The Prodigal Judge Part 69

"What does this ridiculous mockery mean?" he demanded harshly. "Mr.

Sheriff, as a member of the bar, I protest! Why don't you clear the building?" He did not wait for Betts to answer him, but continued.

"Where is this man Hues?"

"Yonder, Colonel, by the captain," said Betts.

"I have a warrant for his arrest. You will take him into custody."

"Wait!" cried the judge. "I represent Mr. Hues. I desire to see that warrant!"

But Fentress ignored him. He addressed the crowded benches.

"Gentlemen, it is a serious matter forcibly to seize a man without authority from the courts and expose him to the danger of mob violence--Mr. Hues will learn this before we have done with him."

Instantly there was a noisy demonstration that swelled into a burst of applause, which quickly spent itself. The struggle seemed to have narrowed to an individual, contest for supremacy between Fentress and the judge. On the edge of the railed off s.p.a.ce they confronted each other: the colonel, a tall, well-cared-for presence; the judge shabby and unkempt. For a moment their eyes met, while the judge's face purpled and paled, and purpled again. The silence deepened. Fentress' thin lips opened, twitched, but no sound came from them; then his glance wavered and fell. He turned away.

"Mr. Sheriff!" he called sharply.

"All right, Colonel!"

"Take your man into custody," ordered Fentress. As he spoke he handed the warrant to Betts, who looked at it, grinned, and stepped toward Hues. He would have pushed the judge aside had not that gentleman, bowing civilly, made way for him.

"In my profound respect for the law and properly const.i.tuted authority I yield to no man, not even to Colonel Fentress," he said, with a gracious gesture. "I would not place the slightest obstacle in the way of its sanctioned manifestation. Colonel Fentress comes here with that high sanction." He bowed again ceremoniously to the colonel. "I repeat, I respect his dependence upon the law!" He whirled suddenly.

"Cavendish--Yancy--Carrington--I call upon you to arrest John Murrell! I do this by virtue of the authority vested in me as a judge of the United States Federal Court. His crime--a mere trifle, my friends--pa.s.sing counterfeit money! Colonel Fentress will inform you that this is a violation of the law which falls within my jurisdiction," and he beamed blandly on Fentress.

"It's a lie!" cried the colonel.

"You'll answer for that later!" said the judge, with abrupt austerity of tone.

"For all we know you may be some fugitive from justice! Why, your name isn't Price!"

"Are you sure of that?" asked the judge quickly.

"You're an impostor! Your name is Turberville!"

"Permit me to relieve your apprehensions. It is Turberville who has received the appointment. Would you like to examine my credentials?--I have them by me--no? I am obliged for your introduction. It could not have come at a more timely moment!" The judge seemed to dismiss Fentress contemptuously. Once more he faced the packed benches. "Put down your weapons!" he commanded. "This man Murrell will not be released. At the first effort at rescue he will be shot where he sits--we have sworn it--his plotting is at an end." He stalked nearer the benches. "Not one chance in a thousand remains to him. Either he dies here or he lives to betaken before every judge in the state, if necessary, until we find one with courage to try him! Make no mistake--it will best conserve the ends of justice to allow the state court's jurisdiction in this case; and I pledge myself to furnish evidence which will start him well on his road to the gallows!" The judge, a tremendous presence, stalked still nearer the benches. Outfacing the crowd, a sense of the splendor of the part he was being called upon to play flowed through him like some elixir; he felt that he was transcending himself, that his inspiration was drawn from the hidden springs of the spirit, and that he could neither falter nor go astray. "You don't know what you are meddling with! This man has plotted to lay the South in ruins--he has been arming the negroes--it--it is incredible that you should all know this--to such I say, go home and thank G.o.d for your escape! For the others"--his s.h.a.ggy brows met in a menacing frown--"if they force our hand we will toss them John Murrell's dead carca.s.s--that's our answer to their challenge!"

He strode out among the gun muzzles which wavered where they still covered him. He was thinking of Mahaffy--Mahaffy, who had said he was still a man to be reckoned with. For the comfort of his own soul he was proving it.

"Do you know what a servile insurrection means?--you men who have wives and daughters, have you thought of their fate? Of the monstrous savagery to which they would be exposed? Do you believe he could limit and control it? Look at him! Why, he has never had a consideration outside of his own safety, and yet he expects you to risk your necks to save his! He would have left the state before the first blow was struck--his business was all down river--but we are going to keep him here to answer for his crimes! The law, as implacable as it is impartial, has put its mark on him--the shadow in which he sits is the shadow of the gallows!"

The judge paused, but the only sound in that expectant silence was the heavy breathing of men. He drew his unwieldy form erect, while his voice rumbled on, aggressive and threatening in its every intonation.

"You are here to defend something that no longer exists. Your organization is wrecked, your signals and pa.s.swords are known, your secrets have become public property--I can even produce a list of your members; there are none of you who do not stand in imminent peril--yet understand, I have no wish to strike at those who have been misled or coerced into joining Murrell's band!" The judge's sodden old face glowed now with the magnanimity of his sentiments. "But I have no feeling of mercy for your leaders, none for Murrell himself. Put down your guns!--you can only kill us after we have killed Murrell--but you can't kill the law! If the arch conspirator dies in this room and hour, on whose head will the punishment fall?" He swung round his ponderous arm in a sweeping gesture and shook a fat but expressive forefinger in the faces of those nearest him. "On yours--and yours--and yours!"

Across the s.p.a.ce that separated them the judge grinned his triumph at his enemy. He had known when Fentress entered the room that a word or a sign from him would precipitate a riot, but he knew now that neither this word nor this sign would be given. Then quite suddenly he strode down the aisle, and foot by foot Fentress yielded ground before his advance. A murderous light flashed from the judge's bloodshot eyes and his right hand was stealing toward the frayed tails of his coat.

"Look out--he's getting ready to shoot!" cried a frightened voice.

Instantly by doors and windows the crowd, seized with inexplicable panic, emptied itself into the courthouse yard. Fentress was caught up in the rush and borne from the room and from the building. When he reached the graveled s.p.a.ce below the steps he turned. The judge was in the doorway, the center of a struggling group; Mr. Bowen, the minister, Mr. Saul and Mr. Wesley were vainly seeking to pinion his arm.

"Draw--d.a.m.n you!" he roared at Fentress, as he wrenched himself free, and the crowd swayed to right and left as Fentress was seen to reach for his pistol.

Mr. Saul made a last frantic effort to restrain his friend; he seized the judge's arm just as the latter's finger pressed the trigger, and an instant later Fentress staggered back with the judge's bullet in his shoulder.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI. THE END AND THE BEGINNING

It was not strange that a number of gentlemen in and about Raleigh yielded to an overmastering impulse to visit newer lands, nor was it strange that the initial steps looking toward the indulgence of their desires should have been taken in secrecy. Mr. Pegloe was one of the first to leave; Mr. Saul had informed him of the judge's declared purpose of shooting him on sight. Even without this useful hint the tavern-keeper had known that he should experience intense embarra.s.sment in meeting the judge; this was now a dreary certainty.

"You reckon he means near all he says?" he had asked, his fat sides shaking.

"I'd take his word a heap quicker than I would most folks," answered Mr.

Saul with conviction.

Pegloe promptly had a sinking spell. He recalled the snuffing of the candles by the judge, an extremely depressing memory under the circ.u.mstances, also the reckless and headlong disregard of consequences which had characterized so many of that gentleman's acts, and his plans shaped themselves accordingly, with this result: that when the judge took occasion to call at the tavern, and the hostile nature of his visit was emphasized by the cautious manner of his approach, he was greatly shocked to discover that his intended victim had sold his business overnight for a small lump sum to Mr. Saul's brother-in-law, who had appeared most opportunely with an offer.

Pegloe's flight created something of a sensation, but it was dwarfed by the sensation that developed a day or so later when it became known that Tom Ware and Colonel Fentress had likewise fled the country. Still later, Fentress' body, showing marks of violence, was washed ash.o.r.e at a wood-yard below Girard. It was conjectured that he and Ware had set out from The Oaks to cross the river; there was reason to believe that Fentress had in his possession at the time a considerable sum of money, and it was supposed that his companion had murdered and robbed him. Of Ware's subsequent career nothing was ever known.

These were, after all, only episodes in the collapse of the Clan, sporific manifestations of the great work of disintegration that was going forward and which the judge, more than any other, perhaps, had brought about. This was something no one questioned, and he quickly pa.s.sed to the first phase of that unique and peculiar esteem in which he was ever after held. His fame widened with the succeeding suns; he had offers of help which impressed him as so entirely creditable to human nature that he quite lacked the heart to refuse them, especially as he felt that in the improvement of his own condition the world had bettered itself and was moving nearer those sound and righteous ideals of morality and patriotism which had never lacked his indors.e.m.e.nt, no matter how inexpedient it had seemed for him to put them into practice.

But he was not diverted from his ultimate purpose by the glamour of a present popularity; he was able to keep his bleared eyes resolutely fixed on the main chance, namely the Fentress estate and the Quintard lands. It was highly important that he should go east to South Carolina to secure doc.u.mentary evidence that would establish his own and Fentress' ident.i.ty, to Kentucky, where Fentress had lived prior to his coming to Tennessee.

Early in November the judge set out by stage on his journey east; he was accompanied by Yancy and Hannibal, from neither of whom could he bring himself to be separated; and as the woods, flaming now with the touch of frost, engulfed the little town, he turned in his seat and looked back.

He had entered it by that very road, a beggar on foot and in rags; he was leaving it in broadcloth and fine linen, visible tokens of his altered fortunes. More than this, he could thrust his hands deep down into his once empty pockets and hear the clink of gold and silver. The judge slowly withdrew his eyes from the last gray roof that showed among the trees, and faced the east and the future with a serenely confident expression.

Betty Malroy and Carrington had ridden into Raleigh to take leave of their friends. They had watched the stage from sight, had answered the last majestic salute the judge had given them across the swaying top of the coach before the first turn of the road hid it from sight, and then they had turned their horses' heads in the direction of Belle Plain.

"Bruce, do you think judge Price will ever be able to accomplish all he hopes to?" Betty asked when they had left the town behind. She drew in her horse as she spoke, and they went forward at a walk under the splendid arch of the forest and over a carpet of vivid leaves.

"I reckon he will, Betty," responded Carrington. Unfavorable as had been his original estimate of the judge's character, events had greatly modified it.

"He really seems quite sure, doesn't he?" said Betty.

"There's not a doubt in his mind," agreed Carrington.

He was still at Belle Plain, living in what had been Ware's office, while the Cavendishes were domiciled at the big house. He had arranged with the judge to crop a part of that hopeful gentleman's land the very next season; the fact that a lawsuit intervened between the judge and possession seemed a trifling matter, for Carrington had become infected with the judge's point of view, which did not admit of the possibility of failure; but he had not yet told Betty of his plans. Time enough for that when he left Belle Plain.

His silence concerning the future had caused Betty much thought. She wondered if he still intended going south into the Purchase; she was not sure but it was the dignified thing for him to do. She was thinking of this now as they went forward over the rustling leaves, and at length she turned in the saddle and faced him.

"I am going to miss Hannibal dreadfully--yes, and the judge, and Mr.

Yancy!" she began.

"And when I leave--how about me, Betty?" Carrington asked unexpectedly, but he only had in mind leaving Belle Plain.

A little sigh escaped Betty's red lips, for she was thinking of the Purchase, which lay far down the river, many, many miles distant. The sigh was ever so little, but Carrington had heard it.