The Traitor (Dixon, 1907)/Book 3/Chapter 2
AN IMMENSE crowd had gathered at the hotel awaiting John's arrival. The news of his arrest had stirred the town to feverish excitement.
Without turning to the right or left, or answering a look of recognition, he marched between two soldiers through the mass of men and boys in the office and climbed the stairs to the rooms of the United States Commissioner who was waiting to receive him.
The Commissioner handed him the warrant and he merely glanced at its title:
"The United States versus John Graham
Conspiracy and Murder"
"I shall hold you without bail, Mr. Graham," said the Commissioner.
John merely nodded his head.
"To the county jail, sergeant!"
The soldiers turned and John descended the stairs, and again passed through the crowd, his head erect, his face an immovable mask.
In fifteen minutes the heavy bolt shot into place and he was a prisoner awaiting trial for life, locked in a filthy cell of the common jail of the county of Independence.
He had often been to this jail as a lawyer to interview prisoners whom he had defended at various times, but he had paid no attention to the building. The complaints of the discomforts of the jail he had always taken as a humorous contribution to life.
He was amazed to discover that the place into which he had been suddenly thrust was an inner room opening into a corridor with no means of light or ventilation save the single iron-grilled door—a veritable hell-hole whose heat was so stifling and air so foul with disgusting odours he could scarcely breathe. By the rays of the little kerosene lamp which hung in the corridor, flickering, sputtering and stinking, he saw that there was not a trace of furniture in the room, not even a pile of straw on which to sleep. The floor had evidently not been swept in a year, the dust lay in piles, and the room had just been vacated by four perspiring Negro convicts who had been removed to the penitentiary to serve sentences for burglary, arson and murder.
It was impossible to sit down, it was unthinkable to lie down, and so for five hours back and forth he walked the length of his cell like a caged panther.
For the first hour his proud spirit was sustained by the enormity of the degradation thus heaped upon him. He felt sure that such treatment was given him for a purpose. He knew that all the prisoners of the county were not treated as swine. In his anger he paused once, determined to demand a chair or bed of some kind, and found that he could only make his wants known by yelling down two flights of stairs to the guard who stood at the outer door of the last floor. He could not thus humiliate himself.
For the first time he realised what it meant to be deprived not only of the comforts but the common decencies of human life. In fierce anger he silently raved for two hours and then a strange calm came over his soul. His hands grasped the iron bars of the door and he stood as if in a trance while the unconscious minutes lengthened into hours. A beautiful face bent above him. Her voice, low and tender with the music of love, filled all space. The stifling cell vanished. He was in the open fields with her hand in his. He woke with a laugh, and caught the glint of the first beams of the rising sun stealing through the window of the corridor,
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A Negro boy brought his breakfast of corn bread and bacon in a dirty tin plate.
John looked at it a minute with a curious smile:
"No, thank you, my boy, I've just had my breakfast of ambrosia. I'll take a chair, however, if the jailor can spare one!"
"Yassah, I'll tell 'im when I goes down," he replied. "But I spec dey ain't none lef. We got lots er boarders now."
He placed the plate on the floor by the door, and grinned.
"Dey wuz er young lady come ter see ye las' night, sah, but dey wouldn't let 'er in!"
John smiled.
"What time was it?"
"Bout two er clock."
"Yes, I saw her," John slowly said with a strange look in his deep-set eyes. "She came up and stayed with me until sunrise."
The Negro backed cautiously away muttering.
"He got 'em sho!" and darted down the steps.
The fact that he was being kept in solitary confinement and refused communication of any kind with friend or counsel, roused every force of John Graham's character.
When the Attorney General who had come down from Washington called at ten o'clock he greeted him with a laugh through the bars of his door:
"Excuse my lack of hospitality, General Champion," he said; "I'd offer you a chair, but the hotel is crowded and we're short of chairs just now."
"Haven't you a chair or a bed in your cell?" he enquired, peering in. "It's an outrage. Bring two chairs here at once!" he thundered to the attendant.
"Mr. Graham," said the General cordially, "I've hastened to you as a friend. I wasa member of Congress with your uncle. We were warm personal friends. I've known several of your people, and always found them the salt of the earth."
"Thanks," John interrupted, a smile playing about the corners of his eyes.
"I wish to be of help to you if you will let me. It has long been known to the Department of Justice that you are the Chief of the Klan in North Carolina."
"I congratulate the Department of Justice on the attainment of such interesting knowledge," John broke in.
"Do you deny it?"
"I'm not discussing it."
"You must know, Mr. Graham, that the organisation is doomed, and that you are in an extremely dangerous position. I trust you realise this?"
"Quite warm last night, General!"
"Come, come, young man, I'm your friend—"
"It's a pleasure to meet a friend; do you think it will rain?"
"You are to be put on trial for your life"
"My idea is that we are in for a long dry spell, General."
"Tut, tut, my boy, come now, don't try my temper with such nonsense. President Grant is not hostile to the South. He grieves over the necessity of the severe laws which he is now enforcing. His only desire is to pacify these disorders. The Klan must be stamped out. You have realised this—I know that you have led parties who have inflicted summary justice on some of the scoundrels who are operating in its disguises. Is not this a fact?"
John laughed.
"I know it," affirmed the General.
"Then why ask me?"
"I know that you have tried to stamp out the disorders," the General repeated. "Whatever the impulses which led a man of your high character into this lawless conspiracy, you have realised at last its dangerous character. You are in a position to render the South and the Nation an enormous service. Help me to restore law and order in the South and the Government will show its gratitude."
"You mean exactly?"
"That you give me the information needed to wipe the Invisible Empire out of existence"
"And in return?"
The General placed his hands on the bars and leaned close.
"The President has promised me to immediately appoint you an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, and in six months promote you to the high honour of a United States Circuit Judgeship."
John's fist suddenly shot through the iron bars, struck the General in the mouth, and hurled him in a heap against the wall of the corridor, as he cried with rage:
"D you! How dare you thus insult me?"
The General picked up his broken glasses from the floor, wiped a drop of blood from his lip, shook his fist at the man who glared at him through the barred door, and shouted:
"I'll make you pay dearly for this!"
John laughed in his face.
"But you won't make me that offer again, will you?"