Part 53 (2/2)

He had proclaimed the slave a freeman. He had placed an iron pike in his right hand and a torch in his left. Why had they not answered with a shout of triumph?

His somber mind refused to believe that they would not rise. Even now he was sure they were mobilizing in a sheltered mountain gorge. Before noon he would hear the roar of their coming and see the terror-stricken faces of the whites fleeing before their rush.

He had repeated to his Northern crowds the fable of negro suffering in the South until he believed the lie himself. He believed it with every beat of his stern Puritan heart. And he had repeated and shouted it until the gathering Abolitionist mob believed it as a message from G.o.d.

The fact that the system of African slavery, as actually practiced in the South, was the mildest and most humane form of labor ever fixed by the masters of men, they refused to consider. The mob leader never allows his followers to consider facts.

He knows that his crowd prefers dreams to facts. Dreams are the motives of crowd action. The dream, the illusion, the unreality have ever been the forces that have shaped human history in its hours of crisis when Fate has placed the future in the hands of the mob.

The fact that Slavery in the South had lifted millions of black savages--half of them from cannibal tribes--into the light of human civilization--that it had been their school, their teacher, their church, their inspiration--did not exist, because it was a fact. They did not deal in facts.

And so again Brown lifted his burning eyes toward the hills reflected in the mirror of the rivers. Down one of those rocky slopes the Black Legion would sweep before the day was done!

He had boldly despatched Cook across the Potomac bridge with the wagons, horses and treasures stolen from Colonel Was.h.i.+ngton's house to be stored at headquarters. There was still no doubt or shadow of turning in his imperious soul.

With each pa.s.sing moment the swift feet of the avengers were closing the trap into which he had walked.

By ten o'clock the terror-stricken people of the town and county had seized their weapons and the fight began. Bullets were whistling from every street corner and every window commanding a glimpse of the a.r.s.enal and Armory.

Brown's handful of men began to fall. The Rifle Works surrendered first and his guard of three men were all dead or wounded. By three o'clock his forces had been cut to pieces and he had taken refuge in the Engine House of the Armory. The bridges were held by the people. Owen, Cook and his guard at the old log house on the Maryland side were cut off and could not come to his rescue.

The amazing news of an Abolition invasion of Virginia and the capture of the United States a.r.s.enal and Rifle Works had shaken the nation.

President Buchanan hastily summoned from Arlington the foremost soldier of the Republic and despatched Colonel Robert E. Lee to the scene with the only troops available at the Capital, a company of marines.

Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart volunteered to act as his aide. The young cavalier was in the East celebrating the birth of a baby boy.

CHAPTER x.x.x

When the marines arrived from Was.h.i.+ngton it was past midnight. The town swarmed with armed men from every farm and fireside. Five companies of militia from Maryland and Virginia were on the ground and Henry Wise, the Governor of Virginia, was hurrying to take command.

Stuart had established Colonel Lee's headquarters behind the brick wall of the a.r.s.enal enclosure. Not more than fifty yards from the gate stood the Engine House in which Brown had barricaded himself with his two sons, Oliver and Watson, and four of his men. He held forty white hostages.

A sentinel of marines covered the entrance to the enclosure. The militia had yielded command to the United States troops.

As Stuart stood awaiting Colonel Lee's arrival, Lieutenant Green, in command of the marines, stepped briskly to the aide's side to report the preliminary work.

As yet no one in the excited town knew the ident.i.ty of the mysterious commander ”John Smith” who led the invasion. No one could guess the number of men he had in his army nor how many he held in reserve on the Maryland hills.

Stuart's blue eyes flashed with excitement.

”The marines have the a.r.s.enal completely surrounded?” he asked.

”A rat couldn't get through, Lieutenant Stuart.”

”The bridges leading into Harper's Ferry guarded?”

”Three picked men at each end, sir.”

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