An Original Belle Part 66

"Don't think of it, papa. See, I'm over the shock of it already.

Now don't you be hysterical as I was yesterday."

He made a great effort to rally, but it was evident that the strong man was deeply agitated. They all, however, soon regained self-control and composure, and spent a genial half-hour together, Merwyn often going to the parlor, that he might scan the street.

After a brief discussion of plans for the morrow they separated for the night, Merwyn resuming his bivouac in the parlor. After listening for a time he was satisfied that even mobs must rest, and, as the soldiers slept on their arms, he slumbered, his rifle in hand.

When Marian bade her father good-night he took her face in his hands and gazed earnestly down upon it. The girl understood his expression, and the color came into her fair countenance like a June dawn.

"Do you remember, darling, my words when I said, 'I do not know how much it might cost you in the end to dismiss Mr. Merwyn finally'?"

"Yes, papa."

"Are you not learning how much it might have cost you?"

"Yes, papa," with drooping eyes.

He kissed her, and nothing more was said.

CHAPTER L.

ZEB.

MERWYN awoke early, and, as soon as he heard the German servant coming down-stairs, wrote a line to Mr. Vosburgh saying that he would call on his way to headquarters, and then hastened through the almost deserted streets to his own home. To his great satisfaction he found everything unchanged there. After luxuriating in a bath and a bountiful breakfast he again instructed his man to be on the watch, and to keep up a fire throughout the coming night, so that a hot meal might be had speedily at any time.

More than once the thought had crossed his mind: "Unless we make greater headway with the riot, that attack on Mr. Vosburgh's house will be repeated. Vengeance alone would now prompt the act, and besides he is undoubtedly a marked man. There's no telling what may happen. Our best course is to fight, fight, knock the wretches on the head. With the quelling of the mob comes safety;" and, remembering the danger that threatened Marian, he was in a savage mood.

On this occasion, he went directly to Mr. Vosburgh's residence, resolving to take no risks out of the line of duty. His first thought now was the securing of Marian's safety. He had learned that there was no longer any special need for personal effort on his part to gain information, since the police authorities had wires stretching to almost every part of the city. An account of the risks taken to keep up this telegraphic communication would make a strange, thrilling chapter in itself. Moreover, police detectives were busy everywhere, and Mr. Vosburgh at headquarters and with the aid of his own agents could now obtain all the knowledge essential. Therefore the young fellow's plan was simple, and he indicated his course at once after a cordial greeting from Mr. Vosburgh and Marian.

"Hard fighting appears to me to be the way to safety," said he. "I can scarcely believe that the rioters will endure more than another day of such punishment as they received yesterday. Indeed, I should not be surprised if to-day was comparatively quiet."

"I agree with you," said Mr. Vosburgh, "unless the signals I saw last night indicate a more general uprising than has yet taken place. The best elements of the city are arming and organizing.

There is a deep and terrible anger rising against the mob and all its abettors and sympathizers."

"I know it," cried Merwyn; "I feel it myself. When I think of the danger which threatened your home and especially Miss Vosburgh, I feel an almost ungovernable desire to be at the wretches."

"But that means greater peril for you," faltered the young girl.

"No, it means the shortest road to safety for us all. A mob is like fire: it must be stamped out of existence as soon as possible."

"I think Merwyn is right," resumed Mr. Vosburgh. "Another day of successful fighting will carry us to safety, for the general government is moving rapidly in our behalf, and our militia regiments are on their way home. I'll be ready to go to headquarters with you in a minute."

"Oh, please do not be rash to-day. If you had fallen yesterday think what might have happened," said Marian.

"Every blow I strike to-day, Miss Vosburgh, will be nerved by the thought that you have one enemy, one danger, the less; and I shall esteem it the greatest of privileges if I can remain here to-night again as one of your protectors."

"I cannot tell you what a sense of security your presence gives me," she replied. "You seem to know just what to do and how to do it."

"Well," he answered, with a grim laugh, "one learns fast in these times. A very stern necessity is the mother of invention."

"Yes," sighed the girl, "one learns fast. Now that I have seen war, it is no longer a glorious thing, but full of unspeakable horrors."

"This is not war," said Merwyn, a little bitterly. "I pity, while I detest, the poor wretches we knock on the head. Your friends, who have fought the elite of the South will raise their eyebrows if they hear us call this war."

"I have but one friend who has faced a mob alone," she replied, with a swift, shy glance.

"A friend whom that privilege made the most fortunate of men," he replied. "Had the rioters been Southern soldiers, they would have shot me instantly, instead of running away."

"All my friends soon learn that I am stubborn in my opinions," was her laughing reply, as her father joined them.

Mr. Erkmann on the next street north was a st.u.r.dy, loyal man, and he permitted Mr. Vosburgh and Merwyn to pa.s.s out through his house, so that to any one who was watching the impression would be given that at least two men were in the house. Burdened with a sense of danger, Mr. Vosburgh had resolved on brief absences, believing that at headquarters and through his agents he could learn the general drift of events.

Broadway wore the aspect of an early Sunday morning in quiet times.

Pedestrians were few, and the stages had ceased running. The iron shutters of the great Fifth Avenue and other hotels were securely fastened. No street cars jingled along the side avenues; shops were closed; and the paralysis of business was almost complete in its greatest centres. At police headquarters, however, the most intense activity prevailed. Here were gathered the greater part of the police force and of the military co-operating with it The neighboring African church was turned into a barrack. Acton occupied other buildings, with or without the consent of the owners.

The top floor of the police building was thronged with colored refugees, thankful indeed to have found a place of safety, but many were consumed with anxiety on account of absent ones.

The sanguine hopes for a more quiet day were not fulfilled, but the severest fighting was done by the military, and cavalry now began to take part in the conflict. On the west side, Seventh Avenue was swept again and again with grape and canister before the mob gave way. On the east side there were several battles, and in one of them, fought just before night, the troops were compelled to retreat, leaving some of their dead and wounded in the streets. General Brown sent Captain Putnam with one hundred and fifty regulars to the scene of disaster and continued violence, and a sanguinary conflict ensued between ten and eleven o'clock at night. Putnam swept the dimly lighted streets with his cannon, and when the rioters fled into the houses he opened such a terrible fire upon them as to subdue all resistance. The mob was at last learning that the authorities would neither yield nor scruple to make use of any means in the conflict.

In the great centres down town, things were comparatively quiet.

The New York Times took matters into its own hands. A glare of light from the windows of its building was shed after night-fall over Printing-House Square, and editors and reporters had their rifles as readily within reach as their pens.

We shall not follow Merwyn's adventures, for that would involve something like a repet.i.tion of scenes already described. As the day was closing, however, he took part in an affair which explained the mystery of Mammy Borden's disappearance.

During the first day of the riot the colored woman had seen enough to realize her own danger and that of her son, and she was determined to reach him and share his fate, whatever it might be. She had no scruple in stealing away from Mr. Vosburgh's house, for by her departure she removed a great peril from her employers and friends.

She was sufficiently composed, however, to put on a heavy veil and gloves, and so reached her son in safety. Until the evening of the third day of the riot, the dwelling in which they cowered escaped the fury of the mob, although occupied by several colored families.

At last the hydra-headed monster fixed one of its baleful eyes upon the spot. Just as the occupants of the house were beginning to hope, the remorseless wretches came, and the spirit of Tophet broke loose. The door was broken in with axes, and savage men streamed into the dwelling. The poor victims tried to barricade themselves in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but their a.s.sailants cut the water-pipes and would have drowned them. Driven out by this danger, the hunted creatures sought to escape through the yard. As Zeb was lifting his mother over the fence the rioters came upon her and dragged her back.

"Kill me, kill me," cried Zeb, "but spare my mother."

They seemed to take him at his word. Two of the fiends held his arms, while another struck him senseless and apparently dead with a crowbar. Then, not accepting this heroic self-sacrifice, they began to beat the grief-frenzied mother. But retribution was at hand. The cries of the victims and the absorption of the rioters in their brutal work prevented them from hearing the swift, heavy tread of the police. A moment later Merwyn and others rushed through the hallway, and the ruffians received blows similar to the one which had apparently bereft poor Zeb of life. The rioters were either dispersed or left where they fell, a wagon was impressed, and Zeb and his mother were brought to headquarters. Merwyn had soon recognized Mrs. Borden, but she could not be comforted. Obtaining leave of absence, the young man waited until the evening grew dusky; then securing a hack from a stable near headquarters, the proprietor of which was disposed to loyalty by reason of his numerous blue-coated neighbors, he took the poor woman and the scarcely breathing man to a hospital, and left money for their needs. The curtains of the carriage had been closely drawn; but if the crowds through which they sometimes pa.s.sed had guessed its occupants, they would have instantly met a tragic fate, while Merwyn's and the driver's chances would have been scarcely better.

CHAPTER LI.

A TRAGEDY.