Overshadowed Part 15

The remaining hours of the night, hearing the ever approaching footfall of the coming dawn, leapt over the bars of time and sank into eternity.

The dawn came, cold and cheerless. The sun struggled from behind an embankment of clouds, and feebly cast a few sickly rays of light over the snow-covered earth, and, as if ashamed of the feebleness of the effort, quickly lifted the clouds to again hide his face. And yet Astral stood in the doorway, as motionless as a stone statue, silent as the Sphinx.

An officer of the law, clad in blue, and wearing the insignia of his office, came trudging along on his way to his "beat." When he came opposite to Astral, he cast a look of earnest inquiry upon the snow-covered man in the doorway. The gaze of the policeman, in keeping with the well-known hypnotic influence of the human eye, had its effect upon Astral. Suddenly casting his eyes upon the policeman, Astral sprang toward him, grasping him by the shoulder.

"Sir!" cried he, "Enter my home! Enter, I say, and see the havoc which living side by side with your race has wrought! Enter, enter, I say!"

The startled policeman tried to extricate himself from Astral's grasp, but he continued to drag him to his door. The policeman drew his pistol, but Astral took no notice of this action.

Perceiving from Astral's repeated exhortations that he really desired him to see something and intended him no harm, the policeman ceased resisting and allowed himself to be pulled to the door of the room where the dead lay. When his eye fell upon the rigid body of the convict on the chair and beheld the form of the beautiful Erma--it, too, rigid in death--in terror at the sight, he began to struggle to get out of the house. Astral seemed equally determined to have him drink in the horror of the situation fully. The policeman, now completely terror-stricken, raised the cry of "Murder! murder!" and struck Astral a violent blow on the head. As if robbed of life, Astral fell unconscious upon the floor.

The noise of the struggle, and the cries of the policeman drew a large crowd to the house. News of the tragic scenes enacted in that little home spread to the remotest quarters of the city. All this while Astral lay unconscious on the floor. Friends now bore his body to his room.

A coroner's jury was summoned and an inquest was held. John Wysong's emaciated appearance soon removed all doubt as to what had caused his death. The absence of all marks of violence upon Erma, the calm, sweet look upon her face, even in death, predisposed the jury to look for natural causes for her demise. Before entering upon the task of finding the cause of her death, they all stood and gazed long at her loveliness and a hush of awe fell upon them. When at length the doctor had made the necessary examination, and p.r.o.nounced her death due to heart failure, the jury filed out. Before going, each juror had cast a parting look at the departed queen of beauty, and the last of the official dealings of the Anglo-Saxons with Erma were over.

Friends of Astral now took charge of affairs and began to arrange for the interment, he being yet unconscious. Upon his recovery from the swoon, he was wildly delirious. When made aware by the attending physician that a protracted illness was likely to ensue in Astral's case, friends saw that it was unwise to delay the funeral services and interment until he could attend.

As is well known to the reader, Erma had an unusually large number of friends among the white people of Richmond, and these friends pet.i.tioned that an opportunity be given them to publicly manifest their esteem. In deference to their wishes, the funeral services were held at the Tabernacle, a mammoth structure built for interdenominational use and for union gospel meetings. White and colored people by the thousands flocked to the Tabernacle to witness the exercises over the remains of Erma. The services proceeded in the usual way, tributes of the very highest nature being paid to the character of the deceased. Resolutions of respect, signed by one hundred of Richmond's truest white women, were read, extolling the name of Erma Wysong Herndon.

The last words had been said, the organ was playing the final funeral march, the pall-bearers were half-way down the aisle bearing the coffin to the hea.r.s.e, when, lo, a loud, commanding voice cried, "Halt," and the tall form of Astral was seen standing in the doorway. "Bear that coffin back to the front, gentlemen," said he, and with icy clearness. All recognized his rights in the matter, and the coffin was borne to the front again. Astral, wild-eyed, fresh from a bed of affliction, followed with head bowed and with measured tread, mechanically performed. Taking a position in full view of the entire audience, he spoke as follows, in a clear, calm manner, but with a calmness evidently produced by the suppression of powerful emotions:

"Ladies and Gentlemen: On such an occasion as this, only the language of the heart should be heard, and it is my purpose to deliver to you a message from my innermost self. First of all, I wish to give audible expression to the thankfulness that I feel over the tribute of respect paid to my deceased wife by this vast outpouring of citizens of both races.

"It is your purpose, I perceive, to bear her remains to your cemetery, where her body will obey the summons of nature to return unto the dust whence it came. Before I can give my sanction to this step, there is a question that must be disposed of in a thoroughly satisfactory manner.

Erma Wysong Herndon was brilliant and true as a girl, devoted and worthy as a wife and mother, seeking to alter none of your cherished customs, aspiring ever and only to live out that life which her soul taught her to be the best. Yet she suffered countless ills. Her heart, unable longer to bear the strain, gave up the struggle and ceased its pulsations while her feet were yet treading that portion of life's pathway that lies within the summer of man's existence. I utter not these words by way of reproach, believe me. I but recall facts well known by you to be such, that you may grasp the full purport of what I am now to lay before you.

"You now desire that her body shall go to enrich this soil. Should I allow you to proceed, will this land which her dust would help to compose--will this land render to the son of another mother more than it will to the son that she leaves behind, though the two be equal in virtue, in intelligence, in thrift, in all that goes to comprise vigorous and aggressive manhood? I pause for an answer."

The silence was oppressive. Astral resumed: "By your silence I understand that you are unable to a.s.sure me that her son shall not be confronted with the same unequal conditions that she so often encountered. Under these circ.u.mstances, ladies and gentlemen, as much as I love this land, I must refuse to allow my wife to be interred therein.

I bid it an eternal farewell."

He ceased speaking, and, strong man that he was, fell upon Erma's coffin, his face buried in his hands. One mighty sob forced its way through the bars that held the others back. Making a supreme effort at self-control, he arose and gave notice to proceed. The pall-bearers lifted their burden again and moved slowly out of the building, followed by Astral and his son.

The great audience continued in silence, soberly pondering over the strange and solemn scenes. When the hea.r.s.e had been driven off, and the sound of the hoofs of the horses had died away in the distance, the people arose and silently left the building, departing to their several homes.

Twilight had come, and the dusk of the evening soon enveloped the city, drawing closer and closer the curtains of night.

That night, Astral, watched by the blinking stars, exhumed the body of John Wysong, and carried it to his home, placing it by the side of Erma.

With the room dimly lighted, Astral took a seat between the two coffins, to await the coming of day. In the middle of the night, he heard a tapping at the window shutters of the room in which he sat, keeping company with the dead. He arose, opened the window, and bade the party tapping to enter. The invitation was accepted, and in stepped a large, tall white man, of very commanding aspect.

"As I expected," the man remarked in a low tone. Aloud, to Astral, he said: "Mr. Herndon, you are not acquainted with me, but your wife was.

At one time she committed a very grave trust to me, and I was faithful thereto, but under such circ.u.mstances that I dared not to give an account of my stewards.h.i.+p. Will you let me see the face of this dead man whom you have by her side?" Astral a.s.sented, and Lanier, for it was he, stepped to the side of the coffin and gazed long at the features before him. He said to himself, as he continued to look: "Yes, yes, yes; that is John. I cannot be mistaken. One more secret that by his death is now a.s.suredly reserved for the Day of Judgment." Heaving a sigh of relief, he turned away and dropped into a chair.

Astral had resumed his post between the dead. Lanier now addressed him.

"Mr. Herndon, this is indeed an ill-chosen occasion on which to approach you on a subject uppermost in my mind. Yet, I must do so now, if at all; for it is with a view of preventing an action that you contemplate in the near future. You propose leaving us, I learned at the funeral to-day."

"Your impression is correct," was Astral's response.

"For the sake of your wife's son, hear me for a moment," Lanier requested.

"Proceed. I shall give you such attention as is possible for a man in my situation," Astral replied.

"Mr. Herndon, with all its faults, this country is by far the greatest on earth. You are not now in a condition to decide upon a matter involving your future and the whole life of your child. I, therefore, make a personal appeal to you to abide here and flee not to ills that are certainly worse." Here he paused, but as Astral gave no reply he resumed.

"Your status here is but due to conditions inherent in the situation.

Why not bow to the inevitable, accept conditions as you find them, extract from life as much good as can come from well-directed efforts, and beyond this point have no yearnings? Develop character, earn money, contribute to the industrial development of the country, exercise your wonderful capacity for humility, move continuously in the line of least resistance and, somehow, all will be well."

Astral now lifted his head and, gazing earnestly at Lanier, said;

"I am very grateful to you, kind sir, for your solicitude. One of the most oppressive of the 'conditions, _inherent_ in the situation,' _you_ say, is the fact that one must ever be listening to a sermon on his condition. We cannot be guided by the light of our own genius, but are the subjects of unending advice. The absence of the right of choice--a right which your presence here to-night denies--is irksome, so irksome.

"You, kind sir, have solved the problem of life to your own satisfaction; let me do the like, will you, especially when I seek not to alter your conditions but to abandon them? Without the least purpose or desire to be discourteous, may I regard our interview at a close?"

Astral's very soul was in these words and were delivered in such a manner as to startle Lanier into greater admiration.

"No, sir, Mr. Herndon, not until I state that your remarks have won my most profound respect. I appreciate the desire of your soul for silence, which, in your case, amounts to a need. I abandon the purpose of my visit. In whatever direction you may go, my good-will follows you,"

Lanier said most feelingly. So saying, he arose, extended to Astral his hand and bade him a cordial adieu.

Astral resumed his solitary watch with his dead. When day came, he began his projected journey, accompanied by his son and the bodies of his wife and her brother. He went to New York, with the purpose of boarding an outward bound vessel.

"Are you returning to your fatherland?" anxious friends, gathered at the pier, inquired.

Astral replied, "It, too, is overshadowed. Aliens possess it."

"Where, then, are you going?" Astral faintly smiled as if in farewell, but gave no reply. He hurried aboard the vessel and was soon speeding away from the land of his birth.

When in mid-ocean, he summoned his fellow pa.s.sengers about him to partic.i.p.ate in a burial service. The caskets containing the remains of the two departed were gently lowered into the depths of the ocean and committed to the keeping of the waves.

Astral then stationed his son upon a chair in the center of the deck of the s.h.i.+p, and, standing by his side, with solemn mien and head uncovered, made the following deliverance in the presence of the a.s.sembled pa.s.sengers, who had heard previously from his lips the story of Erma's life:

"My son," said he, "your mother has been buried in these domains, because here there abides no social group in which conditions operate toward the overshadowing of such elements as are not deemed a.s.similable.

And now, I, Astral Herndon, hereby and forever renounce all citizens.h.i.+p in all lands whatsoever, and const.i.tute myself A CITIZEN OF THE OCEAN, and ordain that this t.i.tle shall be entailed upon my progeny unto all generations, until such time as the shadows which now envelope the darker races in all lands shall have pa.s.sed away, away and away!"

EPILOGUE.

A LAY TO THE COMING KING.

Erma is dead, and disconsolate Astral is adrift upon the ocean.

We who have followed their fortunes, lo, these many days, are loth to leave them until our minds can fasten on some circ.u.mstance external to our being, to confirm the thought that perennially rises within and bids us believe that their lives have not been spent in vain; that "somehow good will be the final goal of ill."

Those who seek for a.s.surance of this hope would do well to recall the romantic circ.u.mstances attendant upon the birth of Erma's son; recall how that on the last night of Erma's abode on earth the spirits of the mother and son went forth to meet and stand revealed unto each other.

These circ.u.mstances are pregnant with hope and kindle within one the spirit of prophecy.

The spell is upon us! We don the garb of the seer, wrest the veil from the face of the future and read in her countenance tokens of the irrevocable decrees written by her in the book of fate.