Part 46 (1/2)
The Bard solemnly lifted his hand and cried:
”I stood on the hills and waited for slaves to rise and fight their way to death or freedom. And no man stirred! Did they not find my death-song?”
Diggs spoke in timid accents:
”The regent destroyed it.”
”Yes, yes, but before my death I antic.i.p.ated his treachery. I left ten mimeographed copies where they could be found by the people. If they have not been found my death would have been vain. I waited to be sure. I've come to ask.”
”They were found all right,” his wife cried, angrily. ”And if Wolf finds you now----”
She had scarcely spoken when an officer of the secret service suddenly laid his hand on the Bard's shoulder and quietly said:
”Come. We'll give you something to sing about now worth while!”
His wife clung to the tottering, terror-stricken figure for a moment and burst in tears. His friends shrank back in silence.
The regent had him flogged unmercifully; and Roland Adair, the Bard of Ramcat, ceased to sing. He became a mere cog in the wheel of things which moved on with swift certainty to its appointed end.
The social system worked now with deadly precision and ceaseless regularity. No citizen dared to speak against the man in authority over him or complain to the regent, for they were his trusted henchmen. Men and women huddled in groups and asked in whispers the news.
Disarmed and at the mercy of his brutal guard, cut off from the world as effectually as if they lived on another planet, despair began to sicken the strongest hearts, and suicide to be more common than in the darkest days of panic and hunger in the old world.
A curious group of three huddled together in the shadows discussing their fate on the day the Bard was publicly flogged.
Uncle Bob led the whispered conference of woe.
”I tells ye, gemmens, dis beats de worl'! Befo' de war I wuz er slave.
But I knowed my master. We wuz good friends. He say ter me, 'Bob you'se de blackest, laziest n.i.g.g.e.r dat ebber c.u.mber de groun'! And I laf right in his face an' say, 'Come on, Ma.r.s.e Henry, an' le's go fis.h.i.+n'--dey'll bite ter-day'! An' he go wid me. He nebber lay de weight er his han' on me in his life. He come ter see me when I sick an' cheer me up. He gimme good clothes an' a good house an' plenty ter eat. He love me, an' I love him. I tells ye I'se er slave now an' I don't know who de debbil my master is. Dey change him every ten days.
Dey cuss an' kick me--an' I work like a beast. Dis yer comrade business too much fer me.”
”To tell you the truth, boys,” said a bowed figure by old Bob's side, ”I lived in a model community once before.”
”Oh, go 'long dar, man, dey nebber wuz er nudder one!” Bob protested.
”Yes. We all wore the same thickness of clothes, ate the same three meals regularly, never over-ate or suffered from dyspepsia; all of us worked the same number of hours a day, went to bed at the same time and got up at the same time. There was no drinking, cursing, carousing, gambling, stealing, or fighting. We were model people and every man's wants were met with absolute equality. The only trouble was we all lived in the penitentiary at San Quentin----”
”Des listen at dat now!” Bob exclaimed.
”Yes, and I found the world outside a pretty tough place to live in when I got out, too. I thought I'd find the real thing here and slipped in. What's the difference? In the pen we wore a gray suit.
We've got it here with a red spangle on it. There they decided the kind of grub they'd give us. The same here. There we worked at jobs they give us. The same here. There we worked under overseers and guards. So we do here. I was sent up there for two years. It looks like we're in here for life.”
”How long, O Lord, how long, will Thy servant wait for deliverance?”
cried Methodist John, in plaintive despair. ”If I only could get back to the poorhouse! There I had food and shelter and clothes. It's all I've got here--but with it work, work, work! and a wicked, sinful, cussin' son of the devil always over me drivin' and watchin'!”
John's jaw suddenly dropped as a black cloud swept in from the sea and obscured the sun. A squall of unusual violence burst over the island with wonderful swiftness. The darkness of twilight fell like a pall, and a sharp peal of thunder rang over the harbour.
John watched the progress of the storm with strange elation, quietly walked through the blinding, drenching rain to the barn, and drew from the forks of two trees a lightning-rod about thirty feet long which Norman had finally made for him in answer to his constant pleading.