"Where is he? The Negro, where is he? Ah, he will——"

Mr. Johnson, who had been summoned from the library to assist in caring for his wife, placed his hand over her mouth and prevented her from talking further.

Tiara, who had become somewhat dazed by Mrs. Johnson's treatment, had not stopped to help care for the swooning woman, but had walked away as one in a trance. How she made her way back to Almaville, she never knew.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

Back in Almaville.

The Hon. H. G. Volrees sat in his office room looking moodily out of the window. Since the desertion of his young bride his life had been one long day of misery to him. His mystification and anger increased with the years, and he had kept a standing offer of a large reward for information leading to the discovery of his wife. He had vowed vengeance upon the author or authors of his ruin.

"Come in," said he in a response to a knock on his door.

A young Negro man walked in and Mr. Volrees turned around slowly to look at his caller.

"This is Mr. Volrees?" asked the Negro.

Mr. Volrees nodded assent, surveying the Negro from head to foot, noting the flush of excitement on his swarthy face.

"I understand that you have offered a reward for information leading to the discovery of the whereabouts of your wife," said the Negro.

An angry flush appeared on Mr. Volrees' face and he cast a look of withering contempt in the Negro's direction, who read at once Mr. Volrees' disgust over the fact that he, a Negro, dared to broach the question of his family trouble.

"Pardon me," said the Negro, turning to leave.

"Come back! Are you a fool?" said Mr. Volrees angrily, his desire for information concerning his wife overcoming his scruples.

"My wife took me to be one and left me," said the Negro in a tone of mock humility.

Mr. Volrees looked up quickly to see whether he meant what he was saying or was making a thrust at him. The solemn face of the Negro was non-committal.

"Now, what do you know?" asked Mr. Volrees gruffly.

"I know where your wife is," said the Negro.

"How do you know that she is my wife?"

"I was the porter on the train that you and she began your bridal tour on," replied the Negro.

"How have you been able to trace her?"

"I was the porter on the train on which she first came to Almaville. She came into the section of the coach for Negroes, and she and a Negro girl created a scene."

"Go on!" almost shouted Volrees, now thoroughly aroused.

"The reward?" timidly suggested the Negro.

"Of course you get that. Go on!" said Volrees, with increasing impatience.

"The affair was so sad-like that I always remembered the looks of the two women," resumed the Negro. "One night not long ago I saw the Negro girl buy a ticket to Goldsboro, Mississippi. It came to me like a flash that she was going to see your wife. She had the same sad look on her face that she had the night I saw them together. I followed this girl to Mississippi and sure enough I came upon your wife."

Volrees had now arisen and was restlessly moving about the room, his brain in a whirl.

"Was she living with some family, or how was she situated?" he asked.

"She and her husband live——"

"Her husband!" thundered Volrees, grabbing the Negro in the collar, fancying that he was grabbing the other husband.

"The people there say that she is married," said the Negro timidly.

"I will choke the liver out of the miscreant," said Volrees, tightening his hold in the Negro's collar as if in practice.

"I am not the man," said the Negro, with growing determination in his voice. Volrees was thus recalled to himself and resumed his restless tramping.

"No, you are not the man. You are only a —— nigger."

Grasping his hat, Volrees strode rapidly out of the room. At the door he bawled back,

"You will get your reward."

The Negro followed Volrees at a distance and noted that he went to the office of an exceedingly shrewd detective.

In the course of a few days the city of Almaville was shocked with the news that a Mrs. Johnson, wife of a leading Mississippi planter had been arrested and brought to Almaville on a charge of bigamy. The prosecutor in the case was the Hon. H. G. Volrees, who claimed that the alleged Mrs. Johnson was none other than Eunice Seabright, who had married him. Mrs. Johnson denied being the former Miss Seabright, and employed able counsel to conduct her defense.

The stir in the highest social circles of Almaville was indeed great, and for days very little was talked of save the forthcoming Volrees-Johnson bigamy trial.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

A Great Day in Court.

Long before the hour set for the trial of the alleged Eunice Volrees on the charge of bigamy the court house yard and the corridors were full of people, but, strange to say, the court room in which the trial was to take place, though open, was not occupied. The crowds thus far were composed of Negroes and white people in the middle walks of life, who looked upon the forthcoming trial as a 'big folks'' affair and, as if by agreement, the court room was spared for the occupancy of the elite. As the hour for the trial drew near the carriages and automobiles of the upper classes began to arrive. Each arrival would come in for a share of the attention of the middle classes and the distinguishing feature of each personage was told in whispers from one to another.

When the carriage of the Hon. H. G. Volrees rolled up to the court house gate silence fell upon the multitude and those on the walk leading to the court house door fell back and let him pass. His face wore a solemn, determined look and the common verdict was, "No mercy there. A fight to a finish."

The court room was now fairly well filled with Almaville notables, and the plain people now crowded in to get seats as best they could or to occupy standing room. Almost the last carriage to arrive was that containing Eunice. The curtains to the carriage were drawn so that no one in it could be seen until the door was opened. Eunice and her lawyers stepped out and quickly closed the door behind them. Contrary to the expectations of many, she wore no veil and each person in the great throng was highly gratified at an opportunity to scrutinize her features thoroughly. A way was made for her through the great throng and she walked to the prisoner's seat holding to the arm of her lawyer.

The case was called, a jury secured, and the examination of witnesses entered into. The first witness on the part of the State was the Hon. H. G. Volrees himself. As he took the witness chair a bustle was heard in the room. The people in the aisle were trying to squeeze themselves together more tightly to allow a man to pass who was leading a little six-year-old boy, who had just been taken from the carriage which had brought Eunice to the trial. "Make room, please. I am taking her son to her," the man would say, and the crowd would fall away as best it could.

The Hon. H. G. Volrees had opened his mouth to begin his testimony when he noticed that his attorney, the opposing counsel, the judge and the officers of the court had turned their eyes toward the prisoner's seat. As nobody seemed to be listening to him he halted in the midst of his first sentence and turned to see what was attracting the attention of the others. As he looked, a peculiar sensation passed over him. Perspiration broke out in beads and his veins stood out like whip cords. He clutched his chair tightly and cleared his throat.

There sat beside Eunice her child, having all of Mr. Volrees' features. There were his dark chestnut hair, his large dark eyes, his nose, his lips, his poise and a dark brown stain beneath the left ear which had been a recurrence in the Volrees family for generations. The public was mystified as it was commonly understood that the marital relations had extended no farther than the marriage ceremony. The presence of this child looked therefore to be an impeachment of the integrity of Mr. Volrees and of Eunice. The wonder was as to why nothing about the child had been mentioned before. Mr. Volrees sat in his chair, his eyes fixed on the boy.

The lawyer at length resumed the examination of Mr. Volrees, but the latter made a sorry witness. It was evident that the coming in of this child had thoroughly upset him in some way. He was mystified, and his mind, grappling with the problem of his likeness sitting there before him, could not address itself to the functions of a witness in the case at issue. He was finally excused from the witness chair.

The other witnesses, who, out of sympathy for H. G. Volrees had come to identify Eunice as his bride, seeing his collapse, did not feel inclined to take the prosecution of the case upon themselves and their testimony did not have the positiveness necessary to carry conviction. It was very evident that the state had not made out a case and an acquittal seemed assured.

The Negro porter was in the court room eagerly watching the progress of the trial, knowing that the obtaining of his reward hinged upon the outcome of the case. He saw the trend of affairs and felt that something had to be done to stem the tide. He saw Tiara sitting in the court room, and said to the prosecuting attorney in a whisper, "Yonder is a colored girl who knows her thoroughly and can tell all about her."

To her great surprise Tiara was called as a witness. She was a striking, beautiful figure, as she stood to take the oath that she would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"Mr. Judge," said Tiara, in a sweet, sad voice, "can it go on record that I am not a volunteer witness in this case?"

The judge looked a little puzzled and Tiara said, "At any rate, judge, if in after time it be said that I did not on this occasion stand up for those connected with me by ties of blood, I want it understood that I did not seek this chair—did not know that I was to be called; but since I am here, I shall fulfil my oath and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

Tiara now took her seat in the witness chair.

Eunice leaned forward and gazed at Tiara, her thin beautiful lips quivering, her eyes trying to read the intent of Tiara's soul.

Tiara looked at the recording clerk and appeared to address her testimony to him. Now that she was forced to speak she desired the whole truth to come out. Her poor tired soul now clutched at proffered surcease through the unburdening of itself. She began:

"In revolutionary times one of your most illustrious men, whose fame has found lodgment in all quarters of the globe, was clandestinely married to a Negro woman. My mother was a direct descendant of this man. My mother's ancestors, descendants of this man, made a practice of intermarrying with mulattoes, until in her case all trace of Negro blood, so far as personal appearance was concerned, had disappeared. She married my father, he thinking that she was wholly white, and she thinking the same of him. Two children, a boy and a girl, having all the characteristics of whites, were born to them. Then I was born and my complexion showed plainly the traces of Negro blood. The community in which we lived, Shirleyville, Indiana, in a quiet way, was much disturbed over the Negro blood manifested in me, and my mother's good name was imperilled.

"My mother confessed to my father the fact that she was a descendant of Negroes and he made a like confession to my mother as to his ancestry. When Shirleyville found out that my parents had Negro blood in their veins, I was regarded as a 'reversion to type,' and the storm blew over. My father became Mayor of the town, and great ambitions began to form in my mother's heart.

"A notable social event was to take place at Indianapolis and my mother aspired to be a guest. She met with a rebuff because she had Negro blood in her veins. This rebuff corrupted my mother's whole nature, and hardened her heart. She had my father to resign as Mayor. Our home was burned and we were all supposed to have perished in the flames. This was my mother's way of having us born into the world again.

"My mother, father and the other two children began life over as whites, and I began it over as a lone Negro girl without family connection, and we all had this second start in life here in your city.

"Most all people in America have theories as to the best solution of the race problem, but my mother fancied that she had the one solution. She felt that the mixed bloods who could pass for whites ought to organize and cultivate unswerving devotion to the Negro race. According to her plan the mixed bloods thus taught should be sent into the life of the white people to work quietly year after year to break down the Southern white man's idea of the Negro's rights. She felt that the mixed bloods should lay hold of every center of power that could be reached. She set for herself the task of controlling the pulpit, the social circle and the politics of Almaville and eventually of the whole South and the nation. O she had grand, wild dreams! If she had succeeded in her efforts to utilize members of her own family, she had planned to organize the mixed bloods of the nation and effect an organization composed of cultured men and women that could readily pass for white, who were to shake the Southern system to its very foundation. With this general end in view, she had her son trained for the ministry. This son became an eloquent preacher. My mother through a forged recommendation, which, however, the son did not know to be forged, had him chosen as pastor of a leading church in this city.

"My mother had a strange power over most people and a peculiar power over my brother. He did not at all relish his peculiar situation, but my mother insisted that he was but obeying the scriptural injunction to preach the gospel to every creature. The minister in question was none other than the universally esteemed Rev. Percy G. Marshall, who now rests in a highly honored grave in your most exclusive cemetery, from which Negroes are barred as visitors."

There was a marked sensation in the court room at this announcement concerning the racial affinity of the Rev. Percy G. Marshall.

"I visited my brother clandestinely; often he and I sorrowed together. On the night of the murder, which you all remember, and preceding that sad event, closely veiled I visited him at his study. When we were through talking I arose to go and opened the door. 'Kiss your brother. We may not meet again,' said he sadly. Neglecting to close the door I stepped up to him and kissed him. When I turned to go out I saw that Gus Martin, whom Leroy Crutcher, as I afterwards found out, had set to watching me, had seen us kiss each other. I hurried on home embarrassed that I could not explain the situation to him. When on the next day I read of my brother's death, I immediately guessed all. That is how I had the key to bringing Gus Martin to terms. When he found out his awful mistake he was willing to surrender.

"So resulted my mother's plans for the mastery of your Southern pulpit."

Turning to Eunice, she said, "There is her daughter. Through her my mother hoped to lay hold on the political power of the state. But that girl loved a Negro, the son of the prosecutor, the Hon. H. G. Volrees [sensation in the court].

"After leaving her husband, Eunice came to live with me. Earl Bluefield, who is Mr. Volrees' son [decided sensation] was wounded in a scuffle that was not so much to his credit, and he was brought to my house to recover. Eunice waited on him. They fell in love, left my home and married. This explains how that boy favors the Hon. Mr. Volrees. It is his grandson."

Tiara now stood up and said, "Mr. Judge, it may not be regular, but permit me to say a few words."

The whole court seemed under a spell and nobody stirred as Tiara spoke.

"My mother is dead and paid dearly for her unnatural course. But do not judge her too harshly. You people who are white do not know what an awful burden it is to be black in these days of the world. If some break down beneath the awful load of caste which you thrust upon them, mingle pity with your blame."

Tiara paused an instant and then resumed:

"One word to you all. I am aware of the fact that the construction of a social fabric, such as your Anglo-Saxondom, has been one of the marvelous works of nature, and I realize that the maintenance of its efficiency for the stupendous world duties that lie before it demand that you have strict regard to the physical, mental and moral characteristics that go to constitute your aggregation. But I warn you to beware of the dehumanizing influence of caste. It will cause your great race to be warped, to be narrow. Oratory will decay in your midst; poetry will disappear or dwell in mediocrity, taking on a mocking sound and a metallic ring; art will become formal, lacking in spirit; huge soulless machines will grow up that will crush the life out of humanity; conditions will become fixed and there will be no way for those who are down to rise. Hope will depart from the bosoms of the masses. You will be a great but a soulless race. This will come upon you when your heart is cankered with caste. You will devour the Negro to-day, the humbler white to-morrow, and you who remain will then turn upon yourselves."

Tiara paused and glanced around the court room as if to see how much sympathy she could read in the countenances of her hearers. The rapt attention, the kindly look in their eyes gave her courage to take up a question which the situation in the South made exceedingly delicate, when one's audience was composed of Southern white people.

"One thing, Mr. Judge, wells up in me at this time, and I suppose I will have to say it, unless you stop me," said Tiara, in the tone of one asking a question.

The judge made no reply and Tiara interpreted his silence to mean that she was permitted to proceed.

Said she: "You white people have seen fit to make the Negro a stranger to your social life and you further decree that he shall ever be thus. You know that this weakens his position in the governmental fabric. The fact that he is thus excluded puts a perennial question mark after him. Furthermore the social influence is a tremendous force in the affairs of men, as all history teaches. To all that goes to constitute this powerful factor in your life as a people, you have seen fit to pronounce the Negro a stranger. The pride of the Negro race has risen to the occasion and there is a thorough sentiment in that race in favor of racial integrity.

"So, by your decree and the cordial acceptance thereof by the Negro, he is to be a stranger to your social system. That is settled. The very fact that the Negro occupies an inherently weak position in your communal life makes it incumbent upon you to provide safeguards for him.

"Instead, therefore, of the Negro's absence from the social circle being a warrant for his exclusion from political functions, it is an argument in favor of granting full political opportunity to him. When a man loses one eye, nature strengthens the other for its added responsibility. Just so, logically, it seems absurd to hold that the Negro should suffer the loss of a second power because he is shut out from the use of a first.



"Your Bible says: 'And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.' White friends of the South! Let me beseech you to vex not this social stranger within your borders; the stranger who invades your swamps and drains them into his system for your comfort; who creeps through the slime of your sewers; who wrestles with the heat in your ditches and fields; who has borne your onerous burdens and cheered you with his song as he toiled; who has never heard the war whoop but that he has prepared for battle; whose one hope is to be allowed to live in peace by your side and develop his powers and those of his children that they may be factors in making of this land, the greatest in goodness in all this world. Don't circumscribe the able, noble souls among the Negroes. Give them the world as a playground for their talents and let Negro men dream of stars as do your men. They need that as much as you do. As for me, I shall leave your land."

Turning to Eunice, Tiara stretched forth her hands, appealingly and said, "Sister, come let us leave this country! Come."

"Ha! ha!" laughed Eunice, with almost maniacal intensity, as she waved her hand in disdain at Tiara, who now slowly left the witness stand.

All eyes were now turned toward Eunice, who had arisen and stood trying to drive away the passions of rage that seemed to clutch her vocal cords so that she could not speak. At last getting sufficient strength to begin, she said:

"Honorable Judge and you jurymen: I declare to you all to-day that I am a white woman. My blood is the blood of the whites, my instincts, my feelings, my culture, my spirit, my all is cast in the same mould as yours. That woman who talked to you a few moments ago is a Negro. Don't honor her word above mine, the word of a white woman. I invoke your law of caste. Look at me! Look at my boy! In what respect do we differ from you?"

She paused and drawing her small frame to its full height, with her hands outstretched across the railing, with hot scalding tears coursing down her cheeks, she said in tremulous tones:

"And now, gentlemen, I came here hoping to be acquitted, but in view of the statements made I want no acquittal. Your law prescribes, so I am told, that there can be no such thing as a marriage between whites and Negroes. To acquit me will be to say that I am a Negro woman and could not have married a white man. I implore you to convict me! Send me to prison! Let me wear a felon's garb! Let my son know that his mother is a convict, but in the name of heaven I ask you, send not my child and me into Negro life. Send us not to a race cursed with petty jealousies, the burden bearers of the world. My God! the thought of being called a Negro is awful, awful!"

Eunice's words were coming fast and she was now all but out of breath. After an instant's pause, she began:

"One word more. For argument's sake, grant that I have some Negro blood in me. You already make a mistake in making a gift of your blood to the African. Remember what your blood has done. It hammered out on fields of blood the Magna Charta; it took the head of Charles I.; it shattered the sceptre of George III.; it now circles the globe in an iron grasp. Think you not that this Anglo-Saxon blood loses its virility because of mixture with Negro blood. Ah! remember Frederick Douglass, he who as much as any other mortal brought armies to your doors that sacked your home. I plead with you, even if you accept that girl's malicious slanders as being true, not to send your blood back to join forces with the Negro blood."

Eunice threw an arm around her boy, who had arisen and was clutching her skirts. She parted her lips as if to speak farther, then settled back in her seat and closed her pretty blue eyes. Her tangled locks fell over her forehead and the audience looked in pity at the tired pretty girl.

Eunice's attorneys waived their rights to speak and the attorney for the prosecution stated that he, too, would now submit the case without argument.

"Without further formality the jury will take this case under advisement. You need no charge from me. You are all Anglo-Saxons," said the judge solemnly in a low tone of voice.

The jury filed into the jury room and began its deliberations. A tall, white haired man, foreman of the jury, arose and spoke as follows:

"Gentlemen: We have a sad case before us to-day. That girl has the white person's feelings and it seems cruel to crush her and drive her from those for whom she has the most affinity to those whom she is least like. Then, I pity the boy. He carries in his veins some of our proudest blood, and it seems awful to cast away our own. But we must stand by our rule. One drop of Negro blood makes its possessor a Negro.

"Our great race stands in juxtaposition with overwhelming millions of darker people throughout the earth, and we must cling to the caste idea if we would prevent a lapse that would taint our blood and eventually undermine our greatness. It is hard, but it is civilization. We cannot find this girl guilty. It would be declaring that marriage between a white man and a Negro woman is a possibility."

A vote was taken and the jury returned to the court room to render the verdict. "The prisoner at the bar will stand up," said the judge. Eunice stood up and her little boy stood up as well. There was the element of pathos in the standing up of that little boy, for the audience knew that his destiny was involved in the case.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?" asked the judge.

"We have," replied the foreman.

"Please announce it."

The audience held its breath in painful suspense. Eunice directed her burning gaze to the lips of the foreman, that she might, if possible, catch his fateful words even before they were fully formed.

"We, the jury, find the prisoner not guilty."

"Murder!" wildly shrieked Eunice. "Doomed! Doomed! They call us Negroes, my son, and everybody knows what that means!" Her tones of despair moved every hearer.

The judge quietly shed a few tears and many another person in the audience wept. The crowd filed out, leaving Eunice clasping her boy to her bosom, mother and son mingling their tears together. Tiara lingered in the corridor to greet Eunice when the latter should come out of the room. She had thought to speak to her on this wise:

"Eunice, we have each other left. Let us be sisters as we were in the days of our childhood."

But when Tiara confronted Eunice, the latter looked at her scornfully and passed on. When Tiara somewhat timidly caught hold of her dress as if to detain her, Eunice spat in her face and tore herself loose.



CHAPTER XXXV.

Eunice! Eunice!

With slow, uncertain step, a wild haunted look in her eye, Eunice, clutching her little boy's hand until it pained him, moved down the corridor toward the door leading out of the court house. She was about to face the world in the South as a member of the Negro race, and the very thought thereof spread riot within her soul. The nearer she drew to the door the greater was the anguish of her spirit. More than once she turned and retraced her steps in the corridor, trying to muster the courage to face the outer world in her new racial alignment. At last she stood near the door, her whole frame trembling as a result of the sweeping over her spirit of storm after storm of emotions. Her little boy, unable to grasp the import of his mother's behavior was eagerly scanning her face and weeping silently in instinctive sympathy.

With a sudden burst of courage Eunice stepped out of the court house door and a young white man, who had been awaiting her, stepped up to speak to her. His hat was tilted back on his head, a lighted cigar was in his mouth, and his hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets.

Eunice looked up at him, saw the wicked leer in his eyes, and recoiled.

"Don't be scared, Eunice. I stayed here to tell you that the hackman who brought you here got a chance to make a little extra by taking some white ladies home and said for you to stay here until he got back. He won't be gone but a few minutes."

The suggestive look, the patronizing tone, the failure to use "Mrs.," on the part of the man that addressed her, and the action of the hackman in leaving her to take some white woman home, served as a tonic to brace up the quailing spirit of Eunice.

Her first brush with the world as a member of the Negro race had aroused her fighting spirit.

"How dare you address me in that manner, you boorish wretch!" exclaimed Eunice, her small frame shaking with indignation.

The young man seemed rather to enjoy Eunice's rage and coolly replied, "Well, Eunice, you know, Eunice, that you are a Negress now and there are no misses and mistresses in that race. If you were a little older I would call you 'aunty;' if you were a little older still I would call you 'mammy;' if very old, 'grandma Eunice.' But as it is, I have to call you plain 'Eunice.' My race would disrespect me if I didn't follow the rule, you know."

"You wretched cur! You yap!" screamed Eunice.

"As this is your first day in the 'nigger' race I won't bother you for calling me out of my name. But let me give you a piece of advice. We white folks like a 'nigger' in his place only, and you find yours quick. And remember that you 'nigger' women don't come in for all that stepping back which we do for white women. We go so far as to burn your kind down here sometimes. As for that brat there, bring him up as a 'nigger' and teach him his place, if you don't want him to see trouble." So saying the young white man turned and walked away, leaving Eunice enraged and amazed at his effrontery.

The refined classes among the whites who would not under any circumstance have wantonly wounded Eunice's sensibilities, had nevertheless issued the decree of caste and the grosser ones among them were to execute it, and Eunice was tasting the gall that the unrefined pour out daily for a whole race to drink.

Typical of that class that enjoyed seeing the Negroes writhing under their wounded sensibilities, this young man had craved the honor of being the first to make Eunice taste the bitterness of her new lot in life.

Eunice and her son now proceeded to the street car. A number of white women boarded the car just in front of her and the conductor politely helped them on. When her time came to step up, he caught hold of her arm to assist her. When a glance at her face told him who she was, he (having seen her picture in the newspapers, and learned the result of the trial) quickly turned her loose so that she fell off the car, badly spraining her ankle.

Eunice did not understand his action and looked up at him inquiringly. The contemptuous look upon his face explained it all. With her sprained ankle she hobbled on the car and took a seat near the rear door. A number of half-grown white boys were on the rear platform and felt inclined to contribute their share of discomfort to the newly discovered Negro woman. They hummed over and over again the "rag time" song. "Coon, coon, coon, I wish my color would fade!"

When Eunice and her son arrived at her hotel she alighted from the car unaided, and painfully journeyed to her room, which was being thoroughly overhauled by an employee.

"Where—— where—— is my room?" asked Eunice, haltingly, fearing that she had somehow made a mistake.

"You haven't any in this hotel," was the gruff response.

"But I have; I am in the wrong room, perhaps," said Eunice.

"No, you have been in the wrong race. You are a 'nigger' and we don't run a 'nigger' hotel. Your things are piled up in the alley, and you will please get out of the building as quickly as you can."

Eunice's mind now ran back to the occasion of her first stay in that hotel, recalled how royally she was treated then and contrasted it with the treatment she was now receiving. Stepping to the mirror she gazed at herself saying:

"What leprosy, what loathsome disease has befallen me that everybody now spurns me. One cruel little word—Negro—has converted fawning into frowning and a paradise into hell."

Taking her boy by the hand she started out of the building as hurriedly as her sprained ankle would permit.

"Back doors for 'niggers,'" shouted the employee, as he saw that Eunice had started toward the front entrance.

Rage mounted the throne in Eunice's heart and she turned towards her tormentor. She parted her lips and the oaths of stern men were upon the eve of bursting forth, but she repressed them and was soon out of the hotel. The railroad station was not far away and she preferred walking to submitting to the indignities that might attend riding on the cars. Appearing at the railroad ticket office she applied for a berth in a sleeper. Her face was known there, too, and she was told that all the berths were taken. A white woman going on the same train was the next to apply for a berth and was given her choice of a number. Eunice noticed the discrimination and returned to the clerk.

"You must have been mistaken as to the train I am to travel on, for the lady that has just left secured a berth on that train after I had failed," said Eunice pleadingly, for she desired the seclusion of a sleeping car for her mournful journey home.

"You belong to a voteless race and I can't give you a berth," said the ticket agent.

"What has voting to do with my getting a suitable place to ride on a train?" said Eunice, tears of vexation coming into her eyes.

"Everything," said the young man more sympathetically.

"You see it is this way," he continued. "The Governor of this state, who sprang from a class of whites, who never had much love for the Negro, happened to take a sleeper that was occupied by a few Negroes who did not conduct themselves properly. Though the great body of Negroes who were able and disposed to occupy berths were genteel and well-behaved, this governor, to properly bolster his dignity resolved upon a course that would work discomfort for thousands. He threatened to recommend to the legislature that a law be passed demanding separate sleeping cars for the two races unless Negroes were kept out of sleepers. We lose less by keeping Negroes out than we would by being compelled to operate two sets of cars. If you people had voting power and could stand by us we could stand by you. It is a matter of business with us."

"You are discriminating against me without the warrant of law and are subject to a suit," said Eunice.

"The case will be tried by a white jury and a verdict will be rendered against us. We will be required to pay the cost of the court and to hand over to you one cent!"

Taking her little boy by the hand, Eunice slowly turned and walked away while the tears rolled down her cheeks. She did so much crave the darkness and seclusion of a berth, where she could take an inventory of the new world into which she had come, but there was no escape from the lighted coach occupied by Negroes. Getting on the train she took a seat in the section of the coach set apart for Negroes. The Negro porter thinking she had made a mistake took her into a coach for whites.

"Take that woman back. She is no white woman," bawled out one of the passengers, who had in his hands an afternoon paper containing a likeness of Eunice and an account of the trial.

The puzzled porter turned to Eunice and said, "Are you a—are you a—" He was afraid to ask the woman as to whether she was a Negro fearing she might be a white woman and would have him killed for the insult; and he was equally afraid to ask her as to whether she was a white woman, fearing that if she was white she would resent a question that seemed to imply any sort of resemblance to a Negro. It occurred to him to say:

"This coach is for whites and the one you came out of is for Negroes."

Saying this he left hurriedly, leaving her to select the coach in which she was to ride. Eunice groped her way back to the section of the coach set apart for Negroes.

Earl had heard by means of the long distance telephone of the outcome of the trial, and desiring that the first meeting with Eunice after the sad experience should be private, he had preferred sending to the railway station for her, to going himself. He was now in his library when Eunice and her son reached the house. As Eunice pushed open the library door and stood facing her husband she stretched forth her hands and said in tones that pierced Earl's heart:

"Doomed! Doomed! Assigned to membership in the Negro race! Made heir to all the contempt of the world. Doomed! Doomed!"

Earl stood with folded arms and a heart whose emotions cannot be portrayed, and looked at the picture of woe before him, his beautiful wife frantic and despairing and his little son already feeling in his youthful spirit the all pervading gloom that creeps through the Negro world.

"Be not dismayed, Eunice, dear! I am not at the end of my resources. I shall yet burst a bomb in this Southland," said Earl.

Eunice rushed to Earl clutched his arms and looked up wildly into his eyes. "Earl, dear Earl! Tell me! Tell me quickly and tell the truth! Is there, can there be any hope for the Negro here or elsewhere?"

Earl did not answer at once. He looked steadily into her eyes and realized that he was in the immediate presence of a soul about to make a final plunge into the dark, dark abyss of despair. It was to him a holy presence and he could not lie!

"Eunice, dear, there is hope. Slowly, but surely the world is working its way to a basis of justice for all," said Earl.

"My boy! Is there hope for him?"

"The hope of sublime battling, dear," said Earl.

"Is that all there is for my boy? No hope of reward. Only battle! battle!" asked Eunice.

"Grant me a favor, Eunice. I know what that look in your face means. I see that you are thinking of leaving me, and of taking my boy and your boy with you. You are planning suicide," said Earl.

"Ha! ha!" laughed Eunice, in the uncanny tones of madness. "You guess well. Come with us," she said, casting a look in the direction of a drawer where she knew the pistol to be.

"Grant me this favor, Eunice. Don't die. Spare my boy. Live and let my boy live a little while longer. I have several more lines of attack. If they fail then we can all go."

Eunice whirled around the room gayly and said with childish glee, "You will then die with us, will you? Ha! ha! ha!" A terrible fear stole over Earl as he watched her peculiar behavior.

"Live! Ha! ha! ha! 'Nigger,' 'darkey,' 'coon'—live! Yes, I'll live! I'll live! Whee—poo—poo—wheep!" screamed Eunice, now dashing wildly about the room. She had gone mad.

* * * * *

At the earliest moment practicable Earl bore the raving Eunice out of the Southland, carried her to a sanitarium in a northern city. Giving the physician in charge a history of the case and allowing him time to study it, Earl awaited the verdict as to Eunice's chances of recovery.

"Mr. Bluefield, to be absolutely frank with you, I am compelled to say that, in my opinion, your wife's case is an incurable one. The one specific cause of her mental breakdown is the Southern situation which has borne tremendously upon her. That whole region of country is affected by a sort of sociological hysteria and we physicians are expecting more and more pathological manifestations as a result of the strain upon the people.

"Only one thing could cure your wife and that is the reversal of the conditions that have wrought upon her mind. She has lucid moments, but whenever her mind forcibly recurs to the Southern situation she again plunges into the gulf of despair. If in these lucid moments you could place before her a ladder of hope, I am of the opinion that a cure would be effected. That is equivalent to saying, I fear, that the case is incurable, for I can see no way out of the Southern tangle."

Such were the awful words addressed to Earl Bluefield by the physician in charge of the sanitarium when Earl called to learn of him his opinion concerning Eunice's case.

Earl walked forth from the sanitarium and journeyed hurriedly to the southern border of the city. When the houses of the city were well at his back and he had an unobstructed view to the south, he paused and, holding his right hand aloft, he said:

"Hear, O spirit world, if such there be, that, in the days to come, you may witness how faithfully Earl Bluefield, Humanity's Ishmaelite, kept his word. Non-existent was I until the whim of a Southern white man, trampling upon the alleged sacred canons of his race, called me into being and endowed me with the spirit of his kind. In the race into which I was thrust, I sought to manifest my martial spirit, but met with no adequate response from men grooved in the ways of peace. I found me a wife with spirit akin to mine, and like myself a victim of the bloods. The two of us withdrew from the active affairs of men, and from our own heath looked out upon the land of our birth, in the very which we had been made aliens. And now we have been dragged from our happy seclusion and gibbeted.

"And thinkest thou, O Southland, that the last has been heard of me? Ha! Ha! For fear that thou mayest deceive thyself thus, hear the oath of Earl the Ishmaelite:

"By the wrenched chords of the heart of a boy spurned by a contemning father; by the double shame of a mother wickedly wooed and despised in the one breath; by the patience and optimism of the blood of my black forbears; by the energy and persistence of my grant of blood from Europe—by all these mighty tokens, I make oath that this nation shall rest neither day nor night until this shadow is lifted from my soul. And I further make oath, O despisers of the offerings of my higher self, that I shall meet your every fresh wound with face the more uplifted because thereof, and to better meet all that you have to hand out to me, I shall keep company with the Spirit that makes nerve food of disasters and ascension chariots of whirlwinds."



CHAPTER XXXVI.

Enthusiastic John Blue.

In a room of a hotel in the city in which the sanitarium having charge of Eunice was located, Earl Bluefield sat upon a sofa, his hands, with the fingers tightly interlaced, resting between his knees, his head and shoulders bent forward. The intense, haggard look upon his face told plainly of the painful meditation in which he was engaged.

Owing to Earl's peculiar status in the world, Eunice, beloved as a wife, was far more to him than a wife. He looked upon himself as a sort of exotic in the non-resisting Negro race and considered himself a special object of scorn on the part of the white people of the South, who seemed to him to resent his near approach unto them in blood, and to mistrust his kind more than all other elements in Negro life. In the absence, therefore, of a perfect bond of racial sympathy anywhere, Eunice became to him his world as well as his wife, and no more horrible suggestion could be made than that he should go through life apart from her. Here indeed had been a marriage—the welding of two into one.

Earl was not brooding as one who had hopelessly lost his all, but was plotting as one who would save his all. The task of the knight of old upon whom was the burden of rescuing some lovely maiden from imprisonment in a seemingly impregnable fortress, was but child's play compared to the task before Earl, who must scale the walls of the castle of despair and batter down doors that laughed at the feebleness of steel if he would claim Eunice for his own again. He was face to face with the dreadful fact that nothing but the solution of the long standing race problem of America could release to him the one so dear to his heart, so essential to his existence.

As Earl sat canvassing the terrible plight in which he found himself, his mind ran the whole gamut of panaceas that had been proposed for a solution.

His own martial scheme of his earlier, unmarried days passed in review before his mind, but failed to appeal to him as it did in the days of yore. So far as he himself was concerned he would have welcomed a death in a glorious cause as an honorable release from the ranks of the advocates of universal justice, who, to his impatient spirit seemed to be marking time in the face of an aggressive foe. But death for himself would not rescue Eunice!

His mind recurred to the impression that seemed to prevail in some quarters that the solution of the problem mainly hinged upon giving industrial training to the Negro masses.

"That," said he to himself, "will solve a large part of the Negro's side of the problem, but how great an army of carpenters can hammer the spirit of repression out of those who hold that the eternal repression of the Negro is the nation's only safeguard? What worker in iron can fashion a key that will open the door to that world of higher activities, the world of moral and spiritual forces which alone woos Eunice's spirit and mine? What welder of steel can beat into one the discordant soul forces of willing Negroes and unwilling whites, the really pivotal point of the problem? Really pressing is the need of industrial training for our people, but my peculiar case calls for something that must come from Lincoln the emancipator rather than from Lincoln the rail-splitter."

Earl next thought of Ensal's proposed campaign of education which had been vigorously carried on by Tiara and he said: "It is one thing to produce a Niagara and another thing to harness it. O for a means of harnessing all the righteous sentiment in America in favor of the ideals of the Constitution." Thus, on and on Earl soliloquized, groping for the light.

He stretched out upon the sofa and sought to refresh his tired brain with a few moments of sleep, but sleep refused to visit him. Suddenly he leaped from the sofa and said:

"I have it! I have it! Eunice shall be free."

He now began to make hurried preparations for a trip South. While he is thus engaged we shall divulge to the reader the process of reasoning that at last led him to what he conceived to be daylight.

"Two things must be done," argued Earl within himself. "Repression in the South must die and men with broader visions in that section must take charge of affairs. This is an age of freedom and an age of local self-government. Freedom must obtain in the South, and largely through some agency found or developed therein. The most effective way of killing repression is to make it kill itself and out of the soil nurtured by its carcass will spring a just order of things.

"I will lure repression to its death and then find my force within the South that will lead the South into nobler ways."

Understanding this much of Earl's new plan we are now prepared to follow him and intelligently watch developments.

The scene now shifts from the North to the South.

* * * * *

Fully conscious of the stupendous character of his undertaking, Earl walked slowly up the walk leading to the office of the Governor of M——, a Southern state. He was steadying himself for the coming effort.

When shown to the governor's office he said:

"This is the governor of the state of M——, I believe."

"They say that such is the case," responded the governor, smilingly.

"I am just from the North and am making a tour of the South. I am traveling incognito and would like to be known to you as John Blue. As I shall broach only matters of common public interest in case you honor me with an interview, I shall be pleased to have you excuse me from making myself further known to you in a personal way," said Earl, with great affability.

The governor was captured at once by Earl's suave manner and actually fancied that some Northerner of exceeding great note was paying him a visit.

"Well, I am glad to see you—glad to see you. The more you men of the North see our Southern 'niggers' the more you will sympathize with us," said the governor.

"Do you think that either we Northerners or you Southerners get anything like an adequate view of the Negro?" asked Earl Bluefield, alias John Blue.

"Why not?" asked the governor.

"Well, you Southern people don't mix with them socially, practically never enter their best homes, and would be amazed, I am told, if you really knew of the high order of their development socially. It is said that you call them 'niggers,' that your children speak of them as such, that you often speak harshly of them in your home circles, that many of your men are not as refined as they might be when they are dealing with Negro women, and that for these reasons the better grade of Negroes are leaving your domestic service, so that your observation of the Negro is more and more centered upon the type that does not represent the race at its best."

"I had never thought of that. We do call them 'niggers.' I have a lot of trouble in keeping a cook. I wonder if that is the reason. Well, well, who would have thought that there was anything about a 'nigger' that Southerners would have to be told by a Northerner," remarked the governor, winding up with a loud guffaw.

"As for the tourist class of Northerners," resumed John Blue, "and Northerners residing in the South, they see only the rougher side of Negro life, much as do you Southerners. The Northern missionaries whose duties place them in touch with the best and worst that there is in Negro life have the real rounded view of the situation."

The governor's affability now disappeared. Said he:

"Don't praise those mawkish missionaries to me. They are down here educating the heads of 'niggers.' We white folks have got enough heads to run this country."

"Your irritation," said Earl, "paves the way for me to say what I came to say. We Northerners are tired of being estranged from you Southerners. We are becoming a world power and should have a thoroughly united country. Why don't you Southern people begin a campaign of education and let the North know your real mind, so that we won't tread on your corns so often, to use a homely phrase."

"Ha, ha! the North knows my views. They were heralded abroad everywhere and gave me the governorship. I had five planks in my platform and, to match your homely phrase with another one, they took like hot cakes," said the governor.

"Would you object to outlining your platform to me," asked Earl.

"Object? Why I am the boldest man in the South. I don't bite my tongue. Surely you have heard of me," said the governor.

"Yes, I have heard of you," said Earl, "but I did not know but what you had been misrepresented by political enemies."

"Well, you can judge for yourself as to whether I have been misrepresented or not. The five planks of my 'nigger' platform are these," said he.

"First, this is a white man's country.

"Second, one drop of Negro blood in a man's veins makes him a 'nigger.'



"Third, public office, neither federal nor state, was gotten up for a 'nigger' to hold.

"Fourth, all money spent on educating a 'nigger,' except to teach him to work, is a squandering of the public funds.

"Fifth, the outside world be d——d. We will deal with the 'nigger' to suit ourselves.

"I will also tell you confidentially that I am one that don't want the 'nigger' question out of politics. We are living side by side with these 'niggers,' and public agitation helps our people to keep in mind that there is an impassable gulf between the races. Such men as I am would be perfect fools for trying to solve this 'nigger' problem. A crazy man can see that the solving of this problem puts my kind out of business. Thousands of Southern men can whip me out of my boots on any issue outside of abusing the 'nigger.' That's where I can go them one better. Haven't you observed the universal lament that we are not up to the standard in point of statesmanship. The trouble is we ride into our kingdoms so easily. It don't take a genius to persuade a people that you can beat a more tender-hearted man keeping a 'nigger' in his place. We machine men in the South don't want this 'nigger' bugaboo put down. It's our war whoop."

"Aside from the political use to which you put your announced views on the race question, you really believe them, don't you?" asked Earl.

"O yes. I think the good of the world demands that the 'nigger' be kept in his place," replied the governor.

"Now, I am getting to the point," said Earl. "Lincoln once said our country could not always exist half slave and half free. You see he was right. Now a lesser light than Lincoln tells you that the policy of repression must obtain in all our country or none, for the nationalizing spirit is at work, and is sure in time to produce a national unity of some sort. Shall this unity, so far as touches the question of the races, be upon the Northern or Southern basis, is a very live question for you Southerners. Now I suggest that you Southern people make this question a national one."

"How can we raise the issue," asked the governor.

"Easily. You people have been tolerating Negroes in federal positions down here for years. Collectorships of ports, marshalships and numerous positions of honor have all along been held by Negroes. Become tired of this and demand that they be withdrawn. That will be an invitation to the nation to join with you in your policy of repression."

"Good! Good!" said the governor, clapping his hands.

"You can go further. The presidency of our nation is where the copartnership of the states finds conspicuous concrete expression. Demand that none but a repressionist or a man silent on that question be allowed to occupy that chair."

"Good! Good! Good!" exclaimed the governor.

"Now as to your chances. The race instinct is in the North, but is not cultivated as much as it is in the South. Send your men to the North who are most adroit in their appeals to prejudice and you will find a force there to join you. Then remember you Southerners sprang to arms so gallantly in that skirmish with Spain that you made a fine impression. It was discovered that you had been brave enough not to allow defeat to rankle in your hearts, a really good quality. A more opportune time for you Southern people to take a stand would be hard to conceive," said Earl.

Down came the governor's hand upon his desk with a thud.

"Don't you know I have been thinking that very thing. I have great influence in the councils of my party and I shall see to it that the 'nigger' question is the next national issue," said the governor.

"You will have one little backset," said Earl.

"The man whom you will have to oppose has made fewer Negro appointments than any of his more immediate predecessors and those made have been of a very high order—a thing that could not always be said. Again, he has made it a point to have no Southern adviser save a known friend of the best element of the Southern people."

The governor looked wrothy again. "Best element," said he, sneeringly. "He is losing his time fooling with that crowd. All we radicals have to do is to crack our whips and they run to cover."

"That brings us to another point of considerable importance. When the campaign is launched, whose views on the race question shall be in the foreground—the views of the radicals or conservatives in the South," asked Earl.

"The radicals shall occupy the center of the stage, sir. We are tired of these half-way policies!" thundered the governor.

Earl now arose to go.

"You will certainly hear from us radicals as never before in the history of the nation—that is, since we jumped in the saddle and brought on the war," said the governor.

"By jinks, you don't think another war will come on, do you, Mr. Blue?" asked the governor.

"Oh, no; we have had our last war with lead and steel. All of our internal conflicts for the future must be intellectual, it seems," answered John Blue.

"I am glad to hear you say that, for if we got into another tangle I do believe to my soul that these 'niggers' would be a little less quiet than they were before. But for our political alliance with the North we of the South would have to be one of the most truckling of nations. For, what could we do to a foreign foe with all these discontented 'niggers' squirming in the fires of race prejudice, like so many worms in hot ashes. You are sure there won't be any physical fighting?" remarked the governor.

"The North would hardly hit you, for you are blood of their blood and they know how utterly helpless you are with an awakened race in your borders thoroughly of the opinion that you are not giving them a semblance of fair treatment," said John Blue.

"I gad, we must bring the North our way. I see that whoever, in this fight of the races, gets the outsider is going to carry the day. We are coming in the next campaign. Look out for us."

The two men bade each other adieu and Earl walked out of the office.

Earl invaded state after state in the South and conferred with the radical leaders wherever he went and found the sentiment everywhere prevailing that the time was ripe for the radical South to pull off its mask and let the world see its real heart.

With an anxious heart Earl watched the forming of the lines of the campaign. Men in all parts of the country, whose only hope of success lay in obtaining the political power in the hands of the radicals, besought them to forego making the Negro question an issue, but they were deaf to all appeals.

The convention dominated by the radicals met, and John Blue, alias Earl Bluefield, was there. When the Anti-Negro plank was read, from his seat in the gallery a mighty cheer rang out that started a wave of enthusiasm unsurpassed in the history of political conventions.

As John Blue stood waving a flag and cheering, his eye swept over that great throng, and he said to himself:

"O bonnie Southland: if you had developed real statesmen among you, men who knew their age, they would be here to tell all these people save myself to be quiet, on the ground that it is indelicate for a corpse to cheer at its own funeral. But your really great men are at home sorrowing over your coming humiliation. This day's work is the beginning of the end. Eunice, the sky brightens!

"Heaven of heavens, I thank thee that thou hast so arranged it that the American people must now say as to whether or not the caste spirit shall be allowed to lay his bloody tentacles on the political life of the whole nation."



CHAPTER XXXVII.

Postponing His Shout of Triumph.

With ceaseless, tireless energy Earl Bluefield went everywhere in the North during the campaign that followed, assailing the political power in control of the South. The heat of his heart warmed his words and his eloquence thrilled the nation.

"How has it happened that an orator of such power has remained so long hidden from the nation's gaze?" was the question everywhere asked.

In an address to Northern labor, which was heralded far and wide, Earl said:

"To those of you who in the sweat of your brow earn your bread, I bring the message that your earning of a livelihood, a very grave matter with you, is affected by the Southern situation.

"It has been said that the South is freer from labor strikes than any other equal area of territory within the borders of civilization. The weakness of the Negro in the body politic, his lack of means to insure his protection, gives timidity to Negro labor and causes it to be little inclined to organize.

"The enforced cheapness of Negro labor brings down the price of all labor, just as a house sinks with its foundation. Lo, the word has already gone forth that the South is the place for capital, that labor is cheap, that there is an absence of social unrest found elsewhere.

"Read your commercial journals and note how many of the institutions upon which you have depended for a livelihood have been transferred to this land of cheapness and peace, ominous peace. Note how your captains of industry are asseverating that factories in the North must cut wages in order to compete with those that have gone South.

"Your economists saw in the days preceding civil strife that the workingman of the North could ill afford to compete with slave labor at the South. Permit me to say to you that the half-slave, the political slave, made timid by an environment that tends to crush his spirit and dwarf his energies, is a menace to you, holding the white labor of the South down and affecting you of the North.

"Again, adverse conditions at the South will drive the Negro to your very door. Some day when you desire to remain away from work to allow your employers leisure to ponder a condition which you desire improved, you will find the Negro there to take your place.

"Men of the North, mark well my words: You must lend your aid to an adjustment of relations in the South upon an equitable basis or be confronted with the question of the disorganization and readjustment of your own affairs. Stand out against the repressionists of the South, make the whole nation a field of fair play and then we will not have this one disturbing center distributing trouble to all other parts of the nation."

Addressing the business interests of the country, he said:

"Work is the one American word, and as a result great is the monument erected to our industry. Our accumulations are enormous.

"From time to time questions affecting the whole wealth of the nation must be passed upon by the people. These repressionists have shown that there is no interest so vital but that they will smite it hip and thigh if by so doing they may advance the policy of repression. You are confronted therefore with a power that bids you to become repressionists or stand subject to onslaughts whenever the fancy obtains that a lick at your interests will do their cause good.

"You cannot commit yourselves to the cause of repression. It taints character. You are great employers of labor. In the mighty problems that are to confront you your spirit will be your most valuable asset. You must keep it pure at all hazards. Nor can your business interests long endure these constant jars from the repressionists. You cannot afford to accept either horn of the dilemma offered you by the repressionists. Your only remedy lies in smiting repression."

To the statesmen whose anxious eyes were upon the future of the nation, he said:

"In the days that are now upon us and in the years that are to come there can be no escape, perhaps, from some ills of which the fathers never dreamed, unless a larger grant of power be given unto our national government. However pressing the situation, rely upon it, the repressionists will seek to keep the nation in swaddling clothes for fear that added power might some day turn its attention to the question of repression."

In an address to the whole people, he said:

"A power that would wrong a race, that would in any way restrict human growth, that would not have the nation a fair and open field, is out of tune with heaven, is working at cross purposes with the whole universe, and will carry into an abyss all whom it can mislead."

The Negroes are a people capable of great enthusiasm and ardent attachments. All their fervor was thrown into the campaign. Any vast body of people with deep convictions have the power to greatly impress others. The settled conviction of the Negroes that their very destiny in America hinged, it seemed, upon the outcome of this election, was not without its psychological effect upon the public mind.

The cause championed by Earl marched to a glorious triumph at the polls, but he took no part in the jollification that followed.

"My work is only half done," was the reflection that kept him calm in the presence of the victory for which he had made the full offering of his soul.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

He Cannot, But He Does!

Ensal Ellwood entered his room in his home in Monrovia, Liberia, West Coast Africa, a thoroughly dejected man. He had just returned from an extended trip in which he took a survey of his work and contemplated the outlook. His investigations had served to increase his hopes as to the possibilities of the African race, but he was nevertheless depressed.

Nor was this the first time during his stay in Africa that this gloomy atmosphere seemed to envelop him. In fact, he was the subject of frequent attacks of melancholia which the many friends that he had made had found inexplicable.

This depression was not due to the African fever, because science had been able to prepare his system to resist that debilitating agency.

It was not due to a want of encouragement in his plans. He had met this on every hand. A number of Southern men in sympathy with the higher aspirations of the Negro race, hopeless of seeing those aspirations realized in the Southland, had placed at his disposal a large sum of money with which to draw off the Negro population from unfriendly points in the South and establish them in Africa.

Far sighted capitalists of America seeing in an awakened Africa a possible market for American goods, thought it wise to keep in touch with this young man who was to be so largely the great awakening agency.

England, France and Germany vied with each other in offering inducements for him to devote his energies to their respective holdings. The Republic of Liberia was wild with joy over his interest in her welfare. The King of Abyssinia had made urgent requests for him to come to his borders.

Thousands of cultured young men and women had caught Ensal's zeal for the world-wide awakening of the race and were only awaiting his signal to flock to his standard.

And yet his heart was heavy. Ensal took his seat at his desk and rested his throbbing brow thereon. He mused to himself, saying:

"Here I am with the mightiest work of the ages on my hands, and the door of opportunity before me, and yet, terrible, terrible thought, I see failure written upon my skies. For my spirit lags; there is no quickening battery at my life's center. Ah! it is awful to be dead alive. That which would quicken my spirit and give me the needed zest to face the work of an Atlas, the bearing of a world upon my shoulders—that influence is far removed from me, farther than those stretches of thousands of miles tell of."

During Ensal's absence of many months his mail had accumulated until now he found himself face to face with a huge pile of unopened letters and newspapers. Lifting his head from his desk, he wearily turned to his mail.

In the pile of letters he came across one from Earl Bluefield which ran as follows:

MY DEAR ENSAL:

There is great need of you in America at this hour, and a golden opportunity for winning an enduring place in the history of the world awaits you.

The repressionists of the South made their policy an issue in the presidential campaign which has just come to a close, and they have been most badly beaten.

As you know, statesmanship is a great passion with the South and she is not going to remain contented in the position of impotent isolation to which her repressionist element has consigned her. A new order of leaders will now be put forward as the spokesmen of the South and the fairness of their words is going to be seized upon by the nation as offering hope for a new order of things.

Since the liberal element among the whites of the South are to be given a day in court, there is great need of that type of Negroes that has standing with them. I, as you know, am persona non grata. I have added to my unpopularity by the manner in which I lambasted the repressionist element in the campaign just closed.

Come to America and help the nation to reap the fruits of its victory over repression.

Apart from my interest in the Negro race, which you of course have never doubted, I have grave personal interests at stake, and know not what I shall do if you fail the nation in this hour of its need. A sorrow as great as the world has ever known hangs over me and over the Negro race. Come and lift it.

EARL BLUEFIELD.

"No, I cannot go. I cannot be that near to Tiara. Heaven knows that I would be driven mad to see, to be near that girl, and be conscious that her love lies buried with another. No, I cannot go. America may need me, but so does Africa, so does Africa." Such were Ensal's thoughts upon the reading of Earl's letter.

Now all of you who believe in altruism; who believe in the giving of one's self for others; who believe in fixedness of purpose; who have in any wise pinned your faith to that man Ensal—let all such prepare yourselves for evidence of the utter frailty of man. Bear in mind that Ensal claims to seek the highest good of his race, that he has chosen Africa as the field for the greatest service, and that he has just rejected a proposition to return to America from an ultra-radical, who of all men has come to regard him as the man of the hour.

Picking up a package of newspapers, he tore the wrappers off and noticed that they were Almaville papers.

"I have seen that face before," said he, looking at the likeness of Eunice Seabright Volrees-Bluefield reproduced in one of the papers.

He now turned to the reading matter, taking note of a column that had blue marks calling attention thereto. This was an account of Eunice's trial and contained in full the words of Tiara in court on that occasion.

"O my God!" exclaimed Ensal when he came to that part of Tiara's testimony which disclosed the fact that the Rev. Percy G. Marshall was her brother. Now observe him, you who have faith in man.

"Landlady! landlady!" Ensal exclaimed, rushing out of his room in search of that personage. Finding her, he said excitedly, "Put everybody in Monrovia at work packing up my possessions, please. I must leave."

"What can this mean, pray tell. I understood that you were to devote your life to this work," said the landlady, much amazed at the sudden turn of affairs.

"What work? Life?" asked Ensal, absent-mindedly.

"The uplift of Africa, the redemption of your race," replied the landlady.

"My race, dear madam, is to catch the first steamer returning to America. Just now the whole world with me converges to that one point. Let us be in a hurry, please."

* * * * *

As Ensal stepped off the gangplank and again touched American soil, Earl was there to greet him. Arm in arm the two men wended their way through the crowded streets until they reached the hotel at which Earl was stopping.

Earl told Ensal the story of Eunice's derangement and of his quest for a message of hope with which to effect her cure. Ensal readily grasped the situation. At times in the past friends had hinted that the problem would derange him.

"Let us serve each other," said Ensal. "I will go South and see what message I can bring back for you to carry to Eunice. I will serve you thus. While I am thus engaged there is something you can do for me. The kissing of the Rev. Percy G. Marshall by Tiara, made known to me by poor Gus Martin, caused me to abandon my purpose of seeking the hand of Tiara. I wish you to go to her, and pave the way for a visit from me. Tell her that I have always known that she was the noblest girl in all this wide, wide world; that I looked upon the kissing incident as a pure love affair, not knowing but that she was one who held that of one blood God had made all the sons of men to dwell upon the face of earth; and that I felt that death alone prevented her and the Rev. Mr. Marshall from becoming man and wife in some other part of the world.

"Now, Earl, tell her all this. You are her brother-in-law and can find a nice way of talking freely with her concerning the matter. May I depend upon you?"

"To the utmost," replied Earl earnestly.

The two men now parted, each in search of hope for the other. Earl's task was comparatively easy, for Tiara had all along fully understood Ensal and felt no need of the assurances which Earl sought to bring. Earl was more than happy at the outcome of his mission, happy that he could inform Ensal that the way was now clear for him to declare himself to Tiara.

We shall now follow Ensal to find out what measure of success attended his mission.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

A Son of the New South.

"I understand that a few years ago a Negro man and woman were burned at the stake in this neighborhood. Would you kindly show me the place?"

This request came from Ensal Ellwood and was addressed to young Maul, the attorney who had plead so earnestly for the conviction of the lynchers of Bud and Foresta. A sad look stole over young Maul's face.

"I never go that way if I can avoid it easily. That was indeed a horrible affair and our section, according to the law of retribution, will have it to pay for," replied young Maul, won by Ensal's kindly tone and look. "There is the kindly Negro of the past revised and brought down to date," thought young Maul, as he looked at Ensal and further studied him.

"It has already paid for it, perhaps," said Ensal. "It may be that some one of this place was marked by nature to shed unfading lustre upon your state, and could have made these rivers and hills and plains revered in all the earth, but the light of his genius was extinguished by that smoke, perhaps, perhaps," said Ensal sadly.

The two men now walked in the direction of the scene of the burning. They soon arrived at the spot, and Ensal looked long at the charred trunks of the trees that had served as stakes. He scanned the trees from the parched roots to the forlorn tree tops, took note of the fact that the bark was missing and reflected that the absent bark was no doubt yet serving as souvenirs in many Maulville homes.

"They are dead—the trees I mean—and perhaps it is well. Time will now eat away their vitals and they shall no longer stand as monuments to the shame of our land," said Young Maul.

"Suppose we sit down. I have much to say to you, Mr. Maul," said Ensal, who felt himself the ambassador of millions and of Tiara's demented sister. Anxious indeed was he that he should succeed in the object of his visit.

The men walked over to the Negro church near the scene, and took seats upon the steps thereof.

"Quite a fitting place for my talk," began Ensal. "My name is Ensal Ellwood. Looking at the spot where the South is seen at its worst is but a prelude to what I have made a long journey to say to you," said Ensal.

"I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Ellwood," said young Maul.

"I notice that you say 'Mister,'" said Ensal, in kindly tone.

"I am not one of those that believe that my manhood is compromised by the use of the term 'Mister' to a Negro. I remember that the greatest of all Southerners and the greatest of all world heroes, the immortal Washington, once lifted his hat to a Negro man. When asked about his action he replied that he could not let that Negro be more polite than he was. I take the same position. I think a man's manhood is exceedingly feeble when it has to have an army of sentinels to be always on the alert, to keep somebody from kidnapping it," said young Maul.

"To come at once to the point, Mr. Maul, I have come to you to make overtures for a treaty of peace between the Negroes of the United States and the white people of the South," said Ensal.

"I shall hear you gladly," said young Maul.

"George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee are to the people of the South stars of the first magnitude, and you would like to send other stars to keep them company. But, changing the figure, an actor must have a stage that places him in the full view of his audience, if he would do his best work. Our nation is the stage upon which your sons are to strive for immortality.

"To labor to the best advantage they must have the chance to be vested with the authority of the nation, the power of the whole people. Given that power, the scroll of immortality will at least be laid before them that they may make effort to write their names thereon," said Ensal.

"Now, Mr. Maul," he continued, "the Negro population is so distributed that it now holds the balance of power in the nation. We have it in our power to keep the South out of its larger glory.

"However unpalatable it may be to a Southern white man, he must reckon with the fact, that between himself and the coveted favor of the nation stands the will of the Negro."

"That is very apparent," said young Maul.

"While we can hamper," resumed Ensal, "the white people of the South nationally, they can trouble us considerably locally. Now, we are not enemies of the South, and take no delight in the crippling of her influence per se, and we would like to see this unarmed strife come to a close. Nothing would give the Negroes greater joy than to see the right kind of a white man from the South made President of the nation.

"And the right kind of men exist in the South! There were perhaps as many white men from the South in the Union army as there were Negroes.

"Only one thing is now needed to gladden the hearts of the Negroes of the United States and cause them to turn enthusiastically to the making of the South the grandest section of the Union," said Ensal.

"What can that be, pray?" said young Maul.

"Mr. Maul, excuse me for not stating at once. Cast your eye back over the history of our country and take note of the woes that have been heaped upon the South and upon the nation by the radicals among you.

"There was a strong anti-war party in the South prior to the breaking out of the civil war, but the radicals overwhelmed them and brought on that disastrous conflict.

"Immediately after the war the radicals got control of some of your state legislatures and began to pass laws that would have practically re-enslaved the Negroes. The radical policy of the nation, as revealed in reconstruction measures was the child of radicalism in the South, so charge the burdens and woes of that period to your radicals.

"'Carpet-baggers' and 'scalawags' mismanaged affairs in the South, and some of your good people, you state, resorted to lawless methods to displace them. The radicals took charge of this lawless organization, you claim, prostituted it, and made a record of crime and villainy in the South so great that eleven large volumes in the records of Congress are required to merely hint at the atrocities. The nation grew quiet for a period, to catch your point of view and reason with you, and your radicals misread its attitude and thought that it had undergone a change of heart. They led the South to its recent crushing defeat.

"The radicals who have oppressed the Negroes of the South and sent them North, sent them forth with heart burnings, and through the pivotal states of the North they are ever on guard to turn the tide of battle against your section. Radicalism, then, is building up a political power in the North that will be a potent factor in continuing the isolation and impotence of your section, and will render the wish of a Negro ward politician of the North of more consequence than the combined pleadings of all your congressional delegation from the South.

"In the South to-day radicalism is widening the breach between the races and that old kindly feeling is fast disappearing, being succeeded by suspicion and hate.

"The bonds of personal friendship which have served to keep things quiet in the South when circumstances seemed most forbidding are being snapped asunder. The sullen hatred of the Negroes engendered by the rabid utterances and violent conduct of the radicals among the whites is pregnant with harm to the South, and tends to summon to a resurrection the entombed savagery of some members of the race, and to dishearten others in their upward strivings. On and on I could go, showing the awful wreckage in the pathway of the Southern radical.

"If the nation would ever heal this sore the radicals must be suppressed. If the Negroes attempt their undoing a feeling of racial solidarity among the whites greets them. If the North attempts it a sectional feeling is stimulated.

"I come now to the one thing that will gladden the hearts of the Negroes and the nation and make secure the glory of the South. We would have you good white people of the South to assert yourselves—that class of you who have not been carried away with that false doctrine that the problem can be solved with the Negro shorn of political power. In short, the one missing factor now needed is aggressiveness on the part of the right thinking white people of the South," said Ensal, who now ceased and awaited with anxious heart young Maul's reply.

"As to the matter of our aggressiveness, Mr. Ellwood," responded young Maul, "have no doubt on that score. The South has been so unmercifully carved in the slaughter pen into which her radicals led her, that she is now willing to hear from men of saner moods. Many a true Southerner, silent through force of circumstances, has been waiting for just this hour. Watch us. We are going to suppress lynching, enforce laws impartially, allow Negroes all their rights as citizens, make no discriminations because of race, color or previous condition of servitude, and encourage them to develop their God-given powers fully. Nor shall we be afraid of them. They did not strike us in the back in the time of civil strife and they have never lost a kindly feeling for us in spite of what the radicals have done to them. Quite well has Professor Shaler said that if the two races do not live in amity it will not be the fault of the Negroes."

"Mr. Maul," said Ensal, grasping the young man's hand, "well might the struggling world, writhing up from its low estate, rejoice that your type is now to assume charge of the destiny of the white race in the South."

"Now, Mr. Maul," continued Ensal soberly, "one thing for which we Negroes are to labor might be construed as an evidence of distrust of the better element of Southern people, and I would have you to understand us. The radicals of the South, as I have stated, invited radicalism from the North as the only sure antidote. To correct some evils, numbers of your good people condoned a departure from accepted standards of ethics. Men whom you knew to be perjurers, ballot box stuffers and violaters of law were, because of those very qualities, allowed to occupy high station among you. Many of you felt that your ills could only have been cured in that way. We Negroes have felt that a moral revolution could have been effected, and would have left no residue of evil in its wake. But other methods prevailed and you now have among you a class of men who feel no compunctions of conscience at cheating. Having blunted their consciences cheating us, they will now seek to cheat the better element of whites in the era of promised agressiveness. We Negroes are going to ask one favor of the nation, and that is that it enforce its constitution, which provides one test for all American citizens. If we win it will not only free us from the repressionists, but will free the better element of Southern whites as well. Your type of men can then have a chance in the South."

Young Maul sat meditating a while and then said:

"Do you know that in a fair test of strength the better element of whites even now would triumph at the polls. But the spirit of fraud built up to dethrone the 'carpet bag' government yet lingers to haunt those who would now dispense with it, which shows how dangerous it is to do evil even that good may come.

"We of the South hear much of bribery and corruption in the North, and I stand ready to co-operate with the decent element to purify the suffrage of the entire nation."

"You favor then the enforcement by Congress of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution," asked Ensal.

"I would not have our nation live a lie and pollute the whole stream of our people's life. If the nation is lawless it can hardly expect its citizens to be different. I stand for the enforcement of law, all law. The very life of the nation itself depends upon the purity of the electorate, and the ballot box is as sure to become sacred in America as our nation is to stand," said young Maul earnestly.

"Now that we understand each other on those matters, let me now say a few words to you concerning some needs of the Negro race," continued young Maul.

"Radicalism and aggression on the part of some of the whites constitute one phase of our problem, but the weakened condition of your race must also be reckoned with as a factor. Had Africa been in a position to make it uncomfortable for all who sought to hold her children in bondage, there would have been no traffic in slaves from that continent. While we are going to do what we can to hold in check those who would oppress or restrict you, we expect you to eliminate the weakness in your race that invites attack.

"You must become intellectually strong, so that you may always be in hailing distance of the world's thought power which determines the destiny of the human race.

"Take special note of what I am now going to say," continued young Maul. "When an air of genuine democracy pervades the South and the spirit of caste no longer obtains in the political and industrial world, forms of labor now regarded as beneath the dignity of white people will no longer be so regarded, and the Negro will find himself face to face with competition in fields now conceded to him. While political power is necessary to safety in the body politic, do not expect too much of it, and neglect not the industrial crisis.

"As to politics, it is clear that your political problem in the South is going to be a difficult one. You see, your race was freed by a political party which conducted the war of the sections. It is hard to get your people to do other than vote with that party, while the more substantial element of the whites in the South have for a hundred years been in the opposing party. The great misfortune of the political situation is that the Negroes and the better element of whites never pull together in the one political harness."

"We have given that matter much thought and feel that we have a solution," said Ensal.

"My friend, if you can solve that problem you have gone a long way toward solving the whole problem," said young Maul.

"Here is our plan," began Ensal. "The Negroes have discovered the utter impotence of the class of whites who joined them for the sake of office, and the federal pie-counter element of whites has utterly lost favor with the great body of Negroes. The situation within the Negro race is therefore ripe for a new alignment. We have come to the conclusion that the American people need an idealist class in their political life, and it would be a great gift to the nation for the Negro to point the way for such a party.

"The Negroes are going to organize in the South an Eclectic party that will serve as an antidote to to safety in the body politic, do not expect too much of it, and neglect not the industrial crisis.

"As to politics, it is clear that your political problem in the South is going to be a difficult one. You see, your race was freed by a political party which conducted the war of the sections. It is hard to get your people to do other than vote with that party, while the more substantial element of the whites in the South have for a hundred years been in the opposing party. The great misfortune of the political situation is that the Negroes and the better element of whites never pull together in the one political harness."

"We have given that matter much thought and feel that we have a solution," said Ensal.

"My friend, if you can solve that problem you have gone a long way toward solving the whole problem," said young Maul.

"Here is our plan," began Ensal. "The Negroes have discovered the utter impotence of the class of whites who joined them for the sake of office, and the federal pie-counter element of whites has utterly lost favor with the great body of Negroes. The situation within the Negro race is therefore ripe for a new alignment. We have come to the conclusion that the American people need an idealist class in their political life, and it would be a great gift to the nation for the Negro to point the way for such a party.

"The Negroes are going to organize in the South an Eclectic party that will serve as an antidote to the tendency toward party worship. We shall separate city from county politics, county from state, and state from national. We shall often, perhaps, be found supporting one party's candidate for governor and another party's candidate for president. The question of human rights and the civil and political equality of all men shall be a first consideration with us, and we shall go to the aid of the class of men of like faith on these points, it matters not in what political party they may be found. The best interests of the people, and not party loyalty, shall be our creed.

"In this way we shall be able to co-operate with the best element of Southern white people. Though not posing as the political leader of my people, I feel sure that I correctly forecast their policy," said Ensal.

"Great possibilities lie in that direction, and I firmly believe that we have at last found the way of peace and honor and justice to all," said young Maul.

The two young men now parted, and Ensal went to the telegraph station and sent the following message to Earl:

"Problem will now be solved. Aggressiveness on part of better element of whites assured. The whole machinery of the national government is in hands that will accord them support. Working basis in political matters agreed upon for better element of both races. Am writing you at length."

When in due course of mail Ensal's promised letter reached Earl and set forth the prospects of an adjustment of the questions at issue, Earl was exultant and felt that he had at last good news to carry to Eunice.



CHAPTER XL.

Sorrow and Gladness.

In the parlor of the sanitarium Earl sat awaiting the coming of Eunice, his face telling of the hopes now alive within his heart.

With an exclamation of joy Eunice ran and threw herself into his arms. During her whole stay in the sanitarium the Negro question had not been broached to her and her mind seemed almost normal. Earl now sought to complete the work by letting her know that things had at last been set right and that the color of a man's skin was to no longer be in his way. Standing over her he whispered:

"Eunice, the American people have decreed that the door of hope shall not be closed to any of their citizens because of the accident of birth."

A strange glow came into Eunice's eyes.

"When will the duly authorized power see to it that the states live according to this decree and apply one test to voters of both races," asked Eunice so quietly, so intelligently, that hopes sprang up in Earl's breast.

Stooping, he kissed his wife, saying:

"I can't say, my darling; but it will surely come in time."

"Time!" shrieked Eunice. "Same old thing! Time! Bah! We shall all die in 'time.' Earl, are you turning against me, coming to me with that old word 'time?' Ah! Earl, are you a Southerner? Time! Earl, can't you persuade the people to let justice do now what they are waiting for 'time' to do?"