Out of a Labyrinth Part 12

And now the wildest excitement prevailed. Maddened with grief, rage, and sickening horror, the father called upon them to find the body, and to aid him in wreaking vengeance upon the man who had desecrated his darling's grave.

It was as fire to flax. Those who have witnessed the workings of a mob, know how swiftly, mysteriously, unreasonably, it kindles under certain influences.

How many men, with different, often opposing interests, make the cause of one their common cause, and forgetting personality, become a unit for vengeance, a single, dreadful, unreasoning force!

The air resounded with threats, imprecations, exclamations, oaths.

Some of the better cla.s.s of Traftonites had followed after the first party, joining them by threes and fours. These made some effort to obtain a hearing for themselves and Mr. Harris, but it was futile.

"Hang the rascally doctor!"

"String him up!"

"Run him out of town!"

"Hanging's too good!"

"Let's tar and feather him!"

"Bring him out; bring him out!"

"Give us a hold of him!"

"We ain't found the body yet," cried one of the most earnest searchers.

"Let's keep looking."

As some of the party turned toward the house I looked back to the open window.

Dr. Bethel still stood in full view, but Jim Long had disappeared from the pump platform.

The search now became fierce and eager, and while some started to go once again through the house and cellar, a number of Briggs' cronies began a furious onslaught upon a stack of hay, piled against the stable.

But those who approached the house met with an unlooked-for obstacle to their search,--the rear door was closed and barred against them. Failing in this quarter they hastened around to the front.

Here the door was open, just as they had left it, swinging on one broken hinge; but the doctor's tall form and stalwart shoulders barred the way.

"Gentlemen," he said, in low, resolute tones, "you can not enter my house, at least at present. You have done sufficient damage to my property already."

The men halted for a moment, and then the foremost of them began to mount the steps.

"Stand back," said Bethel. "I shall protect my property. I will allow my house to be inspected again by a committee, if you like, but I will _not_ admit a mob."

"You'd better not try to stop us," said the leader of the party, "we are too many for ye." And he mounted the upper step.

"Stand down, sir," again said Bethel. "Did I not say I should protect my property?" and he suddenly presented in the face of the astonished searcher a brace of silver-mounted pistols.

The foremost men drew hastily back, but they rallied again, and one of them yelled out:

"Ye'd better not tackle _us_ single-handed; an' ye won't get anyone to back ye _now_!"

"Jest allow me ter argy that pint with ye," said Jim Long, as he suddenly appeared in the doorway beside Bethel. "I reckon _I'm_ somebody."

Jim held in his hand a handsome rifle, the doctor's property, and he ran his eye critically along the barrel as he spoke.

"Here's five of us, an' we all say _ye can't come in_. Three of us can _repeat_ the remark if it 'pears necessary."

Then turning his eye upon the last speaker of the party, he said, affably:

"I ain't much with the little shooters, Simmons; but I can jest make a rifle howl. Never saw me shoot, did ye? Now, jest stand still till I shoot that gra.s.shopper off ye'r hat brim."

Simmons, who stood in the midst of the group, and was taller than those about him by half a head, began a rapid retrograde movement, and, as Jim slowly raised his rifle to his shoulder, the group about the door-steps melted away, leaving him in possession of the out-posts.

"That," said Jim, with a grin, as he lowered his rifle, "illyusterates the sooperiority of mind over matter. Doctor, did ye know the darned thing wasn't loaded?"

While Bethel still smiled at this bit of broad comedy, a sharp cry, and then a sudden unnatural stillness, told of some new occurrence, and followed by Jim we went back to the rear window and looked out.

They were crowding close about something, as yet half hidden in the scattered hay; all silent, and, seemingly, awe-stricken. Thus for a moment only, then a low murmur ran through the crowd, growing and swelling into a yell of rage and fury.

Hidden in the doctor's hay they had found the body of Effie Beale!

It was still encoffined, but the little casket had been forced open, and it was evident, from the position of the body, that the buried clothing had been hurriedly torn from it.

It would be difficult to describe the scene which followed this last discovery. While the father, and his more thoughtful friends, took instant possession of the little coffin, the wrath of the raiders grew hotter and higher; every voice and every hand was raised against Dr.

Bethel.

Tom Briggs, with his blackened eye, was fiercely active, and his two or three allies clamored loudly for vengeance upon "the cursed resurrectionist."

"Let's give him a lesson," yelled a burly fellow, who, having neither wife, child, nor relative in Trafton was, according to a peculiar law governing the average human nature, the loudest to clamor for summary vengeance. "Let's set an example, an' teach grave robbers what to look for when they come to Trafton!"

"If we don't settle with him n.o.body will," chimed in another fellow, who doubtless had good reason for doubting the ability of Trafton justice to deal with law-breakers.

Those who said little were none the less eager to demonstrate their ability to deal with offenders when the opportunity afforded itself.

Over and again, in various ways, Trafton had been helplessly victimized, and now, that at last they had traced an outrage to its source, Trafton seized the opportunity to vindicate herself.

A few of the fiercest favored extreme measures, but the majority of the mob seemed united in their choice of feathers and tar, as a means of vengeance.

Seeing how the matter would terminate, I turned to Harris, the younger, who had kept his position near me.

"Ask your father to follow us," I said, "and come with me. They are about to attack the doctor."

We went quietly around and entered the house from the front. The doctor and Jim were still at the open window, and in full view of the mob.

Bethel turned toward us a countenance locked in impenetrable self-possession.

"They mean business," he said, nodding his head toward the garden. "Poor fools."

Then he took his pistols from a chair by the window, putting one in each pocket of his loose sack coat.