Part 37 (2/2)
”This is monstrous!” groaned the doctor, with choking agony, glancing helplessly about the bare cell for some weapon with which to defend himself.
Suddenly looking the Lieutenant in the face, he said:
”I demand, sir, to see your commanding officer. He cannot pretend that these shackles are needed to hold a weak unarmed man in prison, guarded by two hundred soldiers?”
”It is useless. I have his orders direct.”
”But I must see him. No such outrage has ever been recorded in the history of the American people. I appeal to the Magna Charta rights of every man who speaks the English tongue--no man shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his own household, or of his liberties, unless by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land!”
”The bayonet is your only law. My orders admit of no delay. For your own sake, I advise you to submit. As a soldier, Dr. Cameron, you know I must execute orders.”
”These are not the orders of a soldier!” shouted the prisoner, enraged beyond all control. ”They are orders for a jailer, a hangman, a scullion--no soldier who wears the sword of a civilized nation can take such orders. The war is over; the South is conquered; I have no country save America. For the honour of the flag, for which I once poured out my blood on the heights of Buena Vista, I protest against this shame!”
The Lieutenant fell back a moment before the burst of his anger.
”Kill me! Kill me!” he went on pa.s.sionately, throwing his arms wide open and exposing his breast. ”Kill--I am in your power. I have no desire to live under such conditions. Kill, but you must not inflict on me and on my people this insult worse than death!”
”Do your duty, blacksmith,” said the officer, turning his back and walking toward the door.
The negro advanced with the chains cautiously, and attempted to snap one of the shackles on the doctor's right arm.
With sudden maniac frenzy, Dr. Cameron seized the negro by the throat, hurled him to the floor, and backed against the wall.
The Lieutenant approached and remonstrated:
”Why compel me to add the indignity of personal violence? You must submit.”
”I am your prisoner,” fiercely retorted the doctor. ”I have been a soldier in the armies of America, and I know how to die. Kill me, and my last breath will be a blessing. But while I have life to resist, for myself and for my people, this thing shall not be done!”
The Lieutenant called a sergeant and a file of soldiers, and the sergeant stepped forward to seize the prisoner.
Dr. Cameron sprang on him with the ferocity of a tiger, seized his musket, and attempted to wrench it from his grasp.
The men closed in on him. A short pa.s.sionate fight and the slender, proud, gray-haired man lay panting on the floor.
Four powerful a.s.sailants held his hands and feet, and the negro smith, with a grin, secured the rivet on the right ankle and turned the key in the padlock on the left.
As he drove the rivet into the shackle on his left arm, a spurt of bruised blood from the old Mexican War wound stained the iron.
Dr. Cameron lay for a moment in a stupor. At length he slowly rose. The clank of the heavy chains seemed to choke him with horror. He sank on the floor, covering his face with his hands and groaned:
”The shame! The shame! O G.o.d, that I might have died! My poor, poor wife!”
Captain Gilbert entered and said with a sneer:
”I will take you now to see your wife and friends if you would like to call before setting out for Columbia.”
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