The Gray Dawn Part 53

Another commotion down the street. Again the ranks parted and closed again, this time to admit three carriages driven rapidly. As they came to a stop the muskets all around the square leaped to the "present." So disconcerting was this sudden slap and rattle of arms after the tenseness of the last half hour, that men dodged back as though from a blow. With admirable precision, Olney's men, obeying a series of commands, moved forward from the gun to form a hollow square around the carriages. Only the man with the burning slow match was left standing by the breech.

From the carriages then descended Coleman, Truett, Talbot Ward, Smiley, and two other men whom neither Nan nor Mrs. Sherwood recognized. Amid the dead silence they walked directly to the jail door, Olney's Sixty breaking the square and deploying close at their heels. A low colloquy through the wicket now took place. At length the door swung slowly open. The committee entered. The door swung shut after them. Again the people waited, but now once more arose the murmur of low-toned conversation.

LX

Up to this day Casey had been very content with his situation. His quarters were the best the place afforded, and they had been made more comfortable. Scores of friends had visited him, hailing him as their champion. He had been made to feel quite a hero. To be sure it was a nuisance to be so confined; but when he shot King, he had antic.i.p.ated undergoing some inconvenience. It was a price to pay. He understood that there was some public excitement, and that it was well to lie low for a little until that had died down. The momentary annoyance would be more than offset by later prestige. Casey did not in the least fear the courts. He had before his eyes too many rea.s.suring examples. His friends were rallying n.o.bly to his defence. Over the wines and cigars, with which he was liberally supplied, they boasted of their strength and their dispositions--the whole police force of the city, the militia companies sworn, to act in just such emergencies, hundreds of volunteers, if necessary the whole power of the State of California called to put down this affronting of duly const.i.tuted law!

But this Sunday morning Casey was uneasy. There seemed to be much whispering in corners, much bustling to and fro. He paced back and forth, fretting, interrogating those about him. But they could or would tell him little--there was trouble;--and they fussed away, leaving Casey alone. As a matter of fact, the withdrawal of the committee's guard of ten, and the formal notice that the truce was thus promptly ended, had caught the Law and Order party unprepared. With five hours'

notice--or indeed by next day, even were no notice given--the jail would have been impregnably defended. The sudden move of the committee won; as prompt, decisive moves will.

The bustling of the people in the jail suddenly died. Casey heard no shuffle of feet, no whisper of conversation. The building might have been empty save for himself. But he did hear outside the steady rhythmic tramp of feet.

Sheriff Scannell stood before him, the Vigilantes' written communication in his hand. Casey, looking up from the bed on which he had fallen in sudden shrinking, saw on his face an expression that made him cower. For the first time realization came to him of the straits he was in. His vivid Irish imagination leaped instantaneously from the complacence of absolute safety to the depths of terror. He sprang to his feet.

"You aren't going to betray me! You aren't going to give me up!" he cried, wringing his hands.

"James," replied' Scannell solemnly, "there are three thousand armed men coming for you, and I have not now thirty supporters around the jail."

"Not thirty!" cried. Casey, astonished. For a moment he appeared crushed; then leaped to his feet flouris.h.i.+ng a long knife he had drawn from his boot. "I'll not be taken from this place alive!" he shrieked, beside himself with hysteria. "Where are all you brave fellows who were going to see me through this?"

Scannell looked at him sadly. In the pause came a sharp knocking at the door of the jail. The sheriff turned away. A moment later Casey, listening intently, heard the door open and close, heard the sound of talking. He fairly darted to his table, scrawled a paper, and called to attract attention. Marshal North, answered the summons.

"Give this to them--to the Vigilantes," urged Casey, thrusting the paper into his hands. North glanced through the note.

TO THE VIGILANT COMMITTEE. Gentlemen: I am willing to go before you if you will let me speak but ten minutes. I do not wish the blood of any man upon my head.

JAS. CASEY

But after North had gone to deliver this, Casey again sprang to his feet, again flourished his bowie knife, again ramped up and down, again swore he would never be taken alive. A deputy pa.s.sed the door. Casey's demeanour collapsed again.

"Tell them," he begged this man earnestly; "tell them if two respectable citizens will promise me gentlemanly treatment, I'll go peaceably! I will not be dragged through the streets like a dog! If they will give me a fair trial and allow me to summon my witnesses, I'll yield!"

And the deputy left him pacing up and down, waving his knife, muttering wildly to, himself.

On entering the jail door Coleman and his companions bowed formally to the sheriff.

"We have come for the prisoner, Casey," said Coleman. "We ask that he be peaceably delivered us handcuffed, at the door, immediately."

"Under existing circ.u.mstances," replied Scannell, "I shall make no resistance. The prison and its contents are yours."

But Truett interrupted pointedly:

"We want only the man Casey, at present," he said. "For the rest we hold you strictly accountable."

Scannell bowed without reply. North and the deputy came in succession to deliver Casey's messages, and to report his apparent determination.

The committee offered no comment. They penetrated to the ulterior of the jail. Many men, apparently unarmed, idling about as though merely spectators, looked at them curiously as they pa.s.sed. Casey heard them, coming and sprang back from the door, holding his long knife dramatically poised. Coleman walked directly to the door, where he stopped, looking Casey coldly in the eye. The seconds, pa.s.sed. Neither man stirred. At the end of a full minute Coleman said sharply:

"Lay down that knife!"

As though his incisive tones had broken the spell, Casey moved. He looked wildly to right and to left; then flung the knife from him and buried his face in his hands.

"Your requests are granted," said Coleman shortly; then to Marshal North: "Open the door and bring him out."

LXI

On the veranda of the unoccupied house above the jail Nan Keith stood rigid, her hand upon her heart. During the period of the committee's absence inside the jail she did not alter her position by a hair's breadth. She was in the hypnosis of a portentous waiting. Time fell into the abyss of eternity: whether it were ten minutes or ten hours did not matter in the least.

For this was to Nan in the nature of a revelation so sudden and so complete that it filled her whole soul. Had she known what Mrs.

Sherwood was taking her to see, she would have pre-visualized a drunken, disorderly, howling, bloodthirsty mob; a huge composite of brawling antagonisms, of blind fury, of vulgar irrationalisms. Here were men filled with purpose; This was what caught at her breath--the grim silent purpose of it! The orderly progression of events, moving with the certainty of a fate, was like the steady crescendo of solemn music. And this crescendo rose in her as a tide of emotion that overflowed and drowned her. The right and wrong--as she had examined them intellectually or through, the darkened gla.s.ses of her caste prejudices--were quite lost. This was merely something primitive, wonderful, beautiful. The spectacle was at the moment of suspense, yet she felt so impatience--the wheel must turn in its own majestic circle--but only an intense expectation. And in this she felt, subconsciously, that she was one with the mult.i.tude.

The jail door swung open. The committee came out. In the middle of their compact group walked a stranger.

"Casey!" breathed a vast voice from the crowd.

An indescribable burst of grateful relief fluttered across the upturned faces as a breeze across water. It was almost timid at first, but gathered strength as it spread. It rolled up the hillside. A great, deep breath seemed to fill the lungs of the throng. The murmur swelled suddenly, was on the point of bursting into the frantic cheering of twenty thousand men.

But Coleman, his hat removed, raised his hand. In obedience to the simple gesture the cheer was stifled. In an instant all was still. The little group entered the carriages, which immediately wheeled and drove away.

Nan, standing bolt upright, her att.i.tude still unchanged, caught her breath at the inhibition of the cheer. She did not even try to wink away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Through them she saw the troops wheel with the precision of veterans, and march away after the carriages. The crowd melted slowly. Soon were left only the inscrutable jail, the gun still pointed at its door, the rigid ranks of Olney's Sixty, who had evidently been left on guard, and a few stragglers.

Suddenly she turned and walked away. Mrs. Sherwood followed her as rapidly as she could, but did not succeed in catching up with her. At the corner below the Keiths' house she stopped, watched until Nan had gained her own dooryard, then turned toward home, a smile sketching her lips, a light in her eyes.

Nan flung open her door and went directly to the parlour. She stood in the doorway contemplating the scene. It was very cozy. The afternoon sun slanted through the high-narrow windows of the period, gilding the dust motes floating lazily to and fro. The tea table, set with a snowy doth, glittered invitingly, its silver and porcelain, its plates of dainty sandwiches and thin waferlike cookies--Wing Sam's specialty--enticingly displayed. Two easy chairs had been drawn close, and, before the unoccupied one a low footstool had been placed. Ben Sansome sat in the other. He was, as usual, exquisitely dressed. All his little appointments were not only correct but worn easily. The varicoloured waistcoat, the sparkling studs and cravat pins, the bright, soft silk tie, were all subdued from their ordinary too-vivid effect by the grace with which they were carried. Nan saw all this, and appreciated it dispa.s.sionately, appraising him anew through clarified vision. Especially she noticed the waxed ends of his small moustache.

He had, at the sound of her entrance, lighted the tea kettle; and as she came in he smiled up at her brightly.

"You see," he cried gayly, "I am doing your task for you! I have the lamp all lit!"

She paid no attention to this, but advanced two steps into the room.

"Which side are you on, anyway?" she asked abruptly and a little harshly.

Sansome raised his eyebrows in faint and fastidious surprise.

"Dear lady, what do you mean?"

"The only thing I can mean in these times: are you with the Law and Order, or with the Committee of Vigilance?"

Sansome shrugged his shoulders whimsically and sank back into his chair.

"How can you ask that, dear lady?" he begged pathetically. "You would not cla.s.s me with the rabble, I hope."