy's sullen answer. And without another word he led Mrs. Wilson away followed by his companions, while John gazed after him with increasing astonishment.
In the confusion which followed Billy's sudden challenge the Judge saw his chance. He sprang to his feet and moved to adjourn for dinner. Before Larkin could recover himself the motion was carried and the Convention adjourned.
Butler turned to the Carpetbagger and said:
"I wish to see you in my hotel immediately on a matter of the gravest importance."
"I haven't time, Judge," Larkin carelessly answered.
"I'm in no mood to be trifled with," answered the Judge.
"It's a waste of time, your Honour—you're a back number. Why should I talk with you?"
"There's one reason big enough to interest you," the Judge answered with sinister suggestion.
Larkin fixed his opponent a moment with his piercing eyes and said with contempt:
"I'll join you in a moment."
The Judge beckoned to Suggs who had hovered near, and the detective handed him a package of documents from his inside pocket. The movement was not lost on Larkin who was watching his enemy with uneasiness.
Suggs accompanied the Judge to his room at the hotel and awaited his call outside the door. Larkin looked at him with a scowl as he entered.
The Judge adjusted his slouchy coat, shufled his feet, and stroked his beard with deliberation as Larkin seated himself.
"I'm going to ask you, Larkin," he began, "to write out your resignation as Chairman of our State Executive Committee and withdraw from this race."
The Carpetbagger laughed aloud.
"Well, you are an ass, you fawning, timeserving Scalawag—what do you take me for?"
"For the criminal adventurer you are!" thundered the Judge.
"I'll not bandy words with you, Butler. I've got you now, just where I want you. Five minutes more of that Convention and you'll be a memory as a politician. You never had a principle in your life. A professed leader of the Republican party in the South composed of Negroes, you loathe the very sight of a Negro. You profess to be a Southerner, yet your ear is always to the ground to hear the slightest whisper from the lowest breed of Yankee demagogues in the North. You lie to the Negro, you lie to the Southern white man, you lie to the Yankee. You're a pusillanimous, office-seeking turncoat beneath the contempt of a man. Why did you send for me?"
"To tell you that it's time for you to move on, sit!" cried Butler with spluttering rage. "You Carpetbag vultures have winged your way into the South to tear from the loyal men of native birth the rewards of their long patriotic services. Go back to the slums and prison pens of the North where you belong!"
"What do you mean?" Larkin broke in with sudden energy.
"That you are a criminal adventurer, sir; that's what I mean!"
Larkin laughed again.
"Is that all?"
"And I have in my pocket the documents to prove that you have never acquired citizenship in the State of New York!"
"True, but irrelevant. I am a citizen now of this state under the Reconstruction Acts, and I'm going to represent the old commonwealth in the next Senate while you sink once more into the obscurity your feeble intelligence has prepared for you. Is this all you have to say?"
"No, sir, it's not!" whispered the Judge hoarsely with triumphant malice. "I have a letter in my pocket from the warden of the prison in England where you served your time, enclosing your photograph."
With a sudden cry of anguish Larkin leaped the distance separating them, gripped Butler by the throat, hurled him back in his seat, and held him strangling, spluttering, squirming in mortal terror. In a moment he released him, sank to a chair and buried his face in his hands.
"So! I am your master after all," the Judge sneered, recovering from his terror.
Larkin lifted his lion-like head a moment and looked at his opponent.
"Yes, I give up. I'll withdraw from the race if you'll keep my secret."
"I'll make no conditions with you sir; I mean to brand you a felon throughout the length and breadth of this land!"
"Not if you've an ounce of manhood in you," said the Carpetbagger with quiet dignity. "You can't do it when I tell you the truth. Fifteen years ago I was an honoured minister of the gospel in Australia. An enemy of mine in England published against me an infamous slander. I returned to ask reparation. He not only refused to give it but insulted me by a dastardly blow in a public assembly. In a moment of insane rage I returned his blow with one which resulted in his death. Four months later I found myself, a man of culture, refinement and the highest order of social talents, a convict in prison garb serving a sentence for manslaughter. I emerged more dead than alive—it was late in life, but I lifted up my head, sought a new world and began all over again. Once more I've shown my power as a leader of men. It was born in me—a God-given birthright. My hair is white now with the frost of the grave; I'm alone and friendless. Put yourself in my place. It's my last chance. You are twenty years younger. I ask your pity, your sympathy, your friendship. Come, Judge, you too are a soldier of fortune in conquered territory and have your own secrets. Fight me fair."
"I'll fight you with every weapon in my power, fair or foul. You're in my way; get out of it," sneered the Judge.
"You contemptible cur!" cried Larkin. "I could strangle you!"
"No doubt," sneered Butler. "If you dared!"
"Take care, you cowardly dog!" leaped the threat from the lips of the Carpetbagger, with a sudden flash of incontrollable rage; and again his massive figure towered over the Judge's slouching form. Butler's shifting eyes blinked in terror as he spluttered:
"I'll keep your secret on one condition!"
"What is it?" snapped Larkin.
"You're a man of genius. Use your talents for me, and we'll be friends."
"You have told no one the facts you have discovered?"
"No. Suggs knows only of the investigation as to your citizenship."
"I accept your terms," was the quiet answer.
The Convention ended in unexpected harmony, electing a solid Butler delegation. Larkin lingered in town for several days and, to the surprise and uneasiness of the Judge, stopped with Uncle Isaac in the little cottage by his gate.