Chapter 12

I picked up the receiver and called Eternal City. Yes, Mr. T-S was there, but he was “on the lot” and could not be disturbed. I gave my name, and stated that it was a matter of life and death; Mr. T-S must come to the phone instantly. A couple of minutes later I heard his voice, and told him the situation, and also my scheme. He must come himself, to make sure that his orders were obeyed; he must bring several bus-loads of men, clad in the full regalia of Mobland's great Secret Society; and they must arrive at Abell's place precisely on the stroke of midnight. The men must be paid five dollars apiece, and be told that if they succeeded in bringing away the prophet unharmed, they would each get ten dollars extra. “I will put up that money,” I said to T-S; but to my surprise he cried: “You ain't gonna put up nuttin'! God damn dem fellers, I'll beat 'em if it costs me a million!” So I realized that the prophet had made one more convert!

“Have you got that bus with the siren?” I asked; and when he answered, yes, I said, “Let that be the signal. When we hear it, Joe and I will bring Carpenter down to the street, and if the Brigade is there, it's up to you to persuade them you're the bigger mob!”

Then Old Joe and I ran down to my car, and drove at full speed to the Socialist headquarters; and on the way we worked out our own plan of campaign. The real danger-point was Hamby, the secret agent, and we must manage to put him out of the way. Despite his pose of “pacifism,” he was certain to be armed, said Old Joe; yet we must take a chance, and do the job unarmed. If we should get into a shooting-scrape, they would certainly put it onto us; and they would make it a hanging matter, too.

I named over the members of Carpenter's party who had stayed with him. Andy Lynch, the ex-soldier, was probably a useful man, and we would get his help. We would get rid of Hamby, and then we would wait for T-S and his siren. By the time these plans were thoroughly talked out, we had reached the building in which the headquarters were located. There were lights in the main room upstairs, and the door which led up to them was open. The street was apparently deserted, and we did not stop to look for any “operatives,” but left our machine and stole quietly upstairs and into the room.

LV

Comrade Abell sat at the table, with his head bowed in his arms, sound asleep. Lynch, the ex-soldier, and Tom Moneta, the Mexican, were lying on the floor snoring. And on a chair near the doorway, watching the scene, sat Hamby, wide awake. We knew he was awake, because he leaped to his feet the instant we entered the door. “Oh, it's you!” he said, recognizing me; I noted the alarm in his voice.

I beckoned to him, softly. “Come here a moment;” and he came out into the ante-room. At the same time Old Joe stepped across the big room, and stooped down and waked up Lynch. We had agreed that Joe was to give Lynch a whispered explanation of the situation, while I kept Hamby busy.

“Where is Mr. Carpenter?” I asked.

“He's in the private office, praying.”

“Well,” said I, “there's a sick woman who needs help very badly. I wonder if we'd better disturb him.”

“I don't know,” said Hamby. “I've been here an hour, and haven't heard a sound. Maybe he's asleep.”

I was uncertain what I should do, and I elaborately explained my uncertainty. Of course, praying was an important and useful occupation, and I knew that the prophet laid great stress upon it, and all of us who loved him so dearly must respect his wishes.

“Yes, of course,” said Hamby.

Yet at the same time, I continued, this woman was very ill, a case of ptomaine poisoning--

“Do you think he can cure that?” asked Hamby guilelessly; and at that moment Old Joe and Lynch came from the big room. Hamby started to turn, but he was too late. Old Joe's arms went around him, and Hamby's two elbows were clamped to his sides, in a grip which more than one professional wrestler in our part of the world has found it impossible to break. At the same time I stooped on my knees and grasped the man's two wrists; because we were taking no chances of his gun. Lynch, the ex-soldier, had a cloth, taken from the big table, and he flung this over the head of the “pacifist” and stifled his cries.

I took a revolver from his hip-pocket, but Joe was not satisfied. “Search him carefully,” said he, and so I discovered another weapon in a side-pocket. Then I made hasty search in a big closet of the room, and found a lot of bundles of books and magazines tied with stout cords. I took the cords, and we bound the “pacifist's” wrists and ankles, and put a gag in his mouth, and then we felt sure he was really a pacifist. We carried him to the closet and laid him on the floor, where a humorous idea came to us. These bundles of magazines and books were no doubt the ones which the mob had confiscated from Comrade Abell. Since they were no longer saleable, they might as well be put to some use, so I gathered armfuls of them and distributed them over the form of Hamby, until there was no longer a trace of him visible.

And while I was doing this, I noticed in one corner of the closet, under the bundles, a wooden box about a foot square. Upon trying to lift it, I discovered that it weighed several times as much as it should have weighed if it had contained printed matter. “Here's our infernal machine,” I whispered, and I picked it up gingerly, and tiptoed out of the room, and back to the kitchen, and down a rear stairway of the building. I unlocked the door and opened it--and there, crouching in the shadows alongside the door, just as I expected, I saw a man.

“Hello!” I whispered.

“Hello!” said he, badly startled.

“Here's something belonging to Hamby. He wants me to give it to you. Be careful, it's heavy.” I deposited the box in his hands, and shut the door, and turned the lock again, and groped my way upstairs, chuckling to myself as I imagined the man's plight. He would not know what to make of this incident, and I had an idea he would not be able to find out, because he could not leave his post. Nor would he have much time to figure over the matter; for when I got back to the light, I looked at my watch, and it lacked just three minutes to twelve.

I found that Lynch and Old Joe had shut the pacifist in the closet, and were in the ante-room waiting for me. I whispered that everything was all right. A moment later we heard a sound in the big room, and peered in, and saw a door at the far end open--and there was Carpenter, standing with his white robes gleaming in the light. After a moment I realized that they gleamed even more than was natural; I perceived once more that strange “aura” which had been noticed at the mass-meeting; and by means of it I noticed an even more startling thing. There were drops of sweat on Carpenter's forehead, as always when he had labored intensely in his soul. This time I saw that the drops were large, and they were drops of blood!

A trembling seized me. I was awe-stricken before this man--afraid to go on with what I was doing, and equally afraid to back out. I remained staring helplessly, and saw him approach the sleeping figures, and stand looking at them. “Could you not watch with me one hour?” he said, in his gentle, sad voice; and he put his hand on Comrade Abell's shoulder, with the words: “The time has come.”

Abell started to his feet, and began to apologize. The other said nothing, but stooped and waked Moneta. And at that moment I heard the shrill blast of a whistle outside on the street! “There's the Brigade!” whispered Old Joe.

LVI

I ran down the stairs, and peered through the doorway, and sure enough, there were four or five automobiles stopped before the headquarters, having approached from opposite direction. I stood just long enough to see a crowd of men in khaki uniforms jumping out; then I ran back, and leaving Old Joe and Lynch to keep guard at the top of the stairs, I walked in and greeted Carpenter.

He expressed no surprise at seeing me. Evidently his thoughts were on other things. For my part, I was trembling with excitement, so that my knees would barely hold me. How long would it be before T-S and his crowd appeared? I could figure the time it should take them to drive from Eternal City; but suppose something held them up? How long would the ex-service men stay out on the street, waiting for Hamby to answer their signal? Surely not many minutes! They would storm the place, and hunt out their victim for themselves. And suppose they should carry him off before the others arrived?

I had Hamby's two revolvers in my pocket. Should we use them, or not? The thought hit me all of a sudden; and apparently it hit Old Joe at the same moment. “Give me those guns, Billy,” he whispered, and I put them obediently into his hands, and he went quickly into the rear rooms. At the end of a minute, he returned, saying, “I unloaded them and threw them out of the back window.” And even as he spoke, the silence of the night outside was shattered by the scream of that siren, which served to warn people out of the way when T-S was moving his companies about “on location.”

I went up to Carpenter. I didn't enjoy telling him a lie; in fact, I had an idea that one couldn't lie to him successfully. But I tried it. “Mr. Carpenter, Hamby left a message; he had to go downstairs, and said he wanted to see you. Would you come down and meet him?”

“Ah, yes!” said Carpenter. And he walked to the door and down the stairs without another word. The rest of us followed him; Abell and Moneta first, they being innocent and unsuspicious; and then Lynch, and then Joe and I.

The prophet stepped out to the street, and was instantly surrounded by a group of a dozen ex-service men, two of whom grasped him by the arms. He did not lift a hand, nor even make a sound. Comrade Abell, of course, started to cry out in protest; Moneta, the Mexican, reverted to his ancestors. His hand flashed to an inside pocket, and a knife leaped out. A soldier had hold of him, and Moneta shouted, “Stand back, or I cut off your ears.” At which Carpenter turned, and in a stern, commanding voice proclaimed: “Let no man use force in my behalf! They who use force shall perish by force.” Moneta stood still; and of course Lynch and Old Joe and I stood still; and the dozen men about Carpenter started to lead him away to their automobiles.

But they did not get very far. Upon the silence of the street a voice rang out. Ordinarily, one would have known it was the voice of a woman; but in this place, under these exciting circumstances, it seemed the voice of a supernatural being. It almost sang the words; it was like a silver bugle calling across a battle-field--glorious, thrilling, hypnotic. “Make way-y-y-y for the Grand Imperial Kle-e-e-agle of the Ku-u Klux Klan!” Every one was startled; but I think I was startled more that the rest, for I knew the voice! Mary Magna had taken another speaking part!

I was on the steps of the building, so I could see over the heads of the crowd. There were four of the big busses from Eternal City, two having approached from each direction. Some fifty figures had descended from them, and others were still descending, each one clad in a voluminous white robe, with a white hood over the head, and two black holes for eyes, and another for the nose. These figures had spread out in a half moon, entirely surrounding the little mob of ex-service men, and penning them against the wall of the building. In the center of the half moon, standing a few feet in advance, was the figure of the “Grand Imperial Kleagle,” with a red star upon the forehead of the white hood, and shrouded white arms stretched out, and in one hand a magic wand with a red light on the end. This wand was waving over the Brigade members, and had apparently its full supernatural effect, for one and all they stood rooted to the spot, staring with wide-open eyes.

LVII

The grand-opera voice raised again its silver chant: “Give way, all mobs! Yield! Retire! Abdicate!--Bow down-n-n-n-n! Make way for the Mob of Mobs, the irresistible, imperial, superior super-mob! Hearken to the Lord High Chief Commanding Dragon of the Esoteric Cohorts, the Exalted Immortal Grand Imperial Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan!”

Then the Grand Imperial Kleagle turned and addressed the white-robed throng in a voice of sharp command: “Klansmen! Remember your oath! The hour of Judgment is here! The guilty wretch cowers! The grand insuperable sentence has been spoken! Coelum animum imperiabilis senescat! Similia similibus per quantum imperator. Inexorabilis ingenium parasimilibua esperantur! Saeva itnparatus ignotum indignatio! Salvo! Suppositio! Indurato! Klansmen, kneel!”

As one man, the host fell upon its knees.

“Klansmen, swear! Si fractus illibatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae! You have heard the sentence. What is the penalty? Is it death?”

And a voice in the crowd cried “Death!” And the others took it up; there was a roar: “Death! Death!”

Said the Grand Imperial Kleagle: “Arma virumque cano, tou poluphlesboiou thalasses!” Then, facing the staring ex-servicemen: “Tetlathi mater erne kai anaskeo ko-omeneper!”

Finally the Grand Imperial Kleagle pointed her shrouded white arm at Carpenter, who stood, as pale as death, but unflinchingly. “Death to all traitors!” she cried. “Death to all agitators! Death to all enemies of the Ku Klux Klan! Condemnatus! Incomparabilis! Ingenientis exequatur! Let the Loyal High Inexorable Guardians and the Grand Holy Seneschals of the Klan advance!”

Six shrouded figures stepped out from the crowd. Said the Grand Imperial Kleagle: “Possess yourselves of the body of this guilty wretch!” And to the ex-servicemen: “Yield up this varlet to the High Secret Court-martial of the Klan, which alone has power to punish such as he.”

What the bewildered members of the Brigade made of all this hocus-pocus I had no idea. Afterwards, when the adventure was over, I asked Mary, “Where in the world did you get that stuff?” And she told me how she had once acted in a children's comedy, in which there was an old magician who spent his time putting spells on people. She had had to witness his incantations eight or ten times a week for nearly a year, so of course the phrases had got fixed in her memory, and they had served just as well to impress these grown-up children.

Or perhaps the ex-servicemen thought this might be a further plan of those who had employed them. Whatever they thought, it was obvious that they were hopelessly outnumbered. There could be nothing for a mob to do but yield to a Super-mob; and they yielded. Those who were in front of Carpenter stepped back, and the Loyal High Inexorable Guardians and the Grand Holy Seneschals took Carpenter by the arms and led him away. Apparently they were going to overlook the rest of us; but Old Joe and Lynch and myself took Abell and Moneta by the shoulders and shoved them along, past the ex-service men and into the midst of the “Klansmen.”

There was no need to consider dignity after that. We hustled Carpenter to the nearest of the busses, and put him in; the Grand Imperial Kleagle followed, and the rest of us clambered in after her. Sitting up beside the driver, watching the scene, was T-S, beaming with delight; he got me by the hand and wrung it. I could not speak, my teeth were literally chattering with excitement. Carpenter, sitting in the seat behind us, must have realized by now the meaning of this scandalous adventure; but he said not a word, and the white-gowned Klansmen piled in behind him, and the siren shrieked out into the night, and the bus backed to the corner, and turned and sped off; and all the way to Eternal City, T-S and I and Old Joe slapped one another on the back and roared with laughter, and the rest of the Klansmen roared with laughter--all save the Grand Imperial Kleagle, who sat by Carpenter's side, and was discovered to be weeping.

LVIII

T-S and I had exchanged a few whispered words, and decided that we would take Carpenter to his place, which was a few miles in the country from Eternal City. He would be as safe there as anywhere I could think of. When we had got to the studios, we discharged our Klansmen, and arranged to send Old Joe to his home, and the three disciples to a hotel for the night; then I invited Carpenter to step into T-S's car. He had not spoken a word, and all he said now was, “I wish to be alone.”

I answered: “I am taking you to a place where you may be alone as long as you choose.” So he entered the car, and a few minutes later T-S and I were escorting him into the latter's showy mansion.

We were getting to be rather scared now, for Carpenter's silence was forbidding. But again he said: “I wish to be alone.” We took him upstairs to a bed-room, and shut him in and left him--but taking the precaution to lock the door.

Downstairs, we stood and looked at each other, feeling like two school-boys who had been playing truant, and would soon have to face the teacher. “You stay here, Billy!” insisted the magnate. “You gotta see him in de mornin'! I von't!”

“I'll stay,” I said, and looked at my watch. It was after one o'clock. “Give me an alarm-clock,” I said, “because Carpenter wakes with the birds, and we don't want him escaping by the window.”

So it came about that at daybreak I tapped on Carpenter's door, softly, so as not to waken him if he were asleep. But he answered, “Come in;” and I entered, and found him sitting by the window, watching the dawn.

I stood timidly in the middle of the room, and began: “I realize, of course, Mr. Carpenter, that I have taken a very great liberty with you--”

“You have said it,” he replied; and his eyes were awful.

“But,” I persisted, “if you knew what danger you were in--”

Said he: “Do you think that I came to Mobland to look for a comfortable life?”

“But,” I pleaded, “if you only knew that particular gang! Do you realize that they had planted an infernal machine, a dynamite bomb, in that room? And all the world was to read in the newspapers this morning that you had been conspiring to blow up somebody!”

Said Carpenter: “Would it have been the first time that I have been lied about?”

“Of course,” I argued, “I know what I have done--”

“You can have no idea what you have done. You are too ignorant.”

I bowed my head, prepared to take my punishment. But at once Carpenter's voice softened. “You are a part of Mobland,” he said; “you cannot help yourself. In Mobland it is not possible for even a martyrdom to proceed in an orderly way.”

I gazed at him a moment, bewildered. “What's the good of a martyrdom?” I cried.

“The good is, that men can be moved in no other way; they are in that childish stage of being, where they require blood sacrifice.”

“But what kind of martyrdom!” I argued. “So undignified and unimpressive! To have hot tar smeared over your body, and be hanged by the neck like a common criminal!”

I realized that this last phrase was unfortunate. Said Carpenter: “I am used to being treated as a common criminal.”

“Well,” said I, in a voice of despair, “of course, if you're absolutely bent on being hanged--if you can't think of anything you would prefer--”

I stopped, for I saw that he had covered his face with his hands. In the silence I heard him whisper: “I prayed last night that this cup might pass from me; and apparently my prayer has been answered.”

“Well,” I said, deciding to cheer up, “you see, I have only been playing the part of Providence. Let me play it just a few days longer, until this mob of crazy soldier-boys has got out of town again. I am truly ashamed for them, but I am one of them myself, so I understand them. They really fought and won a war, you see, and they are full of the madness of it, the blind, intense passions--”

Carpenter was on his feet. “I know!” he exclaimed. “I know! You need not tell me about that! I do not blame your soldier-boys. I blame the men who incite them--the old men, the soft-handed men, who sit back in office-chairs and plan madness for the world! What shall be the punishment of these men?”

“They're a hard crowd--” I admitted.

“I have seen them! They are stone-faced men! They are wolves with machinery! They are savages with polished fingernails! And they have made of the land a place of fools! They have made it Mobland!”

I did not try to answer him, but waited until the storm of his emotion passed. “You are right, Mr. Carpenter. But that is the fact about our world, and you cannot change it--”

Carpenter flung out his arm at me. “Let no man utter in my presence the supreme blasphemy against life!”

So, of course, I was silent; and Carpenter went and sat at the window again, and watched the dawn.

At last I ventured: “All that your friends ask, Mr. Carpenter, is that you will wait until this convention of the ex-soldiers has got out of town. After that, it may be possible to get people to listen to you. But while the Brigade is here, it is impossible. They are rough, and they are wild; they are taking possession of the city, and will do what they please. If they see you on the streets, they will inflict indignities upon you, they will mishandle you--”

Said Carpenter: “Do not fear those who kill the body, but fear those who kill the soul.”

So again I fell silent; and presently he remarked: “My brother, I wish to be alone.”

Said I: “Won't you please promise, Mr. Carpenter--”

He answered: “I make promises only to my Father. Let me be.”

LIX

I went downstairs, and there was T-S, wandering around like a big fat monk in a purple dressing gown. And there was Maw, also--only her dressing gown was rose-pink, with white chrysanthemums on it. It took a lot to get those two awake at six o'clock in the morning, you may be sure; but there they were, very much worried. “Vot does he say?” cried the magnate.

“He won't say what he is going to do.”

“He von't promise to stay?”

“He won't promise anything.”

“Vell, did you lock de door?”

I answered that I had, and then Maw put in, in a hurry: “Billy, you gotta stay here and take care of him! If he vas to gome downstairs and tell me to do someting, I vould got to do it!”

I promised; and a little later they got ready a cup of coffee and a glass of milk and some rolls and butter and fruit, and I had the job of taking up the tray and setting it in the prophet's room. When I came in, I tried to say cheerfully, “Here's your breakfast,” and not to show any trace of my uneasiness.

Carpenter looked at me, and said: “You had the door locked?”

I summoned my nerve, and answered, “Yes.”

Said he: “What is the difference to me between being your prisoner and being the prisoner of your rulers?”

Said I: “Mr. Carpenter, the difference is that we don't intend to hang you.”

“And how long do you propose to keep me here?”

“For about four days,” I said; “until the convention disbands. If you will only give me your word to wait that time, you may have the freedom of this beautiful place, and when the period is over, I pledge you every help I can give to make known your message to the people.”

I waited for an answer, but none came, so I set down the tray and went out, locking the door again. And downstairs was one of T-S's secretaries, with copies of the morning newspapers, and I picked up a “Times,” and there was a headline, all the way across the page:

KU KLUX KLAN KIDNAPS KARPENTER RANTING RED PROPHET DISAPPEARS IN TOOTING AUTOS