Chapter XI: Part 11

"We know but a part of the truth," she urged, desperately. "God alone knows it all. You saw three men--there are others whom you did not see."

"They were seen by other eyes quite as trustworthy as mine."

She wrung her hands miserably, crying:

"But wait! Guilty or innocent, they have appeared in judgment, and the law has acquitted them. You urge upon the people now a crime greater than theirs. Two wrongs do not make a right. Who are you to raise yourself above that power which is supreme?"

"There's a law higher than the courts."

"Yes, one; the law of God. If our means have failed, leave their punishment to Him."

He shook his head, no trace of yielding in his eyes.

"One man was killed, and yet you contemplate the death of eleven!"

"Listen," he cried, "this cause belongs to the people who have seen their sacred institutions debauched. If I had the power to sway the citizens of New Orleans from the course which I believe they contemplate, I doubt that I could bring myself to exercise it, for it is plain that the Mafia must be exterminated. The good of the city, the safety of all of us, demands it." He regarded her curiously. "Do you realize what Maruffi's freedom would mean to you and Oliveta?"

"We are in God's hands."

"It would require a miracle to save you. Caesar would have my life, too; he told me as much with his eyes when that corrupted jury lifted the fear of death from his heart."

"So!" cried the girl. "You fear him, therefore you take this means of destroying him! You goad the public and your friends into a red rage and send them to murder your enemy."

Her hysteria was not proof against the look which leaped into his eyes--the pallor that left him facing her with the visage of a sick man.

"During the last five years," he said, slowly, "I've often tried to be a man, but never until last night have I succeeded fully. When I signed that call to arms I felt that I was writing Maruffi's death-warrant. I hesitated for a time, then I put aside all thoughts of myself, and now I'm prepared to meet this accusation. I knew it would come. The world--my world--knows that Maruffi's life or mine hinges on his liberty; if he dies by the mob to-day, that world will call me coward for my act; it will say that I roused the passions of the populace to save myself. Nevertheless, I was chosen leader of that committee, and I did their will--as I shall do the will of the people."

"The will of the people! You know very well that the people have no will. They do what their leaders tell them."

"My name is written. I am sorry that I cannot do as you wish."

"But surely you do not deceive yourself," she insisted. "This is wrong, oh, so inconceivably, so terribly wrong! You do not possess the divine power to bestow life. How then can you dare to take it? By what possible authority do you decree the destruction of your fellow-men whom the law has adjudged innocent?"

"By the sovereign authority of the public good. By the inherited right of self-protection."

"You would shoot them down, like caged animals?"

"Those eleven individuals have ceased to exist as men. They represent an infection, a diseased spot which must be cut out. They stand for disorder and violence; to free them would be a crime, to give them arms to defend themselves would be merely to increase their evil."

"There is a child among them, too; would you have his death upon your conscience?"

"I told Gino he should come to no harm, and, God willing, he sha'n't."

"How can you hope to stem the rage of a thousand madmen? A mob will stop at no half measures. There are two men among the prisoners who are entitled to another trial. Do you think the people will spare them if they take the others?" He shrugged his shoulders doubtfully, and she shuddered. "You shall not have the death of those defenseless men upon your soul!" she cried. "Your hands at least shall remain clean."

"Please don't urge me," he said.

"But I do. I ask you to take no part in this barbarous uprising."

"And I must refuse you."

She looked at him wildly; her face was ashen as she continued:

"You have said that you love me. Can't you make this sacrifice for me? Can't you make this concession to my fears, my conscience, my beliefs? I am only a woman, and I cannot face this grim and awful thing. I cannot think of your part in it."

The look she gave him went to his heart.

"Margherita!" he cried, in torture; "don't you see I have no choice? I couldn't yield, even if the price were--you and your love. You wouldn't rob me of my manhood?"

"I could never touch hands which were stained with the blood of defenseless men--not even in friendship, you--understand?"

"I understand!" For a second time the color left his face.

Her glance wavered again, she swayed, then groped for the door, while he stood like stone in his tracks.

"Good-by!" he said, lifelessly.

"Good-by!" she answered, in the same tone. "I have done my part. You are a man, and you must do yours as you see it. But may God save you from bloodshed."

Long before the hour set for the gathering at Clay Statue the streets in that vicinity began to fill. Men continued on past their places of business; shops and offices remained closed; the wide strip of neutral ground which divided the two sides of the city's leading thoroughfare began to pack. Around the base of the monument groups of citizens congregated until the cars were forced to slow down and proceed with a clangor of gongs which served only as a tocsin to draw more recruits. Vehicles came to a halt, were wedged dose to the curbs, and became coigns of vantage; office windows, store-fronts, balconies, and roof-tops began to cluster with a human freight.

After a week of wind and rain the sun had risen in a sky that was cloudless, save for a few thin streaks of shining silver which resembled long polished rapiers or the gleaming spear-points of a host still hidden below the horizon. The fragrance of shrubs and flowers, long dormant, weighted the breeze. It was a glorious morning, fit for love and laughter and little children.

Nor did the rapidly swelling assemblage resemble in any measure a mob bent upon violence. It was composed mainly of law-abiding business men who greeted each other genially; in their grave, intelligent faces was no hint of savagery or brutality. All traffic finally ceased, the entire neighborhood was massed and clotted with waiting humanity; then, as the hour struck, a running salvo of applause came from the galleries and a cheer from the street when a handful of men was seen crowding its way up to the base of the statue. It was composed of a half-dozen prominent men who had been identified with the Committee of Justice; among them was Norvin Blake. A hush followed as one of them mounted the pedestal and began to speak. He was recognized as Judge Blackmar, a wealthy lawyer, and his well-trained voice filled the wide spaces from wall to wall; it went out over the sea of heads and up to the crowded roof-tops.

He told of the reasons which had inspired this indignation meeting; he recounted the history of the Mafia in New Orleans, and recalled its many outrages culminating in the assassination of Chief Donnelly.

"Affairs have reached such a crisis," said he, "that we who live in an organized and civilized community find our laws ineffective and are forced to protect ourselves as best we may. When courts fail, the people must act. What protection is left us, when our highest police official is slain in our very midst by the Mafia and his assassins turned loose upon us? This is not the first case of wilful murder and supine justice; our court records are full of similar ones. The time has come to say whether we shall tolerate these outrages further or whether we shall set aside the verdict of an infamous and perjured jury and cleanse our city of the ghouls which prey upon it. I ask you to consider this question fairly. You have been assembled, not behind closed doors, nor under the cloak of darkness, but in the heart of the city, in the broad light of day, to take such action as honest men must take to save their homes against a public enemy. What is your answer?"

A roar broke from all sides; an incoherent, wordless growling rumbled down the street. Those on the outskirts of the assemblage who had come merely from curiosity, or in doubt that anything would be accomplished, began to press closer.

A restless murmur, broken by the cries of excitable men, arose when the second speaker took his place. Then as he spoke the temper of the people began to manifest itself undeniably. The crowd swayed and cheered; certain demands were voiced insistently; a wave of intense excitement swept it as it heard its desires so boldly proclaimed. As the heaving sea is lashed to fury by the wind, the people's rage mounted higher with every sentence of the orator; every pause was greeted with howls. Men stared into the faces around them, and, seeing their own emotions mirrored, they were swept by an ever-increasing agitation. There was a general impulse to advance at once upon the parish prison, and knots of stragglers were already making in that direction, while down from the telegraph-poles, from roofs and shed-tops men were descending. All that seemed lacking for a concerted movement was a leader, a bold figure, a ringing voice to set this army in motion.

Blake had been selected to make the third address and to put the issue squarely up to the people; but, as he wedged his way forward to enact his role, up to the feet of the statue squirmed and wriggled a figure which assumed the place just vacated by the second speaker.

It was Bernie Dreux, but a different Bernie from the man his amazed friends in the crowd thought they knew. He was pale, and his limbs shook under him, but his eyes blazed with a fire which brought a hush of attention to all within sight of him. Up there against the heroic figure of Henry Clay he looked more diminutive, more insignificant than ever; but oddly enough he had attained a sudden dignity which made him seem intensely masterful and alive. For a moment he paused, erect and motionless, surveying that restless multitude which rocked and rumbled for the distance of a full city square in both directions; then he began. His voice, though high-pitched from emotion, was as clear and ringing as a trumpet; it pierced to the farthest limits of the giant audience and stirred it like a battle signal. The blood of his forefathers had awakened at last; and old General Dreux, the man of iron and fire and passion, was speaking through his son.

"People of New Orleans," he cried, "I desire neither fame nor name nor glory; I am here not as one of the Committee of Public Safety, but as a plain citizen. Let me therefore speak for you; let mine be the lips which give your answer. Fifty of our trusted townsmen were appointed to assist in bringing the murderers of Chief Donnelly to justice. They told us to wait upon the law. We waited, and the law failed. Our court and our jury were debauched; our Committee comes back to us now, the source from which it took its power, and acknowledges that it can do no more. It lays the matter in our hands and asks for our decision. Let me deliver the message: Justice must be done! Dan Donnelly must be avenged to-day!"

The clamor which had greeted the words of the previous speakers was as nothing to the titanic bellow which burst forth acclaiming Dreux's.

"This is the hour for action, not for talk," he continued, when he had stilled them. "The Anglo-Saxon is slow to anger, and because of that the Mafia has thrived among us; but once he is aroused, once his rights are invaded and his laws assailed, his rage is a thing to reckon with. Our Committee asks us if we are ready to take justice into our own hands, and I answer, Yes!"

A chaos of waving arms and of high-flung hats, a deafening crash of voices again answered.

"Then our speakers shall lead us. Judge Blackmar shall be the first in command; Mr. Slade, who spoke after him, shall be second, and I shall be the third in authority. Arm yourselves quickly, gentlemen, and may God have mercy upon the souls of those eleven murderers."

He leaped lightly down, and the great assemblage burst into motion, streaming out Canal Street like a storming army. It boiled into side streets and through every avenue which led in the direction of the prison. At each corner it gathered strength; every thoroughfare belched forth reinforcements; hundreds who had entertained no faintest notion of taking part fell in, were swallowed up in the seething tide, and went shouting to the very gates of the jail.

Once that tossing river of humanity had been given force and direction its character changed; it became a mailed dragon, it suddenly blossomed with steel. Peaceful, middle-aged men who had stood beside the monument buttoned up in peculiarly bulky overcoats were now marching silently with weapons at their shoulders.

Strangest of all, perhaps, was the greeting this army received on every side. The flotsam and jetsam which swirled along in its eddies or followed in its wake cheered, howled, and danced deliriously; men, women, and children from doorways and galleries raised their voices lustily, and applauded as if at some favorite carnival parade. In notable contrast was the bearing of the armed men themselves; they marched through the echoing streets like a regiment of mutes.

XXV

THE APPEAL

On the iron balcony of a house in the vicinity of the parish prison the two Sicilian girls were standing. Across from them loomed the great decaying structure with its little iron-barred windows and its steel-ribbed doors behind which lay their countrymen. From inside came the echo of a great hammering, as if a gallows were being erected; but the square and the streets outside were quiet.

"What time is it now?" Oliveta had repeated this question already a dozen times.

"It is after ten."

"I hear nothing as yet, do you?"

"Nothing!"

"We could hear if it were not for that dreadful pounding yonder in the jail."

"Hush! They are building barricades."

The peasant girl gasped and seized the iron railing in front of her.

"Madonna mia! I am dying. Do you think Signore Blake will yield to your appeal and turn the mob?"

"I'm afraid not," said Vittoria, faintly.

"He can do more than any other, for he is powerful; they will listen to him. If Caesar should escape! I am shamed through and through to have loved such a man, and yet to have him killed like a rat in a hole! I pray, and I know not what I pray for--my thoughts are whirling so. Do you hear anything from the city?"

"No, no!"

There was a moment's pause.

"Those barricades will not allow them to enter, even if our friend does not persuade them to disperse."

"I have heard there is sometimes shooting." Vittoria shuddered. "It is terrible for men to become brutes."

"The time is growing late," Oliveta quavered.

There was another period of silence while they strained their ears for the faintest sound, but the fresh breeze wafted nothing to them. On a neighboring gallery two housewives were gossiping; a child was playing on the walk beneath, and his piping laughter sounded strangely incongruous. From across the way rose that desultory pounding as spikes were driven home and beams were nailed in place. Through a grated aperture in the prison wall an armed man peered down the street.

"Caesar is cunning," Oliveta broke out. "He is not one to be easily caught. He is brave, too. Ah, God! how I loved him and how I have hated him!" Ever since Maruffi's capture she had remained in a frame of mind scarcely rational, fluctuating between a silent, sullen mood of revenge and a sense of horror at her betrayal of the man who had once possessed her whole heart.

"It can't be that you still care for him?"

"No, I loathe him, and if he escapes he would surely kill me. Yet sometimes I wish it." She began mumbling to herself. "Look!" she cried, suddenly. "What is this?"

A public hack came swinging into view, its horses at a gallop. It drew up before the main gate of the prison, a man leaped forth and began pounding for admittance. Some one spoke to him through a grating.

"What does he say?" queried the peasant girl.

"I cannot hear. Perhaps he comes to say there is no--Mother of God! Listen!"

From somewhere toward the heart of the city came a faint murmur.

"It is the rumble of a wagon on the next street," gasped Oliveta.

The sound died away. The girls stood frozen at attention with their senses strained. Then it rose again, louder. Soon there was no mistaking it. A whisper came upon the breeze, it mounted into a long-drawn humming, which in turn grew to a steady drone of voices broken by waves of cheering. It gathered volume rapidly, and straggling figures came running into view, followed by knots and groups of fleet-footed youths. The driver of the carriage rose on his box, looked over his shoulder, then whipped his horses into a gallop and fled. As he did so a slowly moving wagon laden with timbers turned in from a side street. It was driven by a somnolent negro, who finally halted his team and stared in dull lack of comprehension at what he saw approaching.

By now the street beneath the girls was half filled with people; it echoed to a babble of voices, to the shuffle and tread of a coming multitude, and an instant later out of every thoroughfare which fronted upon the grim old prison structure streamed the people of New Orleans.

"See! They are unarmed!" Oliveta's fingers sank into her sister's wrist.

Then through the press came a body of silent men, four abreast and shoulder to shoulder. The crowd opened to let them through, cheering frenziedly. They wore an air of sober responsibility; they carried guns, and looked to neither right nor left. Directly beneath the waiting women they passed, and at their head marched Norvin Blake and Bernie Dreux together with two men unknown to the girls.

Vittoria leaned forward horror-stricken, and although she tried to call she did not hear her voice above the confusion; Oliveta clutched her, murmuring distractedly.

The avenues were jammed from curb to curb; telegraph-poles, lamp-posts, trees held a burden of human forms; windows and house-tops were filling in every direction; a continuous roar beat thunderously against the prison walls.

The army of vigilantes drew up before the main gate, and a man smote it with the butt of his shotgun, demanding entrance. The crowd, anticipating a volley from within, surged back, leaving them isolated. A dozen bluecoats struggled to clear the sidewalks next the structure, but they might as well have tried to stem a rising tide with their naked hands; they were buffeted briefly, then swallowed up.

In answer to a command, the armed men scattered, surrounding the building with a cordon of steel; then the main body renewed its assault. But the oaken barrier, stoutly reinforced, withstood them gallantly, and a brief colloquy occurred, after which they made their way to a small side door which directly faced the two women across the street. This was not so heavily constructed as the front gate and promised an easier entrance; but it was likewise locked and barred. Then some one spied the wagon and its load of timbers, now hopelessly wedged into the press, and a rush was made toward it. A beam was raised upon willing shoulders, and with this as a battering-ram a breach was begun.

Every crash was the signal for a shout from the multitude, and when the door finally gave way a triumphant roar arose. The armed men swarmed into the opening and disappeared one by one, all but two who stood with backs to the door and faced the crowd warningly. It was evident that some sort of order prevailed among them, and that this was more than an unorganized assault.

Through the close-packed ranks, on and on around the massive pile, ran the word that the vigilantes were within; it was telegraphed from house-top to house-top. Then a silence descended, the more sinister and ominous because of the pandemonium which had preceded it.

Thus far Vittoria and her companion had seen and heard all that occurred, for their position commanded a view of both fronts of the building; but now they had only their ears to guide them.

"Come, let us leave now! We have seen enough." Vittoria cried, and strove to drag Oliveta from her post. But the girl would not yield, she did not seem to hear, her eyes were fixed with strained and fascinated horror upon that shattered aperture which showed like a gaping wound. Her bloodless lips were whispering; her fingers, where they gripped the iron railing, were like claws.

"Quickly! Quickly!" moaned Vittoria. "We did not come to see this monstrous thing. Oliveta, spare yourself!" In the silence her voice sounded so loudly and shrilly that people on the adjoining balcony turned curious, uncomprehending faces toward her.

Moment after moment that hush continued, then from within came a renewed hammering, hollow, measured; above it sounded the faint cries of terrified prisoners. This died away after a time, and some one said:

"They're into the corridors at last. It won't be long now."

A moment later a dull, unmistakable reverberation rolled forth like the smothered sound of a subterranean explosion; it was followed by another and another--gunshots fired within brick walls and flag-paved courtyards.

It shattered that sickening, unending suspense which caused the pulse to flutter and the breath to lag; the crowd gave tongue in a howl of hoarse delight. Then followed a peculiar shrilling chorus--that familiar signal known as the "dago whistle"--which was like the piercing cry of lost souls. "Who killa da Chief?" screamed the hoodlums, then puckered their lips and piped again that mocking signal. As the booming of the guns continued, now singly, now in volley, the maddened populace squeezed toward that narrow entrance through which the avengers had disappeared; but they were halted by the guards and forced to content themselves by greeting every shot with an exultant cry. The streets in all directions were tossing and billowing like the waves of the sea; men capered and flung their arms aloft, shrieking; women and children waved their aprons and kerchiefs, sobbing and spent with excitement. It was a wild and grotesque scene, unspeakably terrible, inhumanly ferocious.

Through it the two Sicilian girls clung to each other, fainting, revolted, fascinated. When they could summon strength they descended to the street and fought their way out of the bedlam.

Norvin Blake was not a willing participant in the lynching, although he had gone to the meeting at Clay Statue determined to do what he considered his duty. He had felt no doubt as to the outcome of the mass-meeting even before he saw its giant proportions, and even before it had sounded its approval of the first speaker's words, for he knew how deeply his townspeople were stirred by the astounding miscarriage of justice. At the rally of the Committee on the afternoon previous it had been urged to proceed with the execution at once, and the counsel of the more conservative had barely prevailed. Blake knew perhaps better than his companions to what lengths the rage of a mob will go, and he confessed to a secret fear of the result. Therefore, although he marched in the vanguard of the storming party, it was more to exercise a restraining influence and to prevent violence against unoffending foreigners, than to take part in the demonstration. As for the actual shedding of blood, his instinct revolted from it, while his reason recognized its necessity and defended it.

Bernie Dreux's amazing assumption of dictatorship had relieved him of the duty of heading the mob, a thing for which he was profoundly grateful. When the main body of vigilantes had armed itself, he fell in beside his friend with some notion of helping and protecting him. But the little man proved amply equal to the occasion. He was unwaveringly grim and determined It was he who faced the oaken gate and demanded entrance in the name of the people; it was he who suggested the use of the battering-ram; and it was he who first fought his way through the breach, at the risk of bullets from within. Blake followed to find him with his fowling-piece at the head of the prison captain, and demanding the keys to the cells.

The posse had gained a partial entrance, but another iron-ribbed door withheld them from the body of the prison, and there followed a delay while this was broken down. Meanwhile, from within came the sound of turning locks and of clanging steel doors, also a shuffling of many feet and cries of mortal terror, which told that the prisoners had been freed to shift for themselves in this extremity.

In truth, a scene was being enacted within more terrible than that outside, for as the deputies released the prisoners, commanding them to save themselves if they could, a frightful confusion ensued. Not only did the eleven Sicilians cry to God, but the other inmates of the place who feared their crimes had overtaken them joined in the appeal. Men and women, negroes and whites, felons and minor evil-doers, rushed to and fro along the galleries and passageways, fighting with one another, tearing one another from places of refuge, seeking new and securer points of safety. They huddled in dark corners; they crept under beds, beneath stairways, and into barrels. They burrowed into rubbish piles only to be dragged out by the hair or the heels and to see their jealous companions seize upon these sanctuaries.

Terror is swiftly contagious; the whole place became a seething pit of dismay. Some knelt and prayed, while others trampled upon them; they rose from their knees to beat with bleeding fists upon barred doors and blind partitions; but as their fear of death increased and the chorus of their despair mounted higher there came another pounding, nearer, louder--the sound of splitting wood and of rending metal. To escape was impossible; to remain was madness; of hiding-places there was a fearful scarcity.

The regulators came rushing into the prison proper, with footsteps echoing loudly through the barren corridors. Out into the open court they swarmed, then up the iron stairways to the galleries that ringed it about, peering into cells as they went, ousting the wretched inmates from remotest corners. But the chamber in which they knew their quarry had been housed was empty, so they paused undecided, while from all sides came the smothered sounds of terror like the mewling and squeaking of mice hidden in a wall.

Suddenly some one shouted, "There they are!" and pointed to the topmost gallery, which ran in front of the condemned cells. A rush began, but at the top of the winding stairs another grating barred the way. Through this, however, could be seen Salvatore di Marco, Giordano Bolla, and the elder Cressi. The three Sicilians had fled to this last stronghold, slammed the steel door behind them, and now crouched in the shelter of a brick column. Some one hammered at the lock, and the terrified prisoners started to their feet with an agonized appeal for mercy. As they exposed themselves to view a man fired through the bars. His aim was true; Di Marco flung his arms aloft and pitched forward on his face. Crazed by this, his two companions rushed madly back and forth; but they were securely penned in, and appeal was futile. Another shot boomed deafeningly in the close confines of the place, and Cressi plunged to his death; then Bolla followed, his bloody hands gripping the bars, his face upturned in a hideous grimace, and his eyes, which stared through at his slayers, glazing slowly.

Down the ringing stairs marched the grim-featured men who had set themselves this task, and among them Bernie Dreux strode, issuing orders. The weapon in his hand was hot, his shoulder was bruised, for he had long been unaccustomed to the use of firearms.

Then began a systematic search of the men's department of the prison; but no new victims were discovered, only the ordinary prisoners who were well-nigh speechless with fright.

"Where are the others?" went up the cry, and some one answered:

"On the women's side."

The band passed through to the adjoining portion of the double building, and, keys having been secured, the rapidity of their search increased. Into the twin courtyard they filed; then while some investigated the cookhouse others climbed to the topmost tier of cells. As the quest narrowed, six of the Sicilians, who had lain concealed in a compartment on the first floor, broke out in a desperate endeavor to escape, but they were caught between the opposing ranks, as in the jaws of a trap. The cell door clanged to behind them; they found themselves at bay in the open yard. Resistance was useless; they sank to their knees and set up a cry for mercy. They shrieked, they sobbed, they groveled; but their enemies were open to no appeal, untouched by any sense of compunction. They were men wholly dominated by a single fixed idea, as merciless as machines.

There followed a nightmare scene; a horrid, bellowing uproar of voices and detonations, of groans and prayers and curses. The armed men emptied their weapons blindly into that writhing tangle of forms, and as one finished he stepped back while another took his place. The prison rocked with the din of it; the wretches were shot to pieces, riddled, by that horizontal hail which mowed and mangled like an invisible scythe. Now a figure struggled to its feet only to become the target for a fusillade; again one twisted in his agony only to be filled with missiles fired from so short a range that his garments were torn to rags. The pavement became wet and slippery; in one brief moment that section of the yard became a shambles.

Then men went up and poked among the bodies with the hot muzzles of their rifles, turning the corpses over for identification; and as each stark face was recognized a name went echoing out through the dingy corridors to the mob beyond.

Larubio, the cobbler, had attempted a daring ruse. The firing had ceased when up out of that limp and sodden heap he rose, his gray hair matted, his garments streaming. They thrust their rifles against his chest and killed him quickly.

Nine men had died by now, and only two remained, Normando and Maruffi. The former was found shortly, where he had squeezed himself into a dog-kennel which stood under the stairs; but the vigilantes, it seemed, had had enough of slaughter, so he was rushed into the street, where the crowd tore him to pieces as wolves rend a rabbit. Even his garments were ripped to rags and distributed as ghastly souvenirs.

Norvin Blake had been a witness to only a part of this brutality, but what he had seen had sickened him, and had increased his determination to find Gino Cressi. He shared not at all in the sanguinary exaltation which possessed his fellow-townsmen; instead he longed for the end and hoped he would be able to forget what he had seen. He would have fled but for his fear of what might happen to the Cressi boy. Corridor after corridor he searched, peering into cells, under cots, into corners and crannies, while through the cavernous old building the other hunters stormed. He was hard pressed to keep ahead of them, and when he finally found the lad they were dose at his heels.

They came upon him with the lad clinging to his knees, and a shout went up.

"Here's the Cressi kid. He gave the signal; let him have it!"

But Norvin turned upon them, saying:

"You can't kill this boy."

"Step aside, Blake," ordered a red-faced man, raising and cocking his weapon.

Norvin seized the rifle-barrel and turned it aside roughly. The two stared at each other with angry eyes.

"He's only a baby, don't you understand? Good God! You have children of your own."

"I--I--" The fellow hesitated. "So he is. Damnation! What has come over me?" He lowered his gun and turned against the others who were clamoring behind him. "This is--awful," he murmured, shakingly, when the crowd had passed on. "I've done all I intend to." He flung his rifle from him with a gesture of repugnance, and went out of the cell.

Norvin continued to stand guard over his charge while the search for Maruffi went on, for he dared not trust these men who had gone mad. Thus he did not learn that his arch enemy had been taken until he saw him rushed past in the hands of his captors. Caesar had fought as best he could against overwhelming odds, and continued to resist now in a blind fury; but a rope was about his neck, at the end of which were a dozen running men; a dozen gun-butts hustled him on his way to the open air. Blake closed the cell door upon Gino Cressi and followed, drawn by a magnetic force he could not resist.

The main gate of the prison opened before the rush of that tangled, growling handful of men, and they swept straight out into the turmoil that filled the streets. An instant later Maruffi was beset by five thousand maniacs; he was kicked, he was beaten, he was spat upon, he was overwhelmed by an avalanche of humanity. His progress to the gallows was a short but a terrible one, marked by a series of violent whirlpools which set through that river of people. The uproar was deafening; spectators screamed hoarsely, but did not hear their voices.

From where Blake paused beside the gate he traced the Sicilian's progress plainly, marveling at the fellow's vitality, for it seemed impossible that any human being could withstand that onslaught. A coil of rope sailed upward, a negro perched in a tree passed it over a limb, and the next instant the head and shoulders of the Capo-Mafia rose above the dense level of standing forms. He was writhing horribly, but, seizing the rope with his hands, he drew himself upward; his blackened face glared down upon his executioners. The grinning negro kicked at the dark head beneath him, once, twice, three times, so violently that he lost his balance and fell, whereupon a bellowing shout of laughter arose more terrible than any sound heretofore. Still the Sicilian clung to the rope which was strangling him. Then puffs of smoke curled up in the sunshine, and the crowd rolled back upon itself, leaving the gibbet ringed with armed men. Maruffi's body was swayed and spun as if by invisible hands; his fingers slipped; he settled downward.

Blake turned and hid his face against the cold, damp walls, for he was very sick.

XXVI

AT THE DUSK

Within two days the city had regained its customary calm. It had, in fact, settled down to a more placid mood than at any time since the murder of Chief Donnelly. Immediately after the lynching the citizens had dispersed to their homes. No prisoners except the Mafiosi had been harmed, and of those who had been sought not one had escaped. The damage to the parish prison did not amount to fifty dollars. Through the community spread a feeling of satisfaction, which horror at the terrible details of the slaughter could not destroy. There was nowhere the slightest effort at dodging responsibility; those who had led in the assault were the best-known citizens and openly acknowledged their parts. It was realized now, even more fully than before the event, that the course pursued had been the only one compatible with public safety; and, while every one deplored the necessity of lynchings in general, there was no regret at this one, shocking as it had been.

This state of mind was reflected by the local press, and, for that matter, by the press of all the Southern cities where the gravity of the situation had become known, while to lend it further countenance, the Cotton Exchange, the Board of Trade, and the Chamber of Commerce promptly passed resolutions commending the action of the vigilance committee. There was some talk of legal proceedings; but no one took it seriously, except the police, who felt obliged to excuse their dereliction. Of course, the stir was national--international, indeed, since Italy demanded particulars; but, serene in the sense of an unpleasant duty thoroughly performed, New Orleans did not trouble to explain, except by a bare recital of facts.

In spite of the passive part he had played, Blake was perhaps more deeply affected by the doings at the prison than any other member of the party, and during the interval that followed he did not trust himself to see Vittoria. There was a double reason for this, for he not only recalled their last interview with consternation, but he still had a guilty feeling about Myra Nell. On the second afternoon after the lynching Bernie Dreux dropped in to tell him of his sister's return from Mobile.

"She read that I took a hand in the fuss," Bernie explained, "but, of course, she has no idea I did so much actual shooting. When she told me she was going to see you this afternoon, I came to warn you not to expose me."

"Do you regret your part?"

"Not the least bit. I'm merely surprised at myself."

"You surprised all your friends," Blake said, with a smile. "You seem to have changed lately."

In truth, the difference in Dreux's bearing was noteworthy, and many had remarked upon it. The dignity and force which had enveloped the little beau for the first time when he stood before the assembled thousands still clung to him; his eyes were steady and bright and purposeful; he had lost his wavering, deprecatory manner.

"Yes, I've just come of age," he declared, with some satisfaction. "I realize that I'm free, white, and twenty-one, for the first time. I'm going to quit idling and do something."

"What, for instance?"

"Well, I'm going to marry Felicite, to begin with, then maybe some of my friends will give me a job."

"I will," said Blake.

"Thanks, but--I'd rather impose on somebody else at the start. I want to make good on my own merits, understand? I've lived off my relatives long enough. It's just as bad to let the deceased members of your family support you as to allow the live ones--"

"Bernie!" Blake interrupted, gravely. "I'm afraid I won't marry Myra Nell."

"You think she won't have you, eh? She has been acting queerly of late; but leave it to me."

Norvin was spared the necessity of further explanation by the arrival of the girl herself. Miss Warren seemed strangely lacking in her usual abundance of animal spirits; she was obviously ill at ease, and the sight of her brother did not lessen her embarrassment. During the brief interchange of pleasantries her eyes were fixed upon Blake with a troubled gaze.

"We--I just ran in for a moment," she said, and seemed upon the point of leaving after inquiring solicitously about his health.

"My dear," said Bernie, with elaborate unction, "Norvin and I have just been discussing your engagement."

Miss Warren gasped and turned pale; Blake stammered.

With a desperate effort the girl inquired:

"D--do you love me, Norvin?"

"Of course I do."

"See!" Bernie nodded his satisfaction.

"Oh, Lordy!" said Myra Nell. "I--can't marry you, dear."

"What?" Blake knew that his expression was changing, and tried to stifle his relief.

As for Bernie, he flushed angrily, and his voice rang with his newly born determination.

"Don't be silly. Didn't he just say he loved you? And, for heaven's sake, don't look so scared. We won't devour you."

"I can't marry him," declared the girl, once more.

"Why?"

"Be-because I'm already married! There! Jimmy! I've been trying to get that out for a month."

Dreux gasped. "Myra Nell! You're crazy!"

She nodded, then turned to Blake with a look of entreaty, "P-please don't kill yourself, dear? I couldn't help it."

"Why, you poor frightened little thing! I'm delighted! I am indeed," he told her, reassuringly.

"Don't you care? Aren't you going to storm and--and raise the dickens?" she queried. "Maybe this is your way of hiding your despair?"

"Not at all. I'm glad--so long as you're happy."

"And you're not mad with anguish nor crushed with--Why, the idea! I'm perfectly _furious!_ I ran away because I was afraid of you, and I haven't seen my husband once, not once, do you understand, since we were married. Oh, you--_brute!_"

By this time Dreux had recovered his power of speech, and yelled in furious voice:

"Who is the reptile?"

There came a timid rap, the office door opened, and Lecompte Rilleau inserted his head, saying gently:

"Me! I! I'm it!"

Blake rose so suddenly that his chair upset, whereupon Rilleau, who saw in this abrupt movement a threat, propelled himself fully into view, crying with determination:

"Here! Don't you touch her! She's mine! You take it out of me!"

Blake's answering laugh seemed so out of character that the bridegroom took it as merely a new phase of insanity, and edged in front of his wife protectingly.

"I wanted to come in at first and break the news, but she wouldn't let me," he explained.

"You have a weak heart. You--you mustn't fight!" implored Myra Nell; but Lecompte only shrugged.

"That's all a bluff." Then to Norvin: "I'll admit it _was_ a mean trick, and I guess my heart really might have petered out if she'd married you; but I'm all right now, and you can have satisfaction."

"I don't know whether to be angry or amused at you children," Norvin told them. "Understand, once for all, that our engagement wasn't serious. There have been a lot of mistakes and misunderstandings--that's all. Now tell us how and when this all happened."

"Y-yes!" echoed Bernie, who was still dazed.

Myra Nell seemed more chagrined than relieved.

"It was perfectly simple," she informed them. "It happened during the Carnival. I--never heard a man talk the way he did, and I was really worried about his heart. I said no--for fifteen minutes, then we arranged to be married secretly. When it was all over, I was frightened and ran away. You're such a deep, desperate, unforgiving person, Norvin. I--I think it was positively horrid of you."

"Good Lord!" breathed her brother. "What a perverted sense of responsibility!"

"Are we forgiven?"

"It's all right with me, if it is with Norvin," said Bernie, somewhat doubtfully.

"Forgiven?" Blake took the youthful pair by the hands, and in his eyes was a brightness they had never seen. "Of course you are, and let me tell you that you haven't cornered all the love in the world. I've never cared but for one woman. Perhaps you will wish me as much happiness as I wish you both?"

"Then you have found your Italian girl?" queried Myra Nell, with flashing eagerness.

"Vittoria!"

"Vittoria!" Miss Warren shrieked. "Vittoria--a _countess!_ So, she's the one who spoiled everything?"

"Gee! You'll be a count," said Rilleau.

There followed a period of laughing, incoherent explanations, and then the beaming bridegroom tugged at Myra Nell's sleeve, saying:

"Now that it's all over, I'm mighty tired of being a widower."

She flung her arms about his neck and lifted her blushing face to his, explaining to her half-brother, when she could:

"I don't know what you'll do without some one to look after you, Bernie, but--it's perfectly grand to elope."

Dreux rose with a grin and winked at Norvin as he said:

"Oh, don't mind me. I'll get along all right." And seizing his hat he rushed out with his thin face all ablaze. When Blake was finally alone, he closed his desk and with bounding heart set out for the foreign quarter. His day had dawned; he could hardly contain himself. But, as he neared his goal, strange doubts and indecisions arose in his mind; and when he had reached Oliveta's house he passed on, lacking courage to enter. He decided it was too soon after the tragedy at the parish prison to press his suit; that to intrude himself now would be in offensively bad taste. Then, too, he began to reason that if Margherita had wished to see him she would have sent for him--all in all, the hour was decidedly unpropitious. He dared not risk his future happiness upon a blundering, ill-timed declaration; therefore he walked onward. But no sooner had he passed the house than a thousand voices urged him to return, in this the hour of the girl's loneliness, and lay his devotion at her feet. Torn thus by hesitation and by the sense of his unworthiness, he walked the streets, hour after hour. At one moment he approached the house desperately determined; the next he fled, mastered by the fear of dismissal. So he continued his miserable wanderings on into the dusk.

Twilight was settling when Margherita Ginini finished her packing. The big living-room was stripped of its furnishings; trunks and cases stood about in a desolate confusion. There was no look of home or comfort remaining anywhere, and the whole house echoed dismally to her footsteps. From the rear came the sound of Oliveta's listless preparations.

Pausing at an open window, Margherita looked down upon the street which she had grown to love--the suggestion of darkness had softened it, mellowed it with a twilight beauty, like the face of an old friend seen in the glow of lamplight. The shouting of urchins at play floated upward, stirring the chords of motherhood in her breast and emphasizing her loneliness. With Oliveta gone what would be left? Nothing but an austere life compressed within drab walls; nothing but sickness and suffering on every side. She had begun to think a great deal about those walls of late and--The bells of a convent pealed out softly in the distance, bringing a tightness to her throat. In spite of herself she shuddered. Those laughing children's voices mocked at her empty life. They seemed always to jeer at that hungry mother-love, but never quite so loudly as now. She remembered surprising Norvin Blake at play with these very children one day, and the half-abashed, half-defiant light in his eyes when he discovered her watching him. Thinking of him, she recalled just such another twilight hour as this when, in a whirl of shamed emotion, she had been compelled to face the fact of her love. A sudden trembling weakness seized her at the memory, and she saw again those cold gray walls, which never echoed to the gleeful crowing of babes or the thrilling merriment of little voices. In that brief hour of her awakening life had opened gloriously, bewilderingly, only to close again, leaving her soul bruised and sore with rebellion.

She crossed the floor listlessly in answer to a knock, for the repeated attentions of her neighbors, although sincere and touching, were intrusive; then she fell back at sight of the man who entered.

The magic of this evening hour had brought him to her in spite of all his fears; but his heart was in his throat, and he could hardly manage a greeting. As he passed the threshold of the disordered room he looked round him in dismay.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Oliveta is going home to Sicily. It is our parting."

"And you?"

"To-morrow--I go to the Sisters."

"No, no!" he cried, in a voice which thrilled her. "I won't let you. For hours I've been trying to come here--Dearest, don't answer until you know everything. Sometimes I fear I was the one who was dreaming at that moment when you confessed you loved me, for it is all so unreal--But my love is not unreal. It has lived with me night and day since that first moment at Terranova--I couldn't speak before, but all these years seem only hours, and I've been living in the gardens of Sicily where you first smiled at me and awoke this love. You asked me to take no part--I had to refuse--I've tried to make a man of myself, not for my own sake, not for what the world would say, but for you--"

In the tumult of feeling that his words aroused she held fast to one thought.

"What--what about Myra Nell?" she gasped.

"Myra Nell is married!"

The curling lashes which had lain half closed during his headlong speech flew open to display a look of wonderment and dawning gladness.

"Yes," he reiterated. "She is married. She has been married ever since the Carnival, and she's very happy. But I didn't know. I was tied by a miserable misunderstanding, so I couldn't come to you honestly until today. And now--I--I'm--afraid--"

"What do you fear?" she heard herself say. The breathless delight of this moment was so intense that she toyed with it, fearing to lose the smallest part. She withheld the confession trembling upon her lips which he was too timid to take for granted, too blind to see.

"Can you take me, in spite of my wretched cowardice back there in Sicily? I would understand, dear, if you couldn't forget it, but--I love you so--I tried so hard to make myself worthy--you'll never know how hard it was--I couldn't do what you asked me, the other day, but, thank God, my hands are clean."

He held them out as if in evidence; then, to his great, his never-ending surprise, she came forward and placed her two palms in his. She stood looking gravely at him, her surrender plain in the curve of her tremulous lip, the droop of her faltering, silk-fringed lids.

Knowledge came to him with a blinding, suffocating suddenness which set his brain to reeling and wrung a rapturous cry from his throat.

After a long time he felt her shudder in his arms.

"What is it, heart of my life?" he whispered, without lifting his lips from her tawny cloud of hair.

"Those walls!" she said. "Those cold, gray walls!"

A sob rose, caught, then changed to a laugh of deep contentment, and she nestled closer.

Children's voices were wafted up to them through the fragrant, peaceful dusk, and the two fell silent again, until Oliveta came and stood beside them with her face transfigured.

"God be praised!" said the peasant girl, as she put her hands in theirs. "Something told me I should not return to Sicily alone."

THE END