What Answer?

by Anna E. Dickinson

  CHAPTER XIX

  "_In breathless quiet, after all their ills._"

  ARNOLD

  A body of these wretches, fresh from some act of rapine and pillage, hadseen Mrs. Franklin, hastening home, and, opening the hue and cry, hadstarted in full chase after her. Struck by sticks and stones thatdarkened the air, twice down, fleeing as those only do who flee forlife, she gained her own house, thinking there to find security. Vainhope! the door was battered in, the windows demolished, the punybarriers between the room in which they were gathered and the creaturesin pursuit, speedily destroyed,--and these three turned to face death.

  By chance, Surrey had his sword at his side, and, tearing this from itsscabbard, sprang to the defence,--a gallant intent, but what could oneweapon and one arm do against such odds as these? He was speedily beatendown and flung aside by the miscreants who swarmed into the room. Itwas marvellous they did not kill him outright. Doubtless they would havedone so but for the face propped against the pillows, which caught theirhungry eyes. Soldier and woman were alike forgotten at sight of thisdying boy. Here was a foeman worthy their steel. They gathered abouthim, and with savage hands struck at him and the bed upon which he lay.

  A pause for a moment to hold consultation, crowded with oaths and jeersand curses; obscenity and blasphemy too hideous to read or record,--thenthe cruel hands tore him from his bed, dragged him over the prostratebody of his mother, past the senseless form of his brave young defender,out to the street. Here they propped him against a tree, to mock andtorment him; to prick him, wound him, torture him; to task endurance toits utmost limit, but not to extinguish life. These savages had no suchmercy as this in their souls; and when, once or twice he fell away intoinsensibility, a cut or blow administered with devilish skill orstrength, restored him to anguish and to life.

  Surrey, bewildered and dizzy, had recovered consciousness, and satgazing vacantly around him, till the cries and yells without, theagonized face within, thrilled every nerve into feeling. Starting up, herushed to the window, but recoiled at the awful sight. Here, he saw,there was no human power within reach or call that could interfere. Thewhole block, from street to street, was crowded with men and boys, armedwith the armory of the street, and rejoicing like veritable fiends ofhell over the pangs of their victim.

  Even in the moment he stood there he beheld that which would haunt hismemory, did it endure for a century. At last, tired of their sport, someof those who were just about Abram had tied a rope about his body, andraised him to the nearest branch of an overhanging tree; then, heapingunder him the sticks and clubs which were flung them from all sides, setfire to the dry, inflammable pile, and watched, for the moment silent,to see it burn.

  Surrey fled to the other side of the room, and, cowering down, buriedhis head in his arm to shut out the awful sight and sounds. But hismother,--O marvellous, inscrutable mystery of mother-love!--his motherknelt by the open window, near which hung her boy, and prayed aloud,that he might hear, for the wrung body and passing soul. Great God! thatsuch things were possible, and thy heavens fell not! Through the soundof falling blows, reviling oaths, and hideous blasphemy, through thecrackling of burning fagots and lifting flames, there went out no cryfor mercy, no shriek of pain, no wail of despair. But when the torturewas almost ended, and nature had yielded to this work of fiends, thedying face was turned towards his mother,--the eyes, dim with the veilthat falls between time and eternity, seeking her eyes with their latestglance,--the voice, not weak, but clear and thrilling even in death,cried for her ear, "Be of good cheer, mother! they may kill the body,but they cannot touch the soul!" and even with the words the great soulwalked with God.

  * * * * *

  After a while the mob melted out of the street to seek new scenes ofravage and death; not, however, till they had marked the house, as thosewithin learned, for the purpose of returning, if it should so pleasethem, at some future time.

  When they were all gone, and the way was clear, these two--the motherthat bore him, the elegant patrician who instinctively shrank from allunpleasant and painful things--took down the poor charred body, andcarrying it carefully and tenderly into the house of a tremblingneighbor, who yet opened her doors and bade them in, composed itdecently for its final rest.

  It was drawing towards evening, and Surrey was eager to get away fromthis terrible region,--both to take the heart-stricken woman, thusthrown upon his care, to some place of rest and safety, and to reassureFrancesca, who, he knew, would be filled with maddening anxiety and fearat his long absence.

  At length they ventured forth: no one was in the square;--turned atFortieth Street,--all clear;--went on with hasty steps to theAvenue,--not a soul in sight. "Safe,--thank God!" exclaimed Surrey, ashe hurried his companion onward. Half the space to their destination hadbeen crossed, when a band of rioters, rushing down the street from thesack and burning of the Orphan Asylum, came upon them. Defence seemedutterly vain. Every house was shut; its windows closed and barred; itsinmates gathered in some rear room. Escape and hope appeared alikeimpossible; but Surrey, flinging his charge behind him, with drawnsword, face to the on-sweeping hordes, backed down the street. Thecombination--a negro woman, a soldier's uniform--intensified the madfury of the mob, which was nevertheless held at bay by the heroic frontand gleaming steel of their single adversary. Only for a moment! Then,not venturing near him, a shower of bricks and stones hurtled throughthe air, falling about and upon him.

  At this instant a voice called, "This way! this way! For God's sake!quick! quick!" and he saw a friendly black face and hand thrust from anarea window. Still covering with his body his defenceless charge, hemoved rapidly towards this refuge. Rapid as was the motion, it was notspeedy enough; he reached the railing, caught her with his one powerfularm, imbued now with a giant's strength, flung her over to the waitinghands that seized and dragged her in, pausing for an instant, ere heleaped himself, to beat back a half-dozen of the foremost miscreants,who would else have captured their prey, just vanishing from sight.Sublime, yet fatal delay! but an instant, yet in that instant a thousandforms surrounded him, disarmed him, overcame him, and beat him down.

  Meanwhile what of Francesca? The morning passed, and with its passingcame terrible rumors of assault and death. The afternoon began, woreon,--the rumors deepened to details of awful facts and realities; andhe--he, with his courage, his fatal dress--was absent, was on thosedeath-crowded streets. She wandered from room to room, forgetting herreserve, and accosting every soul she met for later news,--forinformation which, received, did but torture her with more intolerablepangs, and send her to her knees; though, kneeling, she could not pray,only cry out in some dumb, inarticulate fashion, "God be merciful!"

  The afternoon was spent; the day gone; the summet twilight deepeninginto night; and still he did not come. She had caught up her hat andmantle with some insane intention of rushing into the wide, wild city,on a frenzied search, when two gentlemen passing by her door, talking ofthe all-absorbing theme, arrested her ear and attention.

  "The house ought to be guarded! These devils will be herepresently,--they are on the Avenue now."

  "Good God! are you certain?"

  "Certain."

  "You may well be," said a third voice, as another step joined theirs."They are just above Thirtieth Street. I was coming down the Avenue, andsaw them myself. I don't know what my fate would have been in thisdress,"--Francesca knew from this that he who talked was of the policeor soldiery,--"but they were engaged in fighting a young officer, whomade a splendid defence before they cut him down; his courage wasmagnificent. It makes my blood curdle to think of it. A fair-haired,gallant-looking fellow, with only one arm. I could do nothing for him,of course, and should have been killed had I stayed; so I ran for life.But I don't think I'll ever quite forgive myself for not rushing to therescue, and taking my chance with him."

  She did not stay to hear the closing words. Out of the room, past them,like a spirit,--through the broad halls,--down the wide
stairways,--onto the street,--up the long street, deserted here, but O, with what acrowd beyond!

  A company of soldiers, paltry in number, yet each with loaded rifle andbayonet set, charged past her at double-quick upon this crowd, whichgave way slowly and sullenly at its approach, holding with desperateferocity and determination to whatever ghastly work had been employingtheir hands,--dropped at last,--left on the stones,--the soldiersbetween it and the mob,--silent, motionless,--she saw it, and knew itwhere it lay. O woful sight and knowledge for loving eyes and burstingheart!

  Ere she reached it some last stones were flung by the retreating crowd,a last shot fired in the air,--fired at random, but speeding with asunerring aim to her aching, anguished breast, death-freighted andlife-destroying,--but not till she had reached her destined point andend; not till her feet failed close to that bruised and silent form; nottill she had sunk beside it, gathered it in her fair young arms, andpillowed its beautiful head--from which streamed golden hair, dabbledand blood-bestained--upon her faithful heart.

  There it stirred; the eyes unclosed to meet hers, a gleam of divine loveshining through their fading fire; the battered, stiffened arm lifted,as to fold her in the old familiar caress. "Darling--die--tomake--free"--came in gasps from the sweet, yet whitening lips. Then shelay still. Where his breath blew across her hair it waved, and her bosommoved above the slow and labored beating of his heart; but, save forthis, she was as quiet as the peaceful dead within their graves,--and,like them, done with the noise and strife of time forever.

  For him,--the shadows deepened where he lay,--the stars came out one byone, looking down with clear and solemn eyes upon this wreck of fair andbeautiful things, wrought by earthly hate and the awful passions ofmen,--then veiled their light in heavy and sombre clouds. The rain fellupon the noble face and floating, sunny hair,--washing them free ofsoil, and dark and fearful stains; moistening the fevered, burning lips,and cooling the bruised and aching frame. How passed the long night withthat half-insensible soul? God knoweth. The secrets of that are hiddenin the eternity to which it now belongs. Questionless, ministeringspirits drew near, freighted with balm and inspiration; for when theshadows fled, and the next morning's sun shone upon these silent forms,it revealed faces radiant as with some celestial fire, and beatified asreflecting the smile of God.

  The inmates of the house before which lay this solemn mystery, rising toface a new-made day, looking out from their windows to mark what traceswere left of last night's devastations, beheld this awful yet sublimesight.

  "A prejudice which, I trust, will never end," had Mr. Surrey said, inbidding adieu to his son but a few short hours before. This prejudice,living and active, had now thus brought death and desolation to his owndoors. "How unsearchable are the judgments of God, and his ways pastfinding out!"