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The Net

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In truth, a scene was being enacted within more terrible than that
outside, for as the deputies released the prisoners, commanding them
to save themselves if they could, a frightful confusion ensued. Not
only did the eleven Sicilians cry to God, but the other inmates of the
place who feared their crimes had overtaken them joined in the appeal.
Men and women, negroes and whites, felons and minor evil-doers, rushed
to and fro along the galleries and passageways, fighting with one
another, tearing one another from places of refuge, seeking new and
securer points of safety. They huddled in dark corners; they crept
under beds, beneath stairways, and into barrels. They burrowed into
rubbish piles only to be dragged out by the hair or the heels and to
see their jealous companions seize upon these sanctuaries.

Terror is swiftly contagious; the whole place became a seething pit of
dismay. Some knelt and prayed, while others trampled upon them; they
rose from their knees to beat with bleeding fists upon barred doors
and blind partitions; but as their fear of death increased and the
chorus of their despair mounted higher there came another pounding,
nearer, louder--the sound of splitting wood and of rending metal. To
escape was impossible; to remain was madness; of hiding-places there
was a fearful scarcity.

The regulators came rushing into the prison proper, with footsteps
echoing loudly through the barren corridors. Out into the open court
they swarmed, then up the iron stairways to the galleries that ringed
it about, peering into cells as they went, ousting the wretched
inmates from remotest corners. But the chamber in which they knew
their quarry had been housed was empty, so they paused undecided,
while from all sides came the smothered sounds of terror like the
mewling and squeaking of mice hidden in a wall.

Suddenly some one shouted, "There they are!" and pointed to the
topmost gallery, which ran in front of the condemned cells. A rush
began, but at the top of the winding stairs another grating barred the
way. Through this, however, could be seen Salvatore di Marco, Giordano
Bolla, and the elder Cressi. The three Sicilians had fled to this last
stronghold, slammed the steel door behind them, and now crouched in
the shelter of a brick column. Some one hammered at the lock, and the
terrified prisoners started to their feet with an agonized appeal for
mercy. As they exposed themselves to view a man fired through the
bars. His aim was true; Di Marco flung his arms aloft and pitched
forward on his face. Crazed by this, his two companions rushed madly
back and forth; but they were securely penned in, and appeal was
futile. Another shot boomed deafeningly in the close confines of the
place, and Cressi plunged to his death; then Bolla followed, his
bloody hands gripping the bars, his face upturned in a hideous
grimace, and his eyes, which stared through at his slayers, glazing
slowly.

Down the ringing stairs marched the grim-featured men who had set
themselves this task, and among them Bernie Dreux strode, issuing
orders. The weapon in his hand was hot, his shoulder was bruised, for
he had long been unaccustomed to the use of firearms.

Then began a systematic search of the men's department of the prison;
but no new victims were discovered, only the ordinary prisoners who
were well-nigh speechless with fright.

"Where are the others?" went up the cry, and some one answered:

"On the women's side."

The band passed through to the adjoining portion of the double
building, and, keys having been secured, the rapidity of their search
increased. Into the twin courtyard they filed; then while some
investigated the cookhouse others climbed to the topmost tier of
cells. As the quest narrowed, six of the Sicilians, who had lain
concealed in a compartment on the first floor, broke out in a
desperate endeavor to escape, but they were caught between the
opposing ranks, as in the jaws of a trap. The cell door clanged to
behind them; they found themselves at bay in the open yard. Resistance
was useless; they sank to their knees and set up a cry for mercy. They
shrieked, they sobbed, they groveled; but their enemies were open to
no appeal, untouched by any sense of compunction. They were men wholly
dominated by a single fixed idea, as merciless as machines.

There followed a nightmare scene; a horrid, bellowing uproar of voices
and detonations, of groans and prayers and curses. The armed men
emptied their weapons blindly into that writhing tangle of forms, and
as one finished he stepped back while another took his place. The
prison rocked with the din of it; the wretches were shot to pieces,
riddled, by that horizontal hail which mowed and mangled like an
invisible scythe. Now a figure struggled to its feet only to become
the target for a fusillade; again one twisted in his agony only to be
filled with missiles fired from so short a range that his garments
were torn to rags. The pavement became wet and slippery; in one brief
moment that section of the yard became a shambles.

Then men went up and poked among the bodies with the hot muzzles of
their rifles, turning the corpses over for identification; and as each
stark face was recognized a name went echoing out through the dingy
corridors to the mob beyond.

Larubio, the cobbler, had attempted a daring ruse. The firing had
ceased when up out of that limp and sodden heap he rose, his gray hair
matted, his garments streaming. They thrust their rifles against his
chest and killed him quickly.

Nine men had died by now, and only two remained, Normando and Maruffi.
The former was found shortly, where he had squeezed himself into a
dog-kennel which stood under the stairs; but the vigilantes, it
seemed, had had enough of slaughter, so he was rushed into the street,
where the crowd tore him to pieces as wolves rend a rabbit. Even his
garments were ripped to rags and distributed as ghastly souvenirs.

Norvin Blake had been a witness to only a part of this brutality, but
what he had seen had sickened him, and had increased his determination
to find Gino Cressi. He shared not at all in the sanguinary exaltation
which possessed his fellow-townsmen; instead he longed for the end and
hoped he would be able to forget what he had seen. He would have fled
but for his fear of what might happen to the Cressi boy. Corridor
after corridor he searched, peering into cells, under cots, into
corners and crannies, while through the cavernous old building the
other hunters stormed. He was hard pressed to keep ahead of them, and
when he finally found the lad they were dose at his heels.

They came upon him with the lad clinging to his knees, and a shout
went up.

"Here's the Cressi kid. He gave the signal; let him have it!"

But Norvin turned upon them, saying:

"You can't kill this boy."

"Step aside, Blake," ordered a red-faced man, raising and cocking his
weapon.

Norvin seized the rifle-barrel and turned it aside roughly. The two
stared at each other with angry eyes.

"He's only a baby, don't you understand? Good God! You have children
of your own."

"I--I--" The fellow hesitated. "So he is. Damnation! What has come
over me?" He lowered his gun and turned against the others who were
clamoring behind him. "This is--awful," he murmured, shakingly, when
the crowd had passed on. "I've done all I intend to." He flung his
rifle from him with a gesture of repugnance, and went out of the cell.

Norvin continued to stand guard over his charge while the search for
Maruffi went on, for he dared not trust these men who had gone mad.
Thus he did not learn that his arch enemy had been taken until he saw
him rushed past in the hands of his captors. Caesar had fought as best
he could against overwhelming odds, and continued to resist now in a
blind fury; but a rope was about his neck, at the end of which were a
dozen running men; a dozen gun-butts hustled him on his way to the
open air. Blake closed the cell door upon Gino Cressi and followed,
drawn by a magnetic force he could not resist.

The main gate of the prison opened before the rush of that tangled,
growling handful of men, and they swept straight out into the turmoil
that filled the streets. An instant later Maruffi was beset by five
thousand maniacs; he was kicked, he was beaten, he was spat upon, he
was overwhelmed by an avalanche of humanity. His progress to the
gallows was a short but a terrible one, marked by a series of violent
whirlpools which set through that river of people. The uproar was
deafening; spectators screamed hoarsely, but did not hear their
voices.

From where Blake paused beside the gate he traced the Sicilian's
progress plainly, marveling at the fellow's vitality, for it seemed
impossible that any human being could withstand that onslaught. A coil
of rope sailed upward, a negro perched in a tree passed it over a
limb, and the next instant the head and shoulders of the Capo-Mafia
rose above the dense level of standing forms. He was writhing
horribly, but, seizing the rope with his hands, he drew himself
upward; his blackened face glared down upon his executioners. The
grinning negro kicked at the dark head beneath him, once, twice, three
times, so violently that he lost his balance and fell, whereupon a
bellowing shout of laughter arose more terrible than any sound
heretofore. Still the Sicilian clung to the rope which was strangling
him. Then puffs of smoke curled up in the sunshine, and the crowd
rolled back upon itself, leaving the gibbet ringed with armed men.
Maruffi's body was swayed and spun as if by invisible hands; his
fingers slipped; he settled downward.

Blake turned and hid his face against the cold, damp walls, for he was
very sick.




XXVI

AT THE DUSK



Within two days the city had regained its customary calm. It had, in
fact, settled down to a more placid mood than at any time since the
murder of Chief Donnelly. Immediately after the lynching the citizens
had dispersed to their homes. No prisoners except the Mafiosi had been
harmed, and of those who had been sought not one had escaped. The
damage to the parish prison did not amount to fifty dollars. Through
the community spread a feeling of satisfaction, which horror at the
terrible details of the slaughter could not destroy. There was nowhere
the slightest effort at dodging responsibility; those who had led in
the assault were the best-known citizens and openly acknowledged their
parts. It was realized now, even more fully than before the event,
that the course pursued had been the only one compatible with public
safety; and, while every one deplored the necessity of lynchings in
general, there was no regret at this one, shocking as it had been.

This state of mind was reflected by the local press, and, for that
matter, by the press of all the Southern cities where the gravity of
the situation had become known, while to lend it further countenance,
the Cotton Exchange, the Board of Trade, and the Chamber of Commerce
promptly passed resolutions commending the action of the vigilance
committee. There was some talk of legal proceedings; but no one took
it seriously, except the police, who felt obliged to excuse their
dereliction. Of course, the stir was national--international, indeed,
since Italy demanded particulars; but, serene in the sense of an
unpleasant duty thoroughly performed, New Orleans did not trouble to
explain, except by a bare recital of facts.

In spite of the passive part he had played, Blake was perhaps more
deeply affected by the doings at the prison than any other member of
the party, and during the interval that followed he did not trust
himself to see Vittoria. There was a double reason for this, for he
not only recalled their last interview with consternation, but he
still had a guilty feeling about Myra Nell. On the second afternoon
after the lynching Bernie Dreux dropped in to tell him of his sister's
return from Mobile.

"She read that I took a hand in the fuss," Bernie explained, "but, of
course, she has no idea I did so much actual shooting. When she told
me she was going to see you this afternoon, I came to warn you not to
expose me."

"Do you regret your part?"

"Not the least bit. I'm merely surprised at myself."

"You surprised all your friends," Blake said, with a smile. "You seem
to have changed lately."

In truth, the difference in Dreux's bearing was noteworthy, and many
had remarked upon it. The dignity and force which had enveloped the
little beau for the first time when he stood before the assembled
thousands still clung to him; his eyes were steady and bright and
purposeful; he had lost his wavering, deprecatory manner.

"Yes, I've just come of age," he declared, with some satisfaction. "I
realize that I'm free, white, and twenty-one, for the first time. I'm
going to quit idling and do something."

"What, for instance?"

"Well, I'm going to marry Felicite, to begin with, then maybe some of
my friends will give me a job."

"I will," said Blake.

"Thanks, but--I'd rather impose on somebody else at the start. I want
to make good on my own merits, understand? I've lived off my relatives
long enough. It's just as bad to let the deceased members of your
family support you as to allow the live ones--"

"Bernie!" Blake interrupted, gravely. "I'm afraid I won't marry Myra
Nell."

"You think she won't have you, eh? She has been acting queerly of
late; but leave it to me."

Norvin was spared the necessity of further explanation by the arrival
of the girl herself. Miss Warren seemed strangely lacking in her usual
abundance of animal spirits; she was obviously ill at ease, and the
sight of her brother did not lessen her embarrassment. During the
brief interchange of pleasantries her eyes were fixed upon Blake with
a troubled gaze.

"We--I just ran in for a moment," she said, and seemed upon the point
of leaving after inquiring solicitously about his health.

"My dear," said Bernie, with elaborate unction, "Norvin and I have
just been discussing your engagement."

Miss Warren gasped and turned pale; Blake stammered.

With a desperate effort the girl inquired:

"D--do you love me, Norvin?"

"Of course I do."

"See!" Bernie nodded his satisfaction.

"Oh, Lordy!" said Myra Nell. "I--can't marry you, dear."

"What?" Blake knew that his expression was changing, and tried to
stifle his relief.

As for Bernie, he flushed angrily, and his voice rang with his newly
born determination.

"Don't be silly. Didn't he just say he loved you? And, for heaven's
sake, don't look so scared. We won't devour you."

"I can't marry him," declared the girl, once more.

"Why?"

"Be-because I'm already married! There! Jimmy! I've been trying to get
that out for a month."

Dreux gasped. "Myra Nell! You're crazy!"

She nodded, then turned to Blake with a look of entreaty, "P-please
don't kill yourself, dear? I couldn't help it."

"Why, you poor frightened little thing! I'm delighted! I am indeed,
"he told her, reassuringly.

"Don't you care? Aren't you going to storm and--and raise the
dickens?" she queried. "Maybe this is your way of hiding your
despair?"

"Not at all. I'm glad--so long as you're happy."

"And you're not mad with anguish nor crushed with--Why, the idea! I'm
perfectly _furious!_ I ran away because I was afraid of you, and
I haven't seen my husband once, not once, do you understand, since we
were married. Oh, you--_brute!_"

By this time Dreux had recovered his power of speech, and yelled in
furious voice:

"Who is the reptile?"

There came a timid rap, the office door opened, and Lecompte Rilleau
inserted his head, saying gently:

"Me! I! I'm it!"

Blake rose so suddenly that his chair upset, whereupon Rilleau, who
saw in this abrupt movement a threat, propelled himself fully into
view, crying with determination:

"Here! Don't you touch her! She's mine! You take it out of me!"

Blake's answering laugh seemed so out of character that the bridegroom
took it as merely a new phase of insanity, and edged in front of his
wife protectingly.

"I wanted to come in at first and break the news, but she wouldn't let
me," he explained.

"You have a weak heart. You--you mustn't fight!" implored Myra Nell;
but Lecompte only shrugged.

[Illustration: "P-PLEASE DON'T KILL YOURSELF, DEAR? I COULDN'T HELP
IT"]

"That's all a bluff." Then to Norvin: "I'll admit it _was_ a mean
trick, and I guess my heart really might have petered out if she'd
married you; but I'm all right now, and you can have satisfaction."

"I don't know whether to be angry or amused at you children," Norvin
told them. "Understand, once for all, that our engagement wasn't
serious. There have been a lot of mistakes and misunderstandings--
that's all. Now tell us how and when this all happened."

"Y-yes!" echoed Bernie, who was still dazed.

Myra Nell seemed more chagrined than relieved.

"It was perfectly simple," she informed them. "It happened during the
Carnival. I--never heard a man talk the way he did, and I was really
worried about his heart. I said no--for fifteen minutes, then we
arranged to be married secretly. When it was all over, I was
frightened and ran away. You're such a deep, desperate, unforgiving
person, Norvin. I--I think it was positively horrid of you."

"Good Lord!" breathed her brother. "What a perverted sense of
responsibility!"

"Are we forgiven?"

"It's all right with me, if it is with Norvin," said Bernie, somewhat
doubtfully.

"Forgiven?" Blake took the youthful pair by the hands, and in his eyes
was a brightness they had never seen. "Of course you are, and let me
tell you that you haven't cornered all the love in the world. I've
never cared but for one woman. Perhaps you will wish me as much
happiness as I wish you both?"

"Then you have found your Italian girl?" queried Myra Nell, with
flashing eagerness.

"Vittoria!"

"Vittoria!" Miss Warren shrieked. "Vittoria--a _countess!_ So,
she's the one who spoiled everything?"

"Gee! You'll be a count," said Rilleau.

There followed a period of laughing, incoherent explanations, and then
the beaming bridegroom tugged at Myra Nell's sleeve, saying:

"Now that it's all over, I'm mighty tired of being a widower."

She flung her arms about his neck and lifted her blushing face to his,
explaining to her half-brother, when she could:

"I don't know what you'll do without some one to look after you,
Bernie, but--it's perfectly grand to elope."

Dreux rose with a grin and winked at Norvin as he said:

"Oh, don't mind me. I'll get along all right." And seizing his hat he
rushed out with his thin face all ablaze. When Blake was finally
alone, he closed his desk and with bounding heart set out for the
foreign quarter. His day had dawned; he could hardly contain himself.
But, as he neared his goal, strange doubts and indecisions arose in
his mind; and when he had reached Oliveta's house he passed on,
lacking courage to enter. He decided it was too soon after the tragedy
at the parish prison to press his suit; that to intrude himself now
would be in offensively bad taste. Then, too, he began to reason that
if Margherita had wished to see him she would have sent for him--all
in all, the hour was decidedly unpropitious. He dared not risk his
future happiness upon a blundering, ill-timed declaration; therefore
he walked onward. But no sooner had he passed the house than a
thousand voices urged him to return, in this the hour of the girl's
loneliness, and lay his devotion at her feet. Torn thus by hesitation
and by the sense of his unworthiness, he walked the streets, hour
after hour. At one moment he approached the house desperately
determined; the next he fled, mastered by the fear of dismissal. So he
continued his miserable wanderings on into the dusk.

Twilight was settling when Margherita Ginini finished her packing. The
big living-room was stripped of its furnishings; trunks and cases
stood about in a desolate confusion. There was no look of home or
comfort remaining anywhere, and the whole house echoed dismally to her
footsteps. From the rear came the sound of Oliveta's listless
preparations.

Pausing at an open window, Margherita looked down upon the street
which she had grown to love--the suggestion of darkness had softened
it, mellowed it with a twilight beauty, like the face of an old friend
seen in the glow of lamplight. The shouting of urchins at play floated
upward, stirring the chords of motherhood in her breast and
emphasizing her loneliness. With Oliveta gone what would be left?
Nothing but an austere life compressed within drab walls; nothing but
sickness and suffering on every side. She had begun to think a great
deal about those walls of late and--The bells of a convent pealed out
softly in the distance, bringing a tightness to her throat. In spite
of herself she shuddered. Those laughing children's voices mocked at
her empty life. They seemed always to jeer at that hungry mother-love,
but never quite so loudly as now. She remembered surprising Norvin
Blake at play with these very children one day, and the half-abashed,
half-defiant light in his eyes when he discovered her watching him.
Thinking of him, she recalled just such another twilight hour as this
when, in a whirl of shamed emotion, she had been compelled to face the
fact of her love. A sudden trembling weakness seized her at the
memory, and she saw again those cold gray walls, which never echoed to
the gleeful crowing of babes or the thrilling merriment of little
voices. In that brief hour of her awakening life had opened
gloriously, bewilderingly, only to close again, leaving her soul
bruised and sore with rebellion.

She crossed the floor listlessly in answer to a knock, for the
repeated attentions of her neighbors, although sincere and touching,
were intrusive; then she fell back at sight of the man who entered.

The magic of this evening hour had brought him to her in spite of all
his fears; but his heart was in his throat, and he could hardly manage
a greeting. As he passed the threshold of the disordered room he
looked round him in dismay.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Oliveta is going home to Sicily. It is our parting."

"And you?"

"To-morrow--I go to the Sisters."

"No, no!" he cried, in a voice which thrilled her. "I won't let you.
For hours I've been trying to come here--Dearest, don't answer until
you know everything. Sometimes I fear I was the one who was dreaming
at that moment when you confessed you loved me, for it is all so
unreal--But my love is not unreal. It has lived with me night and day
since that first moment at Terranova--I couldn't speak before, but all
these years seem only hours, and I've been living in the gardens of
Sicily where you first smiled at me and awoke this love. You asked me
to take no part--I had to refuse--I've tried to make a man of myself,
not for my own sake, not for what the world would say, but for you--"

In the tumult of feeling that his words aroused she held fast to one
thought.

"What--what about Myra Nell?" she gasped.

"Myra Nell is married!"

The curling lashes which had lain half closed during his headlong
speech flew open to display a look of wonderment and dawning gladness.

"Yes," he reiterated. "She is married. She has been married ever since
the Carnival, and she's very happy. But I didn't know. I was tied by a
miserable misunderstanding, so I couldn't come to you honestly
until today. And now--I--I'm--afraid--"

"What do you fear?" she heard herself say. The breathless delight of
this moment was so intense that she toyed with it, fearing to lose the
smallest part. She withheld the confession trembling upon her lips
which he was too timid to take for granted, too blind to see.

"Can you take me, in spite of my wretched cowardice back there in
Sicily? I would understand, dear, if you couldn't forget it, but--I
love you so--I tried so hard to make myself worthy--you'll never know
how hard it was--I couldn't do what you asked me, the other day, but,
thank God, my hands are clean."

He held them out as if in evidence; then, to his great, his never-ending
surprise, she came forward and placed her two palms in his. She
stood looking gravely at him, her surrender plain in the curve of her
tremulous lip, the droop of her faltering, silk-fringed lids.

Knowledge came to him with a blinding, suffocating suddenness which
set his brain to reeling and wrung a rapturous cry from his throat.

After a long time he felt her shudder in his arms.

"What is it, heart of my life?" he whispered, without lifting his lips
from her tawny cloud of hair.

"Those walls!" she said. "Those cold, gray walls!"

A sob rose, caught, then changed to a laugh of deep contentment, and
she nestled closer.

Children's voices were wafted up to them through the fragrant,
peaceful dusk, and the two fell silent again, until Oliveta came and
stood beside them with her face transfigured.

"God be praised!" said the peasant girl, as she put her hands in
theirs. "Something told me I should not return to Sicily alone."




THE END

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