FHE 
 
 f ik 
 
 WHITE CIRCLE 
 
LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
the Caw of ibe CUbite Circle. 
 
"She would be burned at the stake if they discovered 
 her! " he muttered. 
 
THE LAW OF THE 
 WHITE CIRCLE 
 
 'By 
 
 THORNWELL JACOBS 
 
 Author of ' ' Sinful Sadday, " ' ' The Shadow 
 ofAttacoa" 
 
 With Illustrations by 
 
 GILBERT GAUL, N.A. 
 
 NASHVILLE 
 
 TAYLOR-TROTWOOD PUBLISHING Co. 
 
 1908 
 
COPYBIGHTED, 1908, 
 BY 
 
 TAYLOR-TEOTWOOD PUBLISHING Co. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 To my dear old father, who could have 
 written it so much better than I have 
 done, who will see some good in it, al 
 though the whole world scoffs, this story 
 is dedicated. 
 
TO THE READER. 
 There are probably very few people 
 of good sense who would care to write 
 a story of race conflict and riot. For 
 myself it has not been a pleasure, but 
 a duty. It has seemed to many of us 
 that those novelists who have chosen 
 the subject have spent too large a part 
 of their time in expostulations concern 
 ing negro inferiority, and too little in 
 arraignment of our white lepers who 
 have converted a disaster into dyna 
 mite. The object of this book is not to 
 call the negro a " black brute " and the 
 Aryan a " white angel," but to give a 
 fair interpretation of those tremendous 
 agencies which are making our national 
 race problem a pall or a powder mine, 
 
 9 
 
To THE READER. 
 
 as Providence may determine. THE 
 LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE is a socio 
 logical study, not a " problem novel ; " 
 and if read in a spirit of thoughtful 
 fairness, perhaps an excuse may be 
 found for its existence. It is not in 
 tended to please nor to dazzle, but to 
 make its readers think perhaps to help 
 them understand " THE END." 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., October 1, 1908. 
 10 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Son of the South Mountains 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 " The End " 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 A Muddy-Footed Fairy 41 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 The Beginning of the End 67 
 
 CHAPTEB V. 
 A Window in Atlanta 79 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Dentist's Doorway 95 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Also a Teuton? Ill 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Another Journalist Arrives 125 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Problem from a Tonneau 137 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Pack Forms. . . .149 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 The Lair 161 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The Riot 175 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Jungle Justice 189 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Spirit of the Old South 201 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The King's Highway 213 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Law of the Camp Fire. : 231 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Law of the White Circle 241 
 
 12 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 " She would be burned at the stake if they 
 discovered her!" he muttered Frontispiece 
 
 " He stepped upon the broad back of the 
 negro man and beckoned for silence". . .Inset 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 SON OF THE SOUTH MOUNTAINS. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 SON OF THE SOUTH MOUNTAINS. 
 
 The Wa-haws were called the " South 
 Mountains " before the days of Roy 
 Keough. Roy changed many things 
 about Dunvegan among others, a tra 
 dition or two and had a way of giving 
 a purplish hue to things. After he had 
 come and gone, men described him as a 
 " see-er," and stated that his whole rep 
 utation came from his ability to look past 
 the phenomena into the soul of persons 
 and events ; but while he was in Dunve 
 gan he was only a " son of the South 
 Mountains." 
 
 " Kee-o " his father had always 
 thought was the way to spell the family 
 name until Colonel Russell, who had 
 
 17 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 bought the Dunvegan Democrat from 
 the Preston heirs, mentioned " the big 
 red apples that grew in the South Moun 
 tains. It is a shame that such a coun 
 try should be the home of heathen. 
 They say that the Keoughs and Craw- 
 fords have not been to church for five 
 years." 
 
 Roy Keough, Sr., to whom this was 
 read, took all print as complimentary, 
 and resolved to win further distinction. 
 The article was an item in the darkened 
 boyhood of his child. 
 
 A little log hut the size of a small 
 room, chinked with mud; one fireplace 
 (the kitchen) ; one bed, with knotted 
 ropes for springs; one room; a chromo 
 of a boxing match on the walls; a nest 
 where the pet hen laid her eggs in the 
 corner ; a rat trap under the bed ; some 
 
 18 
 
SON OF THE SOUTH MOUNTAINS. 
 
 old trousers half filling the broken win- 
 dowpane; rude boxes for chairs and 
 hard dirt for a floor such was Roy 
 Keough's birthplace. 
 
 But there was a big apple tree less 
 than three feet from the front door, 
 with flowers as pink and white as Colo 
 nel Russell's, and a mocking bird sang 
 nightly in the white pine near the 
 spring. Having so little else pleasant 
 to look upon, the South Mountain lad 
 saw the humming bird weave her soft, 
 warm nest, and at three years of age 
 loved the wood thrush as many men love 
 a dollar. The woods were wide and 
 unneighbored, and fish were in the 
 streams, and songs in the sweet-shrub 
 scented air. He listened to voices that 
 many die not having heard, and saw 
 what the multitude, living, never see. 
 
 19 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 True to his traditions, he grew up hav 
 ing no enemies save a revenue officer, 
 and no contempt save for the neighbor 
 who had bought a stove like the town 
 folks. Shut in by the silent, sleepy 
 mountains, Dunvegan (twelve miles) 
 was far beyond heaven, and even ten- 
 housed Glen Alpine was " town." 
 
 To sketch the visage of the South 
 Mountains is to write about a beautiful 
 woman's face, to try to say something 
 more of a good man, to attempt to 
 praise a pink-throated lily ; it is the rude 
 whisper in the midst of the symphony. 
 A beautiful land, with all the witchery 
 of forests and meadows and silver-rib 
 boned streams a land where the woods 
 are spirit and the spirits are wood ! In 
 a cove where the sweet-breathed winds 
 
 beat in upon the billowy green of shrub 
 20 
 
SON OF THE SOUTH MOUNTAINS. 
 
 and tree the Keough cabin was hidden, 
 betrayed only by the curling blue smoke 
 from the mud-chinked chimney. Only 
 the elements were there the lightning 
 one day, the blue daisy the next; the 
 white snow to love in the winter, the 
 pink-tongued kalmia to kiss all summer 
 long. 
 
 Twelve miles away was Dunvegan, 
 where men wore " biled shirts " and 
 shiny shoes and shaved their necks; 
 proud Dunvegan, where the women had 
 no warts on their hands nor knew how 
 to kill hogs nor cut their own fire wood ; 
 citified Dunvegan, where were fences 
 before the houses and where people 
 planted grass in their front yards! 
 Even as a child Roy heard such curious 
 things. Some day he would go there 
 
 for himself and see. It would seem 
 21 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 strange to look upon two-story houses 
 and Dr. Wilf ong's big church that would 
 hold two hundred people and the steam 
 engine! There Roy's imagination 
 broke its wing. 
 
 Yet he went to Dunvegan and found 
 the devilship of the Democrat as nat 
 urally as any flea finds its puppy. Colo 
 nel Russell, " editor and proprietor," 
 taught him his " cases; " and when he 
 had tarried in the print shop until his 
 beard was almost grown, Dr. Wilfong 
 (whose throne was in the little red 
 church in under the oaks) declared that 
 he was destined to be a great journalist, 
 and wrote Henry Webster, who owned 
 the Atlanta Commonwealth about it. 
 
 Because the Doctor said it, Dunvegan 
 became too small for Roy, and he was 
 called to the literary editorship of the 
 
 22 
 
SON OF THE SOUTH MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Commonwealth. As he read his offer 
 the thought flashed over him that he, a 
 son of the South Mountains, might go, 
 and come back to Dunvegan and be 
 known among them as a gentleman. 
 He went and trusted and worked and 
 kept on seeing. 
 
 The thing that Roy Keough did in the 
 great metropolis was a thing to do. 
 There have been those who held high 
 positions worthily; but their name is 
 not legion who hold lesser ones as a king 
 would wield his scepter. Unloved and 
 fearfully the plebeian son of the South 
 Mountains arrived at the notorious 
 train shed. But it was noticeable that 
 as he passed out into the street he 
 straightened back his shoulders and 
 tilted his chin to go forward; and the 
 first thing he did was to say : " I love 
 
 23 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 Atlanta." Life surged about him, and 
 he looked at it, saw beauty in it, and 
 from the rude jargon of noisy street 
 rumblings he drew a song. It was a 
 worthy thing in him that he called it 
 an honor to be allowed to enter the great 
 city, which drew dregs and genius for 
 a radius of hundreds of miles. From 
 the sooty window of his dingy little of 
 fice in the Commonwealth Building he 
 looked down upon the struggling thou 
 sands. It was as meaningful as the 
 song of the mocker at midnight. This 
 language that all things spoke the con 
 fusion of tongues in the bickerings of 
 the byways it was his part to under 
 stand. He interpreted. He looked at 
 men and animals and things, and loved 
 them. He thought about them. His 
 pen knew only the habit of writing 
 
 24 
 
SON OF THE SOUTH MOUNTAINS. 
 
 kindly of them. The street happenings 
 he treated tenderly, using invective and 
 ridicule as a good surgeon would use 
 his knife. In an utter abandon of love 
 he gave away his heart to his pen. 
 Long before they knew his face on the 
 streets half the populace read the Com 
 monwealth with scissors in hand. The 
 Wa-haws became as well known as 
 Stone Mountain. Other people learned 
 to interpret the deeds of men as a lan 
 guage, watching happenings as the 
 dumb watch the hands of one who would 
 speak with them. All this thing did 
 Roy Keough in the great city of Atlanta, 
 where the average man is as well known 
 as a leaf in the forest. 
 
 Nor was it a strange thing that this 
 son of the South Mountains, who began 
 life looking for beauty in a village, 
 
 25 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 should have found Infinity in a city. 
 Unconsciously others took him by the 
 hand and joined with him in the search. 
 When they found that he was an inter 
 preter, they came to him confused by 
 whisper and shouting. He became At 
 lanta's week-day pastor of the thou 
 sands who longed for an interpretation 
 of things, a spiritualization of that 
 which they saw could not be all mate 
 rial. He had come from the silences 
 where men had time to listen, and the 
 habit was strong upon him. In the 
 land of his nativity God had made all 
 things. How could he forget it? And 
 this great city, with its myriads of lights 
 in its mountainlike buildings, with its 
 disquieted multitudes anxious as his 
 native lilies were never anxious for to 
 morrow, with its unled thousands who 
 
 26 
 
SON OF THE SOUTH MOUNTAINS. 
 
 were beginning to call all things com 
 mon 0, that the infinite muteness of 
 the Wa-haws might come upon them! 
 Else how would they ever know the ac 
 cents of the Voice? 
 
 27 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 " THE END." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 "THE END." 
 
 " The execution is almost perfect ; but 
 it is not the execution that is drawing 
 the crowds to admire it," Henry Web 
 ster remarked to his young protege. 
 
 " No? " the journalist queried. 
 
 " It is the new sociology, the sociology 
 of the Third Race, depicted on the can 
 vas, and, it must be confessed, rather 
 cleverly. The woman is unquestiona 
 bly a genius, and beautiful, very beauti 
 ful, though one hesitates to say it in At 
 lanta, where the 'one drop' might as well 
 be a bucketful. Have you seen her ? " 
 
 "No," Roy Keough admitted, with 
 the regret of a reporter who has missed 
 a " beat." 
 
 31 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Nor the painting? Then come with 
 me. She has just gone away with 
 Kongo Copelin, one of my professors, 
 but the picture is still here." 
 
 The two men sauntered through the 
 crowds who had come to attend the 
 closing exercises of Webster University, 
 past the little coteries of white men and 
 women who would smile upon the com 
 mencement of the famous negro school, 
 past the denser collections of colored 
 students, until they stood before the 
 painting that all Atlanta was talking of. 
 
 "'The End/" Webster murmured. 
 " Has she named it well, Keough? " 
 
 The painting was a large canvas, 
 handsomely framed in gilt. It por 
 trayed the doorway of a laborer, a white 
 man, who, clad still in the clothing of 
 toil, stood by the side of his wife, with 
 
 32 
 
" THE END." 
 
 his arm resting tenderly upon her shoul 
 der. Into the face of this wife the 
 artist had thrown all the charm of ex 
 quisite beauty, from the black, curly 
 locks to the daintily penciled lips, which 
 seemed too pure for sensuous touch. 
 Her dark eyes looked fondly upon her 
 husband, beside whom she stood in lis 
 som grace. A little child, fair of face, 
 played at their feet; and a women an 
 octoroon, perhaps smiled upon the trio 
 from the shadows of the doorway as if 
 she would bless her daughter and her 
 grandchild, and the white man who was 
 not ashamed of his own. Written all 
 over the canvas was the heart prophecy 
 of the artist as plainly as in the name 
 itself. 
 
 " ' The End/ What say you, Ke- 
 ough ? Has she named it well ? " 
 
 33 
 3 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " She has named it as well as any 
 dream may be named/' Keough said, 
 thoughtfully. "The only thing that 
 bothers me is " 
 
 V 
 
 " That they are beginning to dream 
 it?" 
 
 " No, no ! Where did she get that 
 face from?" 
 
 " The face of the woman in the pic 
 ture? " 
 
 " Yes. It seems very beautiful. Is it 
 her own ? " 
 
 " Hardly. You would certainly not 
 know one from having seen the other. 
 Perhaps she dreamed it for her child." 
 
 " Did you say she was a negress, Mr. 
 Webster?" 
 
 " The daughter of an octoroon, I under 
 stand. There are few brighter white 
 men in the city than her father. Can 
 
 34 
 
" THE END." 
 
 i 
 
 you keep a secret? " he added, in a whis 
 per. 
 
 " Have I ever betrayed one? " 
 " Lawson, the dentist." 
 " Dr. Lawson? Is it possible? " 
 " Hush ! He is here. There he 
 comes now." 
 
 The two men stood aside while Dr. 
 Lawson approached. He passed quick 
 ly, merely giving the painting a glance. 
 He was a tall, strongly built man, al 
 ready gray, with the powers which had 
 made him famous very plain upon him. 
 Short as was his glance at the painting, 
 Roy Keough saw in it something a new 
 thing which he had not heard in the 
 silences of the Wa-haws. He saw that 
 a white man could love his offspring 
 whose mother was an octoroon ; he saw, 
 also, that he could be proud of her work. 
 
 35 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Dr. Lawson ! " he exclaimed again, 
 softly, when the celebrated dentist had 
 passed. 
 
 " It was in his younger and wild-oat 
 days," Webster explained. " You have 
 heard before that he came of common 
 stock." 
 
 " I have, indeed ; but I did not know 
 before how common it was. I should 
 like to see the girl " 
 
 " You can easily meet her." 
 
 " Did you notice that I said ' see 
 her ? ' " Keough corrected, gently. 
 
 " By the way, Roy, she is to marry 
 one of my professors, a comparatively 
 negroid fellow from the black belt Dr. 
 Kongo Copelin." 
 
 "Really? I am more interested in her 
 art; yet it seems a pity. She is really 
 
 36 
 
" THE END." 
 
 a white girl, as most of your students 
 are, Mr. Webster." 
 
 " Do you know, Keough," the editor 
 assented, " just between us, when I 
 founded this college, I thought it was 
 for negroes. Frankly, I have since 
 come to believe that there are no ne 
 groes when it comes to education; it is 
 for the Third Race for those who are 
 pushing to ' the end/ ' 
 
 They stood studying the painting 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Shall I notice it in the Common 
 wealth? " Keough asked, slowly. 
 
 " Something has already been said 
 about it too much, I believe. The 
 Press called me a ' negrophile ' because 
 one of our reporters described the artist 
 as one of Atlanta's most beautiful 
 women. But apart from all such jokes, 
 
 37 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 Keough, you should see her. I am as 
 white a man as anybody, and yet I tell 
 you I have never seen so beautiful a 
 woman, except once, and that was very 
 long ago." 
 
 Keough smiled knowingly. They 
 both remembered that face in Dunve- 
 gan. 
 
 " It is never too late to return in such 
 case," Keough suggested. 
 
 " No. Well, perhaps perhaps I may 
 before the evening comes ; but let us re 
 turn to the Commonwealth Building. I 
 have some editorials to write." 
 
 They walked' through the corridor of 
 the main building on out upon the broad 
 campus, the yellow faces of the students 
 turning to gaze upon them as the mag 
 net looks toward the pole. Henry Web 
 ster was in more than one sense their 
 
" THE END." 
 
 benefactor. Out of his abundant 
 wealth he had built Webster University 
 for them and aided in richly endowing 
 it. Over it he continued to preside in 
 a sort of Jovian way, taking scarcely 
 less interest in it than in the Common 
 wealth, the great Georgia daily of 
 which he was proprietor, and on which 
 Roy Keough was the most popular re 
 porter. It was, therefore, a matter of 
 interest to him that a woman of such 
 excellent parts as this Lola Lawson 
 Johnson (" Lola L.," it was always 
 signed) should have graduated at his 
 'school and have stirred Atlanta with 
 her pretentious attempt at painting her 
 dreams. To Roy Keough the thing 
 came in a different light. He was ever 
 the interpreter. This was a new phase 
 of a very deep subject; it needed to be 
 
 39 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 thought about, to be understood ; yet in 
 stinctively he dismissed it from his 
 mind long before he reached his desk 
 in the Commonwealth Building. If the 
 shadow was to come upon him, it must 
 at least await the bidding of Fate. 
 
 40 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 " So you think that at least I am but 
 a muddy-footed fairy? " she asked, look 
 ing not unkindly at him. 
 
 " But a fairy ever," he rejoined. 
 "And you must hear the defense of our 
 people, Lola; simple fairness requires 
 that." 
 
 The woman was indeed beautiful; 
 and if any trace of the negroid clung 
 to her, her appearance suggested none 
 of it. Lithesomely built, with the cer 
 tain movement and gentle springiness 
 of health and the grace of the dance and 
 the tennis racket upon her, she stood 
 facing a negro under the shades of the 
 great water oaks of Webster University 
 
 43 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 campus. The black ringlets of her 
 curls would not be bound by the red rib 
 bon band, which, after all, was there 
 only to compliment them; and her fea 
 tures there was a certain soft, sym 
 metrical fullness about them which to 
 all men would seem compelling. Her 
 nose was so sensitively shaped that it 
 seemed possessed of mind and heart. 
 Kongo Copelin was looking down into 
 her eyes to read his fortune there eyes 
 which seemed able to hold all others un 
 til they were done with them; brown 
 eyes, whose brightness and cleverness 
 he forgot for dreaming the dreams he 
 saw in them. He himself was not an 
 ill-looking man, had his skin not been 
 of an ebony blackness ; for his features, 
 like those of the better African tribes, 
 were as regular as a Caucasian's. He 
 
 44 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 was tall and strong and stalwart, and 
 his college training had made an ath 
 lete of him, who, had he labored upon 
 the farm, would have been known as a 
 " big buck nigger." He had stretched 
 out his hand to touch her. The ineffa 
 ble line-bred sadness of a thousand 
 years, a thousand centuries, was in his 
 face as she withdrew from him with a 
 little start. Was it the whiteness in 
 her that did it? She was, indeed, a 
 white woman. But why should he not? 
 Was not one of the nursery stories told 
 of tenest in the Hausa that of how the 
 gorilla and the orang-outang would 
 come out of the jungle into the villages 
 and carry away the women to their tree 
 homes in the forest? They were 
 strong. So, also, he was strong. 
 " You must hear my defense," he con- 
 
 45 
 
THE LAW OP THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 tinued, " for I also am a negro, and I 
 know them for their worst. Strong, 
 smelly, wild animals some of the lowest 
 of us seem, half tamed and subdued by 
 a civilization which they fear, looking 
 upon it as the first wolf looked at the 
 fire circle of the men to whom they 
 came in. These are among my race, 
 with a hundred millenniums of forest 
 shades distilled into the pigment of 
 their skins. Men of the jungle, they 
 are where only the black could live, for 
 all lighter skins furnished targets for 
 preying beasts and burning sun. They 
 are dazed for a moment by the light of 
 the fire circle. But wait; they will 
 learn to understand " 
 
 " Possibly, or possibly not ; but it was 
 not of that I was thinking," she inter 
 rupted. 
 
 46 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 " If I were unkind," he continued, 
 with u slight show of feeling, " I could 
 say: what have they in common with 
 these insipidly chalky-faced people who 
 hunted them down and brought them 
 hither, and who play a different game 
 entirely from that which their people 
 had played at for ages in the Dark Con 
 tinent? Do I wish to be one of them? 
 Yes, and No. Yes, as a man would be 
 like angels ; no, as he would cry out for 
 flesh and bone again. And you, Lola, 
 your face is white and your cheeks pink, 
 yet you are one of us." 
 
 The woman paled and shuddered. 
 
 " * One of them/ ' she murmured. 
 " Listen, Kongo! What would you do? 
 If not one-tenth part of your blood were 
 negro, and that part not of an ignoble 
 strain; if, when dissociated from ne- 
 
 47 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 groes, men counted you white; if your 
 training and ambitions and education 
 all identified you with the White Circle, 
 would you want to be called ' nigger? ' 
 Would you allow your life to be forced 
 back among the jungle people? " 
 
 " Yet, already," he replied, sturdily, 
 " that people have furnished America 
 with poets and artists and educators 
 and done half the heavy work of the 
 continent. Could the white child of 
 the neolithic age, suddenly transported 
 into the twentieth century, have done 
 more?" 
 
 " Why don't you go on? " she urged. 
 " Why don't you call them ' types ' and 
 be quit of it? 0, how sick I am of all 
 this silly twaddle, with its pictures of 
 octoroons and quadroons handed out as 
 negroes by magazines that never can 
 
 48 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 understand! And I, in whose blood is 
 half the black measure of an octoroon 
 no doubt I am ' a type of the negro stu 
 dent at Webster University.' Have I 
 no right of protest against being classed 
 with the black-fellows? Have you no 
 more discrimination than these Aryans 
 show in attributing to the jungle peo 
 ple the success of the Third Race? 
 Would you also reprobate me as a ne 
 gro because there is ' one drop ' in my 
 veins?" 
 
 She paused a moment in the avalanche 
 of her words. Once a famous leader of 
 her people had come to Atlanta to 
 speak to them. Men called him " a great 
 man " white men did so. How it had 
 fired her people's imagination to think 
 of it ! By sheer force of superior man 
 hood he had risen until he was called. 
 
 49 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 by a white rabbi, " the greatest Southern 
 man, save Lee." Such a man had come 
 to Atlanta, whither all men came, to 
 speak to her people; and how he had 
 stirred them! He called them his peo 
 ple, his race, his kindred. And yet, 
 even then, a schoolgirl, she could see the 
 pitiful pathos of it all, for they were 
 not his people. Only by so much as a 
 muddied foot did he partake of their 
 clay. In every essential thing he was a 
 white man, save his color, and even 
 there he was far removed from the 
 black faces he called " brethren." This 
 was the pathos of his life, and of hers 
 also. He might lead white men, wield 
 white men, and know himself superior 
 to white men, but his camp fire must 
 be a separate one; she, too, had some 
 one not whispered undreamed-of things 
 
 50 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 in her ears. There was Dr. Lawson, 
 the distinguished dentist, and Laura 
 Lawson, his daughter, and Lola Law- 
 son, whom few could distinguish from 
 her full-white sister. Ah, the pathos of 
 the ' one drop ! ' 
 
 " I could not accuse you," he said, 
 slowly. " If it were incumbent upon 
 me to arraign any one, I should save 
 all my scorn for the white betrayer of 
 your mother. It is no accusation to me 
 to be called an 'African.' " 
 
 Africa! It was the name of Hanni- 
 baTs city, and thence of the giant conti- 
 tent whose size was greater and whose 
 civilization was older than these par 
 venu Americas. More than half a 
 thousand years before the coming of 
 the White Christ their Northern settle 
 ments had circumnavigated the conti- 
 
 51 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 nent, and in the valley of her Nile 
 black and white and brown men had 
 intermingled so long that the memory 
 of history ran not to the contrary. And 
 Hausa-land, his patria! When Amer 
 ica was being discovered, did not his 
 grandparent rule almost as many sub 
 jects as there were people in the United 
 States to-day? his grandparent, whose 
 will was done from the Benue to the 
 blue Mediterranean; whose subjects 
 were happy, civilized, industrious, and 
 hospitable, when the new-rich continent 
 was a howling wilderness. Yet he 
 Kongo, a prince of the Hausa blood 
 was accounted by these Aryans an out 
 cast, a pariah, who dared not enter the 
 circle of their home light for fear of a 
 kick and a curse. 
 
 He was a black-fellow, with an edu- 
 
 52 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 cation and a gentleman's soul; and this 
 was his sociology. 
 
 " What right have they," he asked, 
 as if it contained the gist of the whole 
 matter, " to reverence Jehovah and 
 laugh at Unkulunkulu? " 
 
 " The odor of the jungle, the smell of 
 the undisturbed mold, and the touch of 
 green, wet things still clings to them," 
 she murmured. 
 
 " They are black-faced sons of the 
 equator I know it well," he admitted 
 " bred to color in the shadowed for 
 ests. They fit the darkness and feel for 
 it as wrong searches for midnight. But 
 will white men never learn that the 
 black-fellow will not think the world in 
 Aryan categories, that they will forever 
 refuse to play the games the white-fel 
 lows play at? And why should they? 
 
 68 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 You will have to take sides, Lola. Be 
 one or the other in the clash of inter 
 ests." 
 
 " There is no clash of interests." 
 
 " You are not aware, then, of the 
 state of war that darkens the future of 
 both races and asks : ' Which of them 
 shall possess the land? ' " 
 
 " I know of but one race of people 
 on this continent who shall inherit the 
 earth," she said, significantly. 
 
 " You mean the Aryans ? " 
 
 " I do not." 
 
 " Then surely not the negro? " 
 
 " Nor the negro." 
 
 " Then you mean your Third Race 
 potentially, in the future." 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " But where is that wonderful Third 
 
 54 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 Race ? " he asked, bitterly. " It will not 
 be." 
 
 " On the contrary," she added, with 
 prophecy in her eyes. "It is here ; it 
 is I and my kind, and our name is * Le 
 gion!'" 
 
 " Sixteen to one," he murmured, smil 
 ing. "Are we to be submerged in a 
 flood of white corpuscles ? " 
 
 "Have you seen 'The End?'" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, looking straight 
 into her eyes ; " and I am afraid of it." 
 
 "Afraid! Are you so proud of the 
 black pigment? " 
 
 " No ; afraid of you. You dreamed 
 that painting, and the face of the 
 hero was white. I feared it. Does it 
 mean? " 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 55 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " You have not answered ? " he 
 queried, petulantly. 
 
 " Nor shall I," she replied, coloring. 
 " May not a woman have her dreams? 
 What if she claims the right to choose 
 her own motifs ? " 
 
 " So you are like the rest ! " he cried, 
 angrily. " One hope, one ambition to 
 be white. No, to seem white, to be a 
 mother of half " 
 
 He stopped suddenly. 
 
 " You almost went too far that time, 
 Kongo, did you not?" she asked, smil 
 ing. " You forgot that I am what I am 
 because a negro woman preferred a 
 white father for her children." 
 
 The black gentleman rose to his full 
 height in unconscious courage. 
 
 " You are wrong ! " he cried, passion 
 ately. " Say, rather, because a biack- 
 
 56 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 leg chose your mother to betray 
 her!" 
 
 " Why should I not flock with my 
 own?" she added, not noticing his ar 
 raignment. " You have told me I was 
 the most beautiful woman in Atlanta. 
 So have others. White men are con 
 tinually raising their hats to me by mis 
 take. If there were none to rise up 
 against me and bear witness, I could be 
 a white matron to-morrow. But notice, 
 Kongo, I said ' matron/ not * mistress/ 
 In the beginning of the process our 
 women must needs be the latter. But 
 for me the process is over. I am ready 
 now for the former." 
 
 His look was dark, as of envy clouded 
 with anger at the unblushing confession 
 of it. 
 
 ".It has always been so with my peo- 
 
 57 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 pie," he said, bitterly. "Through the 
 trackless jungles for millenniums they 
 have gone single file. No union, no 
 strength, no power of combined efforts 
 only geese on their way down the 
 path." 
 
 " Listen, Kongo," she replied, embit 
 tered. " You are a teacher in Israel, 
 and yet you cannot understand. Can 
 not you see why? If the truth were 
 known, who could deny that they were 
 once as black as you are, or you as white 
 as they? Whatever the primitive color, 
 their ancestors went north to the cool, 
 moist forests of Germany and bleached 
 their skin and hair. Ours went south 
 to the burning heat of equatorial Africa 
 and burned the black in for centuries. 
 Perhaps only the black ones among us 
 could live where any show of color 
 
 58 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 brought on us a hundred preying 
 beasts; perhaps only dark skins sur 
 vived the glare of a torrid sun; per 
 haps that sun, little by little, burnt the 
 color into us. Certain it was that the 
 fittest survived in tropical Africa, and 
 the fittest will survive in subtropical 
 America. Follow the equator around 
 the world, Kongo, and for hundreds of 
 miles north and south of it what do 
 you see? Dark-skinned peoples. From 
 Rome to Nyanza it is so; from the 
 Himalayas to Madagascar. Is subtrop 
 ical America to be the exception? The 
 people who lived on this continent be 
 fore the white folk came had dark skins 
 and black hair and black eyes. Why? 
 'Adaptive coloration ' you professors 
 call it, and it is unquestionably so. 
 What, then, of these white people ? Was 
 
 59 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 that why their God brought us here to 
 infuse into their blood the power to live 
 where the summer temperature seeks 
 a hundred degrees as a companion? 
 They despise us. Is their punishment 
 to be the blackening of their breed ? " 
 
 " 0, Lola ! " he cried, passionately, 
 " you talk now as you used to do when 
 you welcomed my embraces. Tell 
 me" 
 
 " Hush ! Don't speak beside the 
 mark," she continued, quickly. " They 
 talk of the negro as if they feared his 
 dominion, and yet they are the scientific 
 race. Do they not know that the fittest 
 survive? I read their books, their 
 poems, their songs, and the tragedies 
 they weep over. But, holy Jesus, 
 this is the tragedy none write about nor 
 care for!" 
 
 60 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 She almost gasped out the words, and 
 then grasping his arm and pointing a 
 shaking finger at two girls passing un 
 der the arc light, she continued : 
 
 " Look at them ! One as black as a 
 Bantu princess, and the other as white 
 as I am. 0, can't you see it! Can't 
 anybody see it? She is a castaway 
 white girl, a negro to her own, a sus 
 pect to the black folk. Look on her 
 and you see the Tragedid Americana, 
 the horror of the one drop! " 
 
 " The horror that grows and grows 
 until all are to be partakers of it," 
 he continued for her, sarcastically. 
 " Surely it is a subject for the great 
 American novel." 
 
 " The great American novel ! " she 
 exclaimed. " There will be no great 
 American novel until there is a great 
 
 61 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 American race. The Aryan tales of to 
 day are no more to be classed as Amer 
 ican than the songs of the Welsh bards 
 are representative British productions. 
 That is why it will be centuries before 
 the great American novel is written; 
 and when it is written, negro blood will 
 help write it." 
 
 "And yet, Lola," he cried, softly, 
 " you have refused me my kiss three 
 times this night. Can't we love one 
 another? Why may we not? " 
 
 " Listen, Kongo, and I will tell you 
 why we may not," she answered, ex 
 citedly. " Look at that negro over 
 there! He looks like I've always im 
 agined a Hottentot would look. He has 
 on a Knox hat, clean collar, tailored 
 clothes, and tan shoes. He is dressed 
 up for the commencement occasion as if 
 
 62 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 he were going over to Darktown to run 
 with his girl. Yet, look at him! He's 
 a chimpanzee. See his monkey face, 
 his sensual features, his plaintive, baf 
 fled-brute look, as if a wild beast who 
 is living among things he cannot under 
 stand. See his kinky wool and thick, 
 padded lips. Do you think I want my 
 children to look like him? Why should 
 they not have brown hair and blue 
 eyes?" 
 
 The man leaned back heavily against 
 the oak. Here, indeed, was a brutality 
 of statement and a scorn of racial pride 
 and virtue. What white man would 
 have said it? 
 
 " I am sorry, Kongo," she continued, 
 " that our love affairs have been trans 
 formed into a discussion of ethnology. 
 Perhaps * The End ' did have something 
 
 63 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 to do with my change of feelings. One 
 never is able to stop when one begins 
 dreaming. But, after all, Kongo, what 
 a useless thing it is for a race to kick 
 against the pricks, even the white race ! 
 The mother continent which they have 
 called "America " after one of their own 
 number knows no love for white faces. 
 Her children have been tall and dark- 
 skinned, tawny and high of cheek bone. 
 The eternal gifts she has given them 
 made them so her sun, her soil, her 
 mothered foods, her maize, her meats. 
 Will a mother change the hue of her 
 children ? No. Dark they were, black- 
 eyed and black-haired, and dark they 
 will remain. Already keen observers 
 are noting the change how the whites 
 are taking on the physical characteris 
 tics the mother continent requires of 
 
 64 
 
A MUDDY-FOOTED FAIRY. 
 
 her children. Wait until they have 
 blended into an octoroon nation, and 
 even Sitting Bull would think their 
 breed his." 
 
 But the man said nothing more. 
 
 " He is indeed brave," she added, 
 more gently, " who lays his plans with 
 out thought of mother continent. Who 
 ever and whatever lives upon her back 
 does not so of its own accord, but be 
 cause she wills it so. Africa loved the 
 zebra and hippopotamus and negro, and 
 made them for herself. Bright-faced 
 America chose the red man and the 
 turkey. Destroy her fauna, and she 
 merely goes to work to create them 
 again. That is why the race inhabit 
 ing this continent will always be dark, 
 and he who lives along the Niger 
 black. Asia loves yellow and Europe 
 
 65 
 5 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 loves white, just as you, Kongo, 
 love " 
 
 She turned to look upon him, per 
 haps to ease his pain with a touch; but 
 he had gone. 
 
 Gathering her skirts gracefully, she 
 walked swiftly to her dormitory she, 
 the white woman who would not be a 
 negro, the negro who could not be white. 
 As she passed under the trees, two gen 
 tlemen went by the arc light. 
 
 " It is Mr. Webster and Mr. Keough," 
 she murmured. ' " Both of them are 
 handsome, and neither is married. I 
 wonder what they thought of ' The 
 End/ " 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 The soft haze of the Indian summer 
 covered the rolling foothills of the Blue 
 Ridge with a mystic veil which Roy Ke- 
 ough loved to gaze upon. From his 
 window on the fourteenth floor of the 
 Commonwealth Building he looked out 
 upon it and watched the dreamy mist 
 slowly obscure the distant hills. The 
 lights of the great city gleamed below 
 him, and the elevators in the skyscrap 
 ers around winked at him as they 
 passed from floor to floor. The crowds 
 grew denser at Silverman's Corner till 
 the women were holding to the straps 
 on the street cars. The searchlights of 
 the motor cars blinded the stranger at 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 the crossings and made him pause to 
 practice his eyesight on the giant struc 
 tures rising to fabulous heights around 
 him and wonder at the daemon of At 
 lanta. " 0, magic name ! " thought Ke- 
 ough, looking out upon the panorama 
 before him; Atlanta, the fleet-footed 
 maiden who had outstripped all comers 
 to the race, even though she had stooped 
 to grasp the golden apples of Hippo- 
 menes by the way! Wonderful city, 
 whose love had made men great, whose 
 spirit breathed the Eternal Urge into 
 her children! From the corners of the 
 earth she had drawn her own together 
 to race with her for the attainment of 
 great things. " My spirit shall be the 
 prize of all who run with me in the race, 
 and death the penalty of those who try 
 and fail." Thus she spoke to those who 
 
 70 
 
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 breathed her breath after her, who 
 came from afar to seek her hand with 
 no apples of gold to aid them in the 
 race. The spirit of that which is to 
 come was hers, of the farther plan wait 
 ing to be born. The creators of the 
 earth had heard of her, and come hasti 
 ly to join in making things. Their 
 blood, their blazonry, their history 
 these things mattered not ; but the ques 
 tions were: Had she placed the Eter 
 nal Urge within them? Could they 
 make a thing? Could they dream that 
 which was to be? - Could they strive for 
 her hand? Would they stake their all 
 upon the issue and seek out their Venus 
 on her Cyprian isle to pray for their 
 apples ? 
 
 " 0, mighty city ! " he murmured, 
 softly, " I love you, love you ! We will 
 
 71 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 run the race together. Breathe thou 
 the spirit of thy glorious haste into my 
 nostrils ! " 
 
 It had grown darker when he walked 
 out upon the pavement of Peachtree 
 Street and turned northward toward 
 his home. He would take a brisk walk 
 to his lodgings. As he passed through 
 the crowds at Silverman's Corner, the 
 Fates reached out their hands to take 
 him. 
 
 The Third-Race woman came rapidly 
 down the street toward him. In a sort 
 of subconscious way he recognized her 
 as Laura Lawson, and wondered why 
 she had come back from her New York 
 trip so soon. Automatically he reached 
 for his notebook, for it must be in to 
 morrow's " Personals." Before he 
 could more than touch his pencil, a sud- 
 
 72 
 
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 den turn of the current of foot passen 
 gers threw them opposite one another; 
 in fact, she almost ran into his arms. 
 He had met her once at a church recep 
 tion, but she would probably not recog 
 nize him. Instinctively he raised his 
 hat, and said : " I beg a thousand par 
 dons, Miss Lawson ! " 
 
 " Pardon me, Mr. Keough," she an 
 swered, amused at his expression of re 
 gret. " Really in Atlanta we seem to 
 be compelled to throw ourselves at peo 
 ple!" 
 
 Lola Lawson started thus upon her 
 long-dreamed madness, for she knew 
 she had been mistaken for her full-white 
 half-sister. 
 
 He was pleased, and she was beauti 
 ful. New York had dealt kindly with 
 her. 
 
 73 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " It was my fault entirely," he apol 
 ogized. "Absent-minded " 
 
 " You need no explanation." Her 
 heart pounded her bosom for that he 
 had not recognized her, and it had 
 grown a custom with her of late to drink 
 of these white nectars on the streets. 
 " But I wonder what thought could 
 have been so pleasant as to make you 
 forget that you were at Silverman's 
 Corner." 
 
 " Would you really care to know, Miss 
 Lawson ? " 
 
 Then she understood, and her heart 
 beat fast. He had admired her sister. 
 
 " Should I? Who would not wish to 
 know even one paragraph of the * Song 
 and Story ' before it appears in the 
 Commonwealth? " 
 
 " You are a splendid guesser, so far 
 
 74 
 
THE BEGINNING OP THE END. 
 
 as the Commonwealth is concerned; but 
 it was not a song, and certainly not a 
 story. I was reaching for this pencil 
 to make note that you were an Atlantian 
 again." 
 
 "Again? I am always." 
 
 " Then you will certainly take a coca- 
 cola with me." 
 
 "And put antikink on this hair to 
 take these curls away?" she bantered, 
 fighting for time to think. 
 
 " Not by the antikink man's fortune, 
 all of which he would give for one of 
 those ringlets. But you may say what 
 you please about the post-office receipts. 
 Is it Chicago we passed with the current 
 year ending " 
 
 "And of Peachtree Street?" 
 
 " Yes, your native but perhaps you 
 were not born here." 
 
 75 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Born here ! " she exclaimed, laugh 
 ing. " Have you ever heard of any one 
 who was born in Atlanta? " 
 
 " Come! " he said, catching some of 
 her hilarity. " You have the spirit, and 
 it is only a few steps to the Crystal Pal 
 ace." 
 
 Why should she not? One day by 
 mistake in the Scanlon Building she 
 had absent-mindedly failed to take the 
 elevator marked " For Boxes, Trunks, 
 and Negroes," and had entered that 
 " For Whites Only." Yet half a dozen 
 men had politely lifted their hats, and 
 more than one of them looked at her 
 with manifest admiration. 
 
 " If I go to my doom, it will be God's 
 palaver," she muttered, lowering her 
 veil and taking her place by his side. 
 
 By that strange law of subconscious 
 
 76 
 
THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 
 
 association of ideas she suddenly found 
 herself asking of herself: "What be 
 came of the ancient Roman slaves whose 
 skins were black? " 
 
 " It would take centuries centuries 
 to assimilate them," she seemed to hear 
 Kongo Copelin say. 
 
 " There is no lack of centuries," she 
 had replied. 
 
 77 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
 Kongo Copelin remembered her words 
 as he walked slowly down the street. 
 
 "And you want me to do a thing, " 
 she had said, " that no Third-Race girl 
 of my class would do. Do you not know 
 that fewer and fewer quadroon girls are 
 willing for their families to grow any 
 darker?" 
 
 It was, indeed, a bitter thing. 
 "Black fellow, tumble down; jump up, 
 white fellow," was a saying he had 
 heard among his people; and his father 
 had told him of how a friend, who had 
 been smuggled to America a few years 
 before the war, had thrown himself into 
 the Chattahoochee one night, hoping to 
 
 81 
 6 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 awake among his people on the tangled 
 banks of the Benue. " What a curious 
 craving they must have to be white ! " 
 he muttered. 
 
 There had been a day long ago on the 
 slave coast when the simple black folk, 
 to whom transmigration was an eter 
 nal verity, supposed these strange ethe 
 real beings who came among them from 
 Europe to be their own dead who had 
 come back to them from the other world 
 for the love wherewith they had loved 
 their country. But now 
 
 " Yet why are these pale people 
 great? " he thought. " Is it not because 
 in the frozen North it was only the 
 fittest who survived, and the fittest were 
 the greatest in brain as well as in 
 brawn? And why are we black people 
 their servants ? " he added. " Because 
 
 82 
 
A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
 of an equatorial, enervating sun and a 
 climate that served our meals regularly 
 on the trees. Their snow and cold and 
 wind made them great, and it will make 
 us great also given time centuries; 
 and she says there is no lack of cen 
 turies. 
 
 But she had called his people " chim 
 panzees ! " 
 
 As he was thinking thus, he remem 
 bered, revengefully, how the chimpan 
 zee and the white man were associated 
 in the minds of the forest folk in his 
 native Africa, the pale yellow of the 
 former serving to resemble the Aryans. 
 
 So he mused on. 
 
 " Why should these Teutons wonder 
 at that animal look of untamable wild- 
 ness in their faces? For a thousand 
 generations their brother had been old 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 saber-tooth and their mortal foe the 
 lion. They had learned to fear and be 
 silent, and the fear that must speak had 
 found expression in their eyes. These 
 loud-tongued Aryans who babbled all 
 they knew, who seemed never to keep 
 their words off their tongues no won 
 der they could not understand the in 
 stinctive secretiveness of the savage. 
 As to his own people, it would take a 
 dozen centuries to drive the forest wild- 
 ness from their eyes, to remove the 
 smell of the jungle from them. They 
 were men at least, for they had not 
 gone backward. Any Bantu child 
 could tell the curious legend of the 
 monkey-men apes, who used to be men, 
 but took to living in the forests with 
 the tree people. Compare this with the 
 unparalleled record of his race in Amer- 
 
 84 
 
A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
 ica during the last forty years. And all 
 this talk about the assaulting of white 
 women! See how these phallic whites 
 betrayed the black women, and no one 
 noticed it at all. And the more he 
 thought of the cruel duplicity of the 
 white deal, the more his wrath was 
 stirred. These Caucasian men who 
 with one voice proclaimed themselves 
 poor worms of the dust and with the 
 next promised each other that they were 
 to be the sons of God, a white God 
 willing enough to rise from a dunghill 
 to a palace, but unwilling that a black- 
 faced brother should enter their circle 
 what would God say of them if per 
 chance he should prove a black God, if 
 his name should be Unkulunkulu in 
 stead of Jehovah ? " 
 
 " Halala ! " he exclaimed, using the 
 
 85 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 Zulu cry of exultation. "Then they 
 would have their reward." 
 
 As he spoke, he came opposite the 
 white splendor of the Crystal Palace. He 
 looked in at the glistening tiling and the 
 mirrors resplendent with light. The 
 brilliant glow of it held his eye, and he 
 paused for a moment on his way. 
 
 " Becalmed and looking at the fish," 
 he murmured, remembering the Afri 
 can proverb of the poor man who gazed 
 wistfully at what he might not grasp. 
 
 A woman and her escort brushed by 
 him and entered the white splendor 
 beyond. Kongo moved obsequiously 
 aside. 
 
 " Behind dog it is dog," he muttered, 
 " but before dog it is Mr. Dog! " 
 
 " Neither ape nor man are we," he 
 continued, bitterly. " There is scarce 
 
 86 
 
A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
 a child in West Africa who does not 
 know that apes are really wiser than 
 negroes, for they had sense enough to 
 keep their mouths shut, so that they 
 would not have to work ! But the won 
 der " 
 
 There he stopped, for the face seemed 
 strangely familiar despite the veil, which 
 was drawn down as far as its owner 
 chose. She sat with her friend at a ta 
 ble partly separated from the rest, and 
 she herself faced Peachtree. His back 
 was thus to the street, and only were he 
 to turn could he be recognized. This 
 had not happened, but the girl was fre 
 quently looking rather furtively toward 
 the door. The eyes that thrilled men 
 till they came to their knees, the nose 
 so delicately penciled, the dark curls 
 all these were they not his? She 
 
 87 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 lifted her face; the electric light sud 
 denly fell full upon it. 
 
 " Lola Lawson ! " he exclaimed, ex 
 citedly. " It is she, or I am crazy ! " 
 
 A man passing by, who had been gaz 
 ing as all the rest toward the effulgence 
 beyond, turned to look at him, and, see 
 ing that he was a negro, passed on. 
 
 " She has fled from the sword and 
 hid in the scabbard," he muttered. 
 " She would be burned at the stake if 
 they discovered her. He thinks it is her 
 sister. Who can he be ? " 
 
 He watched them then as they sat un 
 der the brilliant lights. The Crystal 
 Palace was one glow of effulgence, and 
 gay enough even for a girl who knew 
 herself to be drinking madness with her 
 frappe. The muffled feet of young 
 white boys flew here and there as they 
 
 88 
 
A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
 sped to fulfill the orders of the guests. 
 Mr. Webster, the richest man in At 
 lanta, was there with Dr. Wilfong, his 
 friend from Dunvegan, and more than 
 one of the upper tier sat round their 
 gossipy tables. Lola Lawson scarcely 
 once turned her face from the Peachtree 
 way, so that he could see her every ex 
 pression, and the man faced her at the 
 table. In spite of the warping fire of 
 his jealousy, Copelin felt that they were 
 mates far more than he and the white- 
 black girl could ever be. The man was 
 handsome and well groomed and viva 
 cious enough, and of the pair seemed to 
 be enjoying himself the more. The 
 girl's finely chiseled lips seemed some 
 times to quiver a little with fear the 
 fear of the animal of the wild who was 
 lost from her people and has found 
 
 89 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 them again. It was, perhaps, fear lest 
 such as he, Kongo, might come in and 
 claim her as a renegade come in and 
 say : " You belong to the black people. 
 The taint of our blood is in your veins. 
 You are a jungle woman. You have 
 forsaken your kind for the White Cir 
 cle. You " Then the man, the Teu 
 ton, would drive her back into the jun 
 gle again. For a moment Kongo was 
 tempted to do just this thing. What 
 right had she to leave him? He was 
 the son of a king of the jungle; she, a 
 daughter of plebeians, in spite of her 
 wonderful beauty. Then he remem 
 bered that she was now within the Cir 
 cle, that with her eyebrows she could 
 destroy him, and the man in all proba 
 bility shoot him down on the tiled floor 
 as the fire people used to do to the tree 
 
 90 
 
A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
 folk who came too near. No; but he 
 would watch the perfidy of it. 
 
 The man loved her; he could see it 
 by his tones, his gestures, his bearing. 
 She could see it, too, yet she seemed .to 
 be afraid of something. The man whis 
 pered eagerly and said something, be 
 fore which he measured the nearness of 
 his neighbors with a hasty glance. She 
 had blushed and risen to go, but the 
 man put out his hand and touched her, 
 and she sat down again. He could 
 hardly believe it was Lola. As the man 
 had half risen he had partly turned his 
 face, and the features, half seen, seemed 
 remarkably familiar. He was hand 
 some, and bore himself with the man 
 ners of a Southern gentleman, and the 
 girl seemed already dear to him. Yet 
 he was probably of no more ancient 
 
 91 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 family than Kongo ; and had he been in 
 the class of '01, he would probably 
 have scarce outranked others whom the 
 black professor had beaten. What 
 right had he to take the girl away? 
 And what did he want with her? He 
 was not so strong as Kongo, nor more 
 of a gentleman bred. Did the glow of 
 the fire circle make his halo for him? 
 And should the lineal descendant of 
 Ubamba, the king, let this European 
 serf steal his woman away because the 
 black man learned last to build his camp 
 fire? No! By all the terrors of the 
 jungle, he would go into that room if 
 he were shot down the next moment, 
 and tell the man that he should not have 
 her ! He would 
 
 The man had risen, and the white 
 light shone full upon his features. 
 
 92 
 
A WINDOW IN ATLANTA. 
 
 It was Roy Keough! 
 
 Kongo moved back into the shadows 
 of the gutter. The white man and the 
 woman who would come out of the for 
 est to sit by his fire circle passed him 
 quickly. The man looked out to the 
 streets and said to his companion, who 
 had lowered her veil : 
 
 "Did you see that negro there to the 
 left? His face reminded me of a wild 
 beast's glare." 
 
 "And do you know," she replied, as 
 he took her arm and adjusted her wrap 
 gently, " he has been gazing into the 
 window for an hour? " 
 
 " Strange, isn't it? " he murmured. 
 " They have but one ambition to come 
 in to the camp fire." 
 
 93 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
 " See," said Keough, gayly, as they 
 walked on out Peachtree, " here we are 
 at the Scanlon Building. These roses 
 in the florist's windows are not quite 
 beautiful enough for your hands, but 
 may we take them to your home? 
 Come, let's go in for a bouquet. I didn't 
 suppose Atlanta could furnish such 
 beauties," he continued. 
 
 " Perhaps they are some that the 
 Charleston papers are always throwing 
 at our city," she suggested, gayly. 
 
 A look of amused appreciation was 
 her reward for the sally. 
 
 " So you really read the Common 
 wealth? " he ventured. 
 
 97 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 "Read it? I know Dunvegan by 
 heart; and as for Dr. Wilfong, by the 
 way, was he the man who was afraid 
 to wash the top of his buggy for fear 
 of 'starting the village gossips? " 
 
 " Don't let's talk of Dunvegan to 
 night. It reminds me that for twelve 
 years I have been wanting to go back 
 there. I may 'never live in the sight of 
 the Wa-haws, but at least this can be 
 said of me Miss Lawson that while 
 others stay in Dunvegan and grow tired 
 of her, esteeming the ill-kept, sunless 
 city above their open spaces of sky and 
 greensward, I, living where they would 
 that they were, wish myself for noth 
 ing more than they have ; nor do I ever 
 forget the sunlit window of my boy 
 hood home, nor the red-faced woodbine 
 that clambered over the old white- 
 
 98 
 
THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
 washed fence. Do you know, Miss 
 Lawson, I believe these are my eternal 
 loves. They call me when I dine at the 
 Attacoa or lunch in the New York Cafe. 
 They say to me : ' We love only you ; we 
 know you dream of us nightly. We see 
 your people daily and watch the spots 
 you used most to love. We wait, fear 
 ing to die, lest possibly to-morrow you 
 might come to find us gone." 
 
 As he said the last words he looked 
 into her eyes, and it seemed to him that 
 some miniature god of showers had 
 cast his rainbows therein to be mended. 
 The clerk was boxing the roses behind 
 the counter to the rear; and the telltale 
 moisture in her eyes and the entrancing 
 odors of the flowers 
 
 " Miss Lawson," he said, " I have 
 planned to go back there some day, but 
 
 99 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 I am afraid no one from Atlanta would 
 go with me." 
 
 Her heart throbbed, and she knew her 
 face was crimson. This was the white 
 nectar she craved so. Ah, to drink it, 
 drink it, drink it! 
 
 "'Miss Lawson?'" she whispered, 
 softly. 
 
 He understood. 
 
 " Laura," he murmured, " you make 
 me very happy." 
 
 " Few women are so blessed. You 
 must tell me more of Dunvegan some 
 times when this horrid clerk will stay 
 away. See, he has finished his tying al 
 ready." 
 
 Out into the night they went again 
 into the night turned day with a thou 
 sand brilliant lights. 
 100 
 
THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
 " Let us walk slowly," she suggested. 
 " I hate to rush." 
 
 " Your servant also. To hurry in 
 Dunvegan was a crime. One might 
 miss something; and I am sure I would 
 to-night." 
 
 " That was good of you ; and should 
 my father be on the porch, it might be 
 very true. Don't be alarmed if he or 
 ders me out of his house," she said, 
 laughing. 
 
 But the awful tragedy of his possi 
 ble presence made her tremble. 
 
 " Why doesn't he buy some watch 
 dogs and be done with it? Does he ex 
 pect to keep you for himself? " 
 
 " I am afraid he is too considerate of 
 you boys. But, seriously, I shall have 
 
 to tell you good-by at the front gate." 
 101 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Then let me remind you of your 
 prejudice; we are fairly rushing along." 
 
 She laughed softly. 
 
 " You are as refreshing as what 
 shall I say?" 
 
 " 'A coca-cola/ of course. Where 
 were you raised ? " 
 
 " In Birmingham, where they cry, . 
 ' Come on ; let's get drunk and tell our 
 sho' 'nuff names ! ' she exclaimed, 
 laughing. " Why not as an automobile 
 ride?" 
 
 " Because there are autos and autos. 
 Now if it were in your father's " he 
 bantered. 
 
 " Then in my father's it shall be his 
 six-cylindered ! " 
 
 " I was only joking " 
 
 " But I was not. Besides, for shame 
 
 to flout my invitation " 
 102 
 
THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
 "Laura!" 
 
 " Forgive me. I shall call for you at 
 my convenience. But see, we are here 
 at the gate." 
 
 It was before one of the older homes 
 of Atlanta that they stood, built by a 
 gentleman of another generation, and 
 bought by the popular and successful 
 dentist, whose accomplished daughter 
 was in New York, and whose child of 
 the demi-monde had now come by a sing 
 ular road forced to tremble at the gate, 
 lest her part in the drama should fail. 
 The lights of the city street showed the 
 white pillars before the doorway and lit 
 up the perfect outline of it. The door 
 was partly open, and within the form of 
 a strong and commanding figure could 
 be plainly seen. 
 
 But the gate was in the shadow of 
 
 103 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 the magnolias, and he had not seen the 
 girl enter. Nor was there any needless 
 noise to disturb them. She stood grace 
 fully leaning on the post from within, 
 and Keough upon the gate from with 
 out. 
 
 " You must go now," she whispered, 
 softly ; " but we shall meet again. 
 Good-by!" 
 
 "And will it be ' Laura ' next time, 
 too," he asked, " or will you forget what 
 has passed ? " 
 
 "Forget it?" she almost cried. 
 " Would you think me foolish if I said 
 if I told " 
 
 " Quick, please ! Say on." 
 
 " That I could never forget it," she 
 added, simply, leaning forward slightly 
 toward him. 
 
 104 
 
THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
 The figure in the doorway moved 
 came out and stood upon the porch. 
 
 "Please, Roy Mr. Keough," she 
 whispered, excitedly, " don't move, don't 
 say a word, even if he speaks to us. He 
 he is almost insane if a young man 
 comes home with me. Hush ! " 
 
 Motionless they stood together in the 
 shadows, and he reached out his arm to 
 protect her. It was unconsciously done, 
 for he was thinking of the new man 
 who stood in the ancient doorway; but 
 she leaned gladly upon it. The throb 
 of his heart as he touched her ! Surely 
 she heard it, for she quivered and 
 turned her face up toward him. In her 
 eyes he read a lovely thing; and it was 
 ^very dark under the magnolias. He 
 leaned forward to touch her lips, and 
 she smiled at him. 
 
 105 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Wait a little while," she murmured. 
 " It will seem a very long one to me." 
 
 But 0, what a cup! what a golden 
 chalice to dash from her lips! 
 
 The figure still stood upon the porch, 
 and the light from the open doorway 
 behind him cast his shadow down the 
 walk to the gate. He seemed to be look 
 ing for some one. But the man and 
 woman at the gate made no movement. 
 The man had come inside the gate, and 
 the woman rested her head upon his 
 shoulder. Keough watched the figure, 
 and, since he must be quiet, he studied 
 its meaning. On him the contrast was 
 not lost. There was the ancient door 
 way, in which he seemed to see the pil 
 lars of the stout hearts who built and 
 loved them, and the strong lintels of 
 that civilization which prided itself 
 
 106 
 
THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
 upon its untarnished blood. Any one 
 to whom the gods had given gold might 
 go and buy one of these old-timy por 
 tals and look up at the entablature as 
 if it were his. Architrave and frieze 
 and cornice he could tell the names 
 and describe the mode of each. But if 
 he be not to the manner born, how they 
 mock him! The souls of pure, strong 
 men are in them. For a man of mon 
 grel stock, a seducer of the women of 
 a child race, to walk in and out beneath 
 those lintels is desecration indeed. The 
 spirits of the long dead expressed them 
 selves in those doorways. All their 
 simplicity and elegance and strength is 
 there, and the sons of the dado and 
 gingerbread ornaments must not stoop 
 to look into this ark, lest fire should 
 come forth and consume them. There 
 
 107 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 are things there which only those may 
 see who also love. Ah, ye ancient door 
 ways, blessed is the man who can pass 
 through you and on to the path of his 
 fathers and not notice the shortness of 
 his stature! 
 
 Suddenly the man of the new era 
 began walking down the steps of his 
 house, and came on quickly toward the 
 gate. 
 
 " I shall have to go on into the house," 
 she said. " Get back into the shadows ! 
 Hush ! Not a whisper ! " 
 
 She came out then into the dim light 
 which came from the open doorway. 
 
 " Why, child," Dr. Lawson exclaimed, 
 starting suddenly at the sight of the 
 daughter, " you frightened me! What 
 are you doing here alone? " 
 
 She walked forward to meet him. 
 
 108 
 
THE DENTIST'S DOORWAY. 
 
 " Father," Keough could hear, " may 
 I not sometimes ?" and then her 
 words died out as they two passed on 
 ward into the house. 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 ALSO A TEUTON? 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ALSO A TEUTON? 
 
 " Me git married ? No, suh ! Sallie 
 I come, an' Sallie I'se gwinter go! Fo' 
 chillun fo' diff'unt white men; an' I 
 ain't ashamed of it! You may call it 
 * crim'nal,' but the white men don't ! I 
 tells all my gals to do like their mammy 
 an' they won't go far wrong." 
 
 Kongo Copelin looked at this mulatto 
 woman, who had the unblushing hardi 
 hood to say such a thing, with a great 
 sadness. It was infinitely repugnant, 
 not only to his sense of decency, but of 
 race destiny as well. Furthermore, it 
 came from her mother. 
 
 Lola Lawson smiled at him amusedly. 
 
 " Mammy's philosophy is crude, isn't 
 
 113 
 
 8 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 it? But see how time has tested it out. 
 ' By their fruits ye shall know them/ 
 Look on me ! " 
 
 The octoroon woman spoke again, 
 sharply. 
 
 " I know what you're a-thinkin', 
 Copelin; but as for me, I'd a long sight 
 rather be a white man's mistress than 
 a nigger man's wife. I means for my 
 chillun to have some sort o' show in life ; 
 an' I'se done learned early dat de 
 brighter de face, de brighter de chance. 
 Look at that gal o' mine there! You 
 been teasin' her 'bout what she done 
 t'other night at that Crystal Palace. 
 You're ashamed of it. I glories in it, 
 an' I prays God to let her git him ; an' I 
 ain't standin' in her way not if dis co't 
 knows itself." 
 
 114 
 
ALSO A TEUTON? 
 
 The negro professor turned to Lola 
 Lawson. 
 
 " Come," he said, " we must be go 
 ing! " 
 
 They left the cheap cottage on Jack 
 son Row and walked slowly toward the 
 cleaner quarters of the city. 
 
 "Which way shall we stroll to 
 night?" he asked. 
 
 " Peachtree Street," she replied, low 
 ering her veil. 
 
 " You want to say something to me," 
 she began, falteringly. " Why did you 
 stare at me so hard through the win 
 dow?" 
 
 He was silent for a moment. 
 
 " Tell me," she urged. " Say it all; 
 we are alone." 
 
 "Alone ! " he answered, bitterly, mus 
 ing as if half dreaming" I and my fa 
 ns 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 thers. It has ever been so! Alone on 
 their vast continent they lived, grega 
 rious rather than social, sons of the glo 
 rious jungle; kinsmen of the wild 
 breeds therein, fleet as the hartebeest, 
 thick-headed as the ostrich, adaptively 
 colored as the zebra. Myriads of ani 
 mals shared their valleys and velts, yet 
 they lived alone among them, attaching 
 none to themselves, domesticating no 
 living thing, linking no single other 
 creature permanently to the human 
 race. How shall we be expected to 
 adapt ourselves to this new world into 
 which they who hunted us down have 
 
 cast us? If for ages among a wonder- 
 
 i 
 
 ful wealth of wild life we attached no 
 
 single animated thing to us, how may 
 we now excel in a world where a horse 
 and his master have been buried togeth- 
 
 116 
 
ALSO A TEUTON? 
 
 er from time immemorial, where even 
 the cats have hospitals? Tell me, Lola! 
 I am alone. It is in the breed, is it not? 
 That is why you are casting me off." 
 
 " I have not cast you off. I may 
 fail " 
 
 "And yet," he continued, " give us 
 time, and men will forget our origin. 
 They sit at their pianos daily, and none 
 remember the rude huntsman's bow 
 with its gourd resonator twanged 
 around the camp fire, though the one is 
 the child of the other " 
 
 " Listen, Kongo ! " she interrupted. 
 " You mistake me. I also am a negro 
 to the world. I love the negro race and 
 admire it. What other people has so 
 great a capacity for hard and unremit 
 ting labor for humble, uncomplaining 
 toil? Their weakness is their power. 
 
 117 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 Of such are they who shall inherit the 
 earth. But, Kongo, you have centuries 
 of slow, painful evolution before you 
 I mean your race before you shall be 
 where the Aryan is now. That is what 
 mammy meant. I am ahead of you 
 them by a millennium. I " 
 
 " Scarcely so long," he commented. 
 " It did not take so many years for the 
 despised Saxons to make their conquer 
 ors speak in their tongue." 
 
 " Suppose it were only a hundred 
 years, Kongo; why should I go back 
 ward? But I am now where the whole 
 black race will not be for a millennium." 
 
 "A millennium ! " he replied, slowly. 
 " Ten centuries only? And there is no 
 lack of centuries? I pray God it may 
 be a thousand millenniums before the 
 whole black race is where you are! " 
 
 118 
 
ALSO A TEUTON? 
 
 She winced. After all, there was 
 something magnificent about this coal- 
 black fellow. 
 
 They stood thoughtfully now before 
 an Aryan home far out Peachtree 
 Street. He looked backward to where 
 the great city lay in the distance; she, 
 upward into the summer sky. Her eyes 
 were fixed on one of the stars which 
 seemed larger than many of its com 
 panions, and very red and fiery. Her 
 lips twitched as she gazed at it there a 
 long while in silence. Then she reached 
 forth her hand and touched him lightly. 
 
 " See! " she whispered. " Its pitiful, 
 terrible redness tells the story. You 
 asked me once to prophesy where your 
 race would be a thousand years from 
 now. A thousand years it is but to 
 morrow! Yonder in the sky is a planet 
 
 119 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 which has grown old during the past 
 eternity. For the most part it is now 
 a glaring, desert waste. Its inhabitants 
 are in a last death grapple with the un 
 tamed forces which will surely end their 
 civilization before many millenniums. 
 Water almost gone; atmosphere atten 
 uated ; forests, waterfalls, rivers, seas 
 their children of to-day speak of these 
 things as ours do of the Paleozoic Age, 
 of far-past Devonian times. How 
 many races do you suppose there are on 
 Mars? Just as many as there shall be 
 on this earth when its lowest ocean beds 
 shall have become the last strongholds 
 of a perishing civilization one; just 
 as many as there will be on this earth 
 before we shall have to begin to cut ca 
 nals to irrigate our ancient sea bottoms 
 
 with the water from melted polar snows 
 120 
 
ALSO A TEUTON? 
 
 one. And why not? Why should 
 there not be a restoration of the primal 
 man? Darwin crossed a Silky and a 
 Black Spanish, and there came forth a 
 jungle fowl, the primitive type. Why 
 not with men ? " 
 
 He laughed bitterly. 
 
 "Why not?" she urged. "The 
 world is round. All things go here in 
 circles." 
 
 " You do not understand the philoso 
 phy of their ethnology, Lola," he argued, 
 thoughtfully. " There is no such thing 
 possible now, they say. Race develop 
 ment and consequent variation have 
 gone too far. One cannot obtain an 
 amphibian by mating a fish and a bird, 
 though they be children of common an 
 cestors. Besides forgive me, but you 
 
 introduced the subject you should 
 121 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 know the fatal physiological law that 
 will sooner or later destroy your plans 
 utterly, the law of the diminishing fer 
 tility of the Third Race. If they 
 would long perpetuate their kind, they 
 must breed back to the black fellow or 
 the white folk. You know, also, how 
 the Indian of Mexico is breeding out the 
 Spanish blood, which was alien to it, 
 and slowly reverting to the American 
 type. These things I am telling you are 
 laws, they say the fiats of Nature, who 
 would hold her own in the development 
 of the highest race types. There will 
 be no permanent Third Race. The sub 
 stratum isn't there. America will be 
 black or white. My own opinion is that 
 where the Aryan can live, it will be 
 white ; where he passes his climatic zone 
 
 into the negro's latitude, it will be black. 
 122 
 
ALSO A TEUTON? 
 
 It will be a question of the will of the 
 land " Mother Earth/' you call it. 
 She alone has the right to choose be 
 tween black and white father for her 
 children. 
 
 "Almost," she murmured, " thou per- 
 suadest you are a noble fellow, Kongo. 
 If it wouldn't seem so absurd, I should 
 like to say, * God bless you ! ' " 
 
 " But, Lola," he urged, tenderly, " we 
 want you; they despise you. I love 
 you, a real woman; he fancies you are 
 another woman. I will protect you, 
 cherish you forever; he will cast you 
 off" 
 
 " Cast me off ! " she exclaimed, quiv 
 ering from head to foot. " Yes, now ; 
 but not after after we are m " 
 
 " Yes, after that after anything. 
 I tell it to you. It is in his blood. The 
 
 123 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 Teutons have ever called their children 
 by the bondwoman only progeny! " 
 
 " Even if if he did," she murmured ; 
 " am I not also a Teuton? " 
 
 124 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 ANOTHER JOURNALIST ARRIVES. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 ANOTHER JOURNALIST ARRIVES. 
 
 " Mr. Keough, shake hands with Mr. 
 Elliston, of the Modern Trend. Mr. El- 
 liston is down South for a little study 
 of the negro problem at first-hand to 
 give to his Northern constituency. Do 
 you think you could find time, Roy, 
 to show him Darktown and Jackson 
 Row?" 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Webster, if it is your 
 wish," Keough replied, readily. " How 
 long will you be down, Mr. Elliston ? " 
 
 " Why, I wanted to get back day after 
 to-morrow if I could. You see, I have 
 been writing this series of articles on 
 the ' Rights of the Colored Man/ and it 
 occurred to me last week that a trip 
 
 127 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 South might help them along local 
 color and all that, you know. So I re 
 membered Henry here we were college 
 mates at Harvard and just made up 
 my mind to put a whole day in among 
 them. By the way, I notice yours are 
 very much blacker than ours. Is it the 
 climate, do you suppose? " 
 
 Roy smiled. Webster grinned aloud. 
 
 " Really, I should have kept better 
 posted on what was appearing in the 
 Trend," Roy answered. " I know that 
 series will be interesting. But as to the 
 color of your Northern negroes, I be 
 lieve it is a slight difference in blood. 
 Ours are largely pure. You have to 
 come South for the real thing in ne 
 groes. Don't you think so, Mr. Web 
 ster?" 
 
 " I was just telling Elliston that when 
 
 128 
 
ANOTHER JOURNALIST ARRIVES. 
 
 you came in," Mr. Webster replied. 
 "Also, I suggested an automobile ride as 
 the best way to learn their inner souls 
 and see them in their home," he con 
 tinued, with a laugh and a wink. " He 
 was saying how much he had learned 
 about their domestic habits already 
 from the Pullman window. You see, in 
 an auto you could go right down to their 
 homes, give them a quarter, and tell 
 them to talk." 
 
 " He would see the domesticated ones 
 in that way, at the very least," Roy sug 
 gested. 
 
 "But the negro wild beast!" Web 
 ster added, with a tinge of irony, as if 
 to emphasize his words. 
 
 An employee entered his office and 
 handed him a telegram. Webster's fea 
 tures set hard and his fists clinched. 
 
 129 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " My God, Elliston, I wish you fellows 
 up New York way had something like 
 this once a day on your desk to hash up 
 for your readers! Listen here: 
 
 " Mary Morris, fourteen-year-old daughter of 
 H. L. Morris, one of the most prominent busi 
 ness men of Atlanta, and Lucy Morris, her 
 aunt, of twenty-five years of age, were crimi 
 nally assaulted in the outskirts of the city early 
 this morning. Miss Lucy Morris, with her 
 young niece, was picking flowers in the woods 
 in sight of near-by homes, and had no fear, 
 since it was in broad daylight. With their 
 hands full of ferns and flowers, they were re 
 turning along an old Confederate breastworks, 
 when a negro met them, having a huge club in 
 one hand and a large rock in the other. He 
 struck down the fourteen-year-old girl, leaving 
 her supposedly senseless, and then yelled at 
 Miss Morris. In a few moments Mary revived 
 and found herself bound to a tree. The negro 
 
 stood over her. 
 
 130 
 
ANOTHER JOURNALIST ARRIVES. 
 
 " ' Honey,' he said, ' I want you to come with 
 me. I'll be kind to you; you know I won't hurt 
 you ' 
 
 "'I can't/ Mary answered; 'my leg is 
 broken;' and she let it hang limp to the 
 ground. 
 
 " The negro grinned and went back to her 
 aunt. Mary chose her chance, and, unbinding 
 herself, ran, screaming for help. At this the 
 negro fled. Mr. Morris arrived shortly. He 
 found his sister lying with her face half buried 
 in the sand. All the back of her head was 
 beaten sore and bloody. The wild beast had 
 slit "the bridge of her nose wide open and had 
 gouged one eye out of the socket. Mr. Morris 
 is a well-known Atlanta business man, and his 
 sister and daughter have many friends in the 
 city." 
 
 "Now, Arthur Elliston," Webster 
 continued, handing the paper to the vis 
 itor, " take that back with you to New 
 York. That is enough to explain to my 
 
 131 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 friends why I am Southern in my senti 
 ments on this question from A to izzard. 
 Take that back with you and write a 
 chapter in your series on it. 0, if you 
 only had a few like that in. New York, 
 all the Manhattan police couldn't hold 
 back the mob, nor the waters of the 
 Hudson extinguish the torches ! " 
 
 As he finished speaking, the shrill 
 voice of a newsboy came from the street 
 below : 
 
 " Here's your Commonwealth! Here's 
 your Evening Press! Paper, mister? 
 All about the new assault ! Paper, mis 
 ter?" 
 
 "Do you hear that cry, Elliston?" 
 Webster continued. " I have heard it 
 every week almost for months. It's be 
 ginning to get on my nerves. I've got 
 a sister who stays alone with the serv- 
 
 132 
 
ANOTHER JOURNALIST ARRIVES. 
 
 ants all day long in my home; and, by 
 the Eternal, if they touch her, I'll blow 
 up Webster University!" His pale- 
 blue eyes were afire. "And yet I have 
 half an idea that it's just a sort of 
 Nemesis." 
 
 "Nemesis?" Elliston asked. 
 
 "Ah, boys, I haven't said it before, 
 but, by the Eternal, what respect for 
 our women can you expect from another 
 race whose women our blacklegs have 
 deflowered so d shamelessly? What 
 did they know of virtue when, we 
 brought them here, and who, in God's 
 name, should have taught them? " 
 
 An office boy entered with some un- 
 corrected proof. Webster glanced at 
 it and saw his editorial matter for the 
 evening edition. A double-leaded leader 
 
 133 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 stood out boldly under its black title 
 letters : 
 
 " CLEAN OUT THE DIVES! CLOSE UP 
 THE SALOONS! THE PRESENT CRISIS 
 CANNOT LAST MUCH LONGER! ABOVE 
 ALL, KEEP COOL ! " 
 
 " Those are my sentiments, Elliston," 
 he continued. " I didn't add, * Shoot 
 down the wild beast at sight/ I hope 
 to my God I will never say it. I hope 
 we will never come in this country to 
 burning their dens out as you do in the 
 North. But what about your automo 
 bile ride? If you go in the right direc 
 tion, you may see a lynching." 
 
 The office boy came back bearing a 
 card in his hand, and gave it to Roy 
 Keough. 
 
 " The lady says she will wait for you 
 in her automobile." 
 
 134 
 
ANOTHER JOURNALIST ARRIVES. 
 
 Keough took up the card and scanned 
 it hurriedly. 
 
 " Miss Lawson," he read aloud, me 
 chanically. 
 
 Also scribbled hastily on the side : 
 " Come as quickly as you can." 
 " If it is an automobile she is in," 
 Webster suggested, " perhaps Mr. Ellis- 
 ton's company would not be disagreea 
 ble. You could put him in front and let 
 him talk to the chauffeur. I believe Dr. 
 Lawson's driver is a negro, is he not? " 
 " Not a bad idea at all," Keough ex 
 plained. " Come, Mr. Elliston, off to 
 Darktown ! " 
 
 135 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 THE PROBLEM FROM A TONNEAU. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PROBLE.M FROM A TONNEAU. 
 
 " What I can quite understand," Mr. 
 Elliston said, as they drove off, " is the 
 feeling of personal repugnance you have 
 for the negro, and the negro for you 
 also; but I don't see why that should af 
 fect your politics." 
 
 " Nor why the races should be sepa 
 rated on the street cars, railways, 
 churches, elevators, etc. That is what 
 you are going to say, isn't it?" Miss 
 Lawson questioned. 
 
 " Only partly," Elliston continued. 
 " I wanted your view point badly enough 
 to come a thousand miles for it. I want 
 to know where the line stops, so I am 
 going to ask you a very pointed ques- 
 
 139 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 tion. If a nice black fellow, with plenty 
 of education, refinement, etc. " 
 
 "And money," Keough put in. 
 
 " Well, I say if such a fellow were to 
 fall in love with one of the ordinary 
 white working girls " 
 
 " 0, put it the other way! " Miss Law- 
 son suggested. " If a white man of 
 ordinary, etc." 
 
 "Well, that will do then," Elliston 
 continued. " Suppose there were a girl 
 practically white with the 'one 
 drop/ as you call it, in her veins; and 
 suppose she were perfectly honest, vir 
 tuous, well educated, and in every way a 
 lady, and a young white man were to 
 fall in love with her without knowing of 
 her * drop/ and later found it out he 
 being a Southerner now what would 
 
 140 
 
THE PROBLEM FROM A TONNEAU. 
 
 he do? What would he do, Miss Law- 
 son?" 
 
 " Really," she answered, while her 
 heart beat violently, " Mr. Keough 
 should answer you." 
 
 The question at last how she had 
 longed to put 'it to him! She trembled 
 now, lest some mischance should pre 
 vent his answering it and lest he 
 should answer it. 
 
 The question? 
 
 " What do you think, Mr. Keough? " 
 
 "Well," Roy replied, slowly, "it is 
 very hard to say. I should think, how 
 ever, that if he had grown tired of her 
 at all, he would leave her and sink him 
 self in a new country; if he loved her, 
 he would probably make his peace with 
 God and blow his brains out." 
 
 The woman looked mistily to the 
 
 141 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 right, and the New York journalist drew 
 out his notebook. 
 
 " View point the same as that of nice 
 Northern people," he wrote. 
 
 " Mr. Webster told me of a beautiful 
 picture a lady graduate of his school 
 painted," Elliston continued. " I be 
 lieve it is called ' THE END.' I guess 
 you know its motif? What's become of 
 the girl? Really, I'd like to meet her." 
 
 "To see her?" Miss Lawson sug 
 gested. " Really, Mr. Elliston you 
 will not think me rude all such are 
 without the pale in the South; they be 
 long to the world we never mention." 
 
 It was neatly done, Roy thought. 
 
 Luckily, they were already on the out 
 skirts of Darktown. 
 
 " It is only fair to say," Miss Lawson 
 
 142 
 
THE PROBLEM FROM A TONNEAU. 
 
 suggested, " that this is not the Fifth 
 Avenue of the colored section. " 
 
 "Right," Keough added. "There 
 are parts of Atlanta where the best ne 
 groes lives. There are neat homes, and 
 their inmates are ladies and gentlemen. 
 But look at this!" 
 
 Squalid misery ill-odored poverty 
 dirt filth full cabins an air stench- 
 laden, reeking with disease crowded 
 with the negro poor, whose black brood 
 played ill clad half naked in the door 
 ways, overflowed into the streets and 
 filled them with more filth, more disease, 
 more stench. 
 
 " Say, let's take a little spin in the 
 country before it gets too dark," Ellis- 
 ton suggested. 
 
 Keough smiled. 
 
 " What are you interested in them 
 
 143 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 for, anyway?" Miss Lawson asked. 
 " Do you think they are people? " 
 
 " Unfairly put, Miss Lawson," Roy 
 laughed. 
 
 "Why, yes," Elliston answered, "I 
 think they are people, a distinct people, 
 and " 
 
 " What of them? " she asked, when he 
 paused. "What is their future? Are 
 you arguing for amalgamation in your 
 articles?" 
 
 " So far as I know," Elliston replied, 
 with curious sadness, " the yellowest of 
 our abominable yellow journals would 
 not stand for such a series of articles 
 as that. There is a wonderful store of 
 mischievous misinformation about the 
 North even in Atlanta," he continued. 
 " Webster was talking about the Third 
 Race. Northern men don't want one, 
 
 144 
 
THE PROBLEM FROM A TONNEAU. 
 
 and are not afraid that there will ever 
 be one. We've no idea of marrying ne 
 groes, despite the hysterics of your 
 melodramatic novels, nor of marrying 
 Turks nor Chinese; and we do not ex 
 pect our Southern friends to do so. We 
 don't see many negroes, and those that 
 we do see are as decent as very many 
 of the European immigrants who 
 swarm in on us every year. We have 
 a hydra-headed race problem of our 
 own, very different from yours in the 
 South. Some of the aspects of the lat 
 ter are so unfamiliar to me as hardly 
 to seem real. We can't feel about them 
 as you do ! " 
 
 "A hundred years ago," she con 
 tinued, " one-seventh of the globe was 
 white; to-day, one-half; to-morrow 
 what is the use of fooling with them 
 
 145 
 
 10 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 at all? Down South here we see their 
 numbers constantly decreasing in com 
 parison with us." 
 
 " Decreasing? Why, I thought they 
 were taking the country! " Elliston ex 
 claimed. 
 
 " One white man," she replied, " has 
 accumulated more wealth since the war 
 than the whole race of ten million" of 
 them. And as for numbers, did you 
 know South Carolina's negro population 
 increased only one-fourth as much, pro 
 portionately, during the last decade as 
 Pennsylvania's or Massachusetts'? 1 
 believe Tennessee's didn't increase at all, 
 did it, Mr. Keough?" 
 
 " She is pretty nearly correct, Mr. 
 Elliston. Philadelphia, Washington, 
 and Baltimore are the largest negro 
 cities of the hemisphere. But here we 
 
 146 
 
THE PROBLEM FROM A TONNEAU. 
 
 are at the Commonwealth Building. I 
 shall look out for your articles, Mr. El- 
 liston." 
 
 The New York journalist vanished to 
 ward the elevator. 
 
 "It is really a pity to stop now, 
 Mr. Keough," Miss Lawson suggested. 
 " See, the moonlight has just come. Do 
 you not love the moonlight enough for a 
 spin to the country? " 
 
 He thought of his unfinished " Song 
 and Story." It would be the first time 
 he had left it for any man or woman. 
 
 " If you go, I go with you," he an 
 swered. 
 
 He entered the car then, and the 
 driver started out Peachtree at a merry 
 clip. 
 
 "To Oakdale, Will," she whispered, 
 
 147 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 standing to adjust her wraps, " for the 
 9: 30 train." 
 
 Then to Keough 
 
 " How far would you go with me? " 
 she ventured. 
 
 He turned and looked. Her eyes 
 were full upon him, and the lights 
 showed a compelling loveliness in her 
 face. She was leaning forward as if his 
 answer meant something to her. 
 
 He took her hand gently in his, and 
 whispered : 
 
 " To the end of the King's Highway ! " 
 
 "Ah, glorious cup ! " she murmured, 
 so low that he heard nothing. " I will 
 drink of thee to-night drink deep of 
 thee if I die to-morrow ! " 
 
 148 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 THE PACK FORMS. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PACK FORMS. 
 
 The black man paused upon the 
 threshold. Should he really go in, 
 after all? His anger still burned with 
 in him, and the fierce-flamed love for 
 the Third-Race woman. To learn of 
 her whereabouts, to force this ignoble 
 father of hers to divulge them that 
 was the only course left him. By every 
 right of priority she belonged to him. 
 What though the Commonwealth re 
 porter had carried her away? It was a 
 deathly deception. She was pardona 
 ble. Who could resist an invitation into 
 the glow of the White Circle? But the 
 white man would not pardon her. He 
 would bellow with rage and drive her 
 
 151 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 forth to find a mate among the black 
 people. What a mad, mad course she 
 was on! How awful her doom when 
 discovered! Perhaps, too, the white 
 man knew, and only wanted another 
 mistress. God ! how his heart throbbed ! 
 There was no longer any hesitation in 
 his steps. He opened the door abruptly. 
 
 " Do you want to see the maid ? " a 
 waiting patient asked. 
 
 " No, madam ; I have come to see Dr. 
 Lawson. If the maid is near here 
 is my card." 
 
 The negro girl had seen the new 
 comer. 
 
 " These are Dr. Lawson's office 
 hours," she said, as softly as possible. 
 " You know he confines his practice en 
 tirely to whites. You might see him 
 
 152 
 
THE PACK FORMS. 
 
 for a moment when he goes to lunch, or 
 call at his back door to-night." 
 
 " I will see him now. Kindly say to 
 him that a man who will not be put off 
 waits for him at the door." 
 
 The negro woman stood back amazed. 
 
 "He is stark mad!" she ejaculated, 
 and shut the door in his face. 
 
 Kongo waited for a moment long 
 enough for her to have returned, long 
 enough for Dr. Lawson to have excused 
 himself from his patient and then 
 stepped boldly into the elegant waiting 
 room of Atlanta's greatest dentist. 
 
 " I have come to see Dr. Lawson," he 
 commenced, in a steady voice, to the 
 maid, " and I will see him." 
 
 There was something about his look, 
 some reminder of the avenger who came 
 forth from his wrong to kill, that made 
 
 153 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 a timid woman patient by the window 
 shriek aloud. 
 
 In a moment Dr. Lawson stood smil 
 ing in the doorway between his operat 
 ing room and his parlors. 
 
 " I want to see you a moment, Dr. 
 Lawson," Copelin said, calmly. " We 
 have business together of a sort that 
 may not be put off." 
 
 It took the dentist a moment to under 
 stand. 
 
 "Are you the cause of all this commo 
 tion ? " he then asked. 
 
 " No," Kongo replied ; " you are. But 
 I should rather finish what I have to say 
 in private." 
 
 " What is your name, man, and what 
 do you mean?" he asked, seeing no 
 point to it all. 
 
 The fierce flames of a life's passion 
 
 154 
 
THE PACK FORMS. 
 
 vibrated in the voice of the negro pro 
 fessor as he replied : 
 
 " My name is Kongo Copelin. I love 
 your daughter. I have come to ask you 
 where she is. I have a right to ask it,** 
 he continued, while the dazed dentist 
 gazed on him in amazement. " She is 
 my promised wife, even if she has run 
 away with Roy Keough." 
 
 Then he understood. 
 
 The light began to glow in his eyes, 
 his muscles twitched, his teeth set, his 
 hands clinched, his jaws gripped one 
 another, knowing well it was too late 
 for words. The negro professor had 
 come unarmed, save by a righteous 
 cause; and when he saw death glaring 
 at him, reached back for his penknife. 
 The dentist fairly trembled with rage. 
 He did not see the negro reach back for 
 
 155 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 his knife. His whole powerful body 
 prepared itself in ligament, bone, and 
 muscle for the spring of a wild animal 
 that hated and would kill! 
 
 The two men clashed. The dentist 
 fell heavily to the floor. A red stream 
 spurted from his breast. 
 
 A half dozen lady patients shrieked 
 as he fell. The negro maid trembled 
 as she thought of its awful meaning, as 
 she heard the white pack at the heels 
 of the " negro wild beast." 
 
 Then Copelin rose from the floor, only 
 half understanding what he had done. 
 He had not meant to do this thing 
 only to avenge publicly the shame of a 
 woman of his people. He saw the red 
 pool on the floor and the white face be 
 neath him. His instincts, the instincts 
 of the black folk who had striven and 
 
 156 
 
THE PACK FORMS. 
 
 slain in the jungle for untold genera 
 tions, took hold of him. 
 
 With a wild moan of terror, he fled. 
 
 Out into the streets first he ran, 
 guided by the ancient instincts, on to 
 ward the busy triangle before Silver- 
 man's Corner on on with one word 
 upon his lips Decatur Street! 
 
 A white man saw him and called : 
 
 "Stop, thief!" 
 
 The woman who had screamed called 
 down from the window: 
 
 " He's a murderer ! Arrest him 
 quick! He has killed Dr. Lawson! " 
 
 The negro maid looked out and meas 
 ured the distance with her eye. 
 
 " He's running for one of the dives," 
 she said. " He's got a good lead ; he 
 may make it. God have mercy on us 
 all!" 
 
 157 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 Then the white pack began to form. 
 A policeman took the runner and his er 
 rand in at a glance. 
 
 "Stop him! Head him off! He's 
 making for the dives ! " he called. 
 
 But Kongo had heard, he, the son 
 of jungle men the dim memories of 
 a thousand ancestors who had fled from 
 the pack drove him on on 
 
 Another policeman fired, but put up 
 his pistol as he saw the crowded streets. 
 The shot brought a score of men who 
 followed the runner in close pursuit. 
 
 But the man ran unincumbered by 
 numbers single he knew where 
 ran as a man would run for his life, 
 with the yelping of the pack at his heels. 
 
 In a moment he had reached Decatur 
 Street, in another he had sprung into a 
 barroom door, in a few more he was out 
 
 158 
 
THE PACK FORMS. 
 
 at the back door and into another 
 among his fellows, scores of them, who 
 understood. 
 
 A glance told the story. He was hid 
 safely away in a jiffy. 
 
 The pack yelped at the dive their 
 quarry had entered, battered down the 
 door, then fairly bellowed with baffled 
 anger as they found he was not there. 
 
 But another negro man suddenly 
 sprang, seemingly terrified, from a side 
 room and fled down the street. 
 
 The pack followed; a policeman fired 
 and missed. The negro fairly flew 
 down Decatur Street. 
 
 The jungle men who had hid Copelin 
 away looked after him and muttered : 
 
 " It's Jackson ; he saved Will Johnson 
 twice. He's a good 'un ! " 
 
 Then, when the pack had almost de- 
 
 159 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 spaired of the pursuit, the quarry sud 
 denly stumbled and fell. In a moment 
 they were on him. A policeman 
 grabbed him by the collar. 
 
 " Don't touch him, boys! The law'll 
 get him quick enough. He's as good as 
 a dead 'un now ! " 
 
 So they bore him back in triumph to 
 the jail. 
 
 The captured jungle man said no 
 word. 
 
 " By George, boys/' cried one of the 
 best runners among the pursuers, " we 
 were lucky to get him. Forty saloons 
 on Decatur Street! Twenty-five hun 
 dred nigger loafers in them ! Who'd 'a' 
 thought it?" 
 
 Then he gave Jackson a cuff. 
 
 "You d n black beast!" he said. 
 " You didn't get to hide this time! " 
 
 160 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 THE LAIR. 
 
 11 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE LAIR. 
 
 When the noise and the tumult were 
 over and the dust had settled again in 
 the highway, the door behind which 
 Kongo Copelin had hid was opened soft 
 ly, and the prisoner was told that he 
 might now come out with safety. 
 
 " Have they gone already? " he 
 queried. 
 
 " Yeah ; we got 'em fooled. Say, 
 what'd you do?" 
 
 But Kongo was too surprised to notice 
 the question. 
 
 " Why, I have been momentarily ex 
 pecting them to break down the door. 
 What did you do to get them away? " 
 
 " Same old thing swapped horses an' 
 
 163 
 
THE LAW OP THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 got 'em on 'nother man's trail. Ed 
 Jackson saved yer. They got him in 
 the ' Black Maria ' now. Say, you're an 
 eddicated nigger, ain't yer? What in 
 the h 1 you doin' down here with us? " 
 
 " I had a fight with a white man," 
 Copelin replied, " and I killed him. I 
 could think of nowhere else to come. 
 Can you hide me for a while? " 
 
 " That's sho' our job," the " proprie 
 tor " assured him. " We hid Bill Am- 
 mons long enough. He's got twelve 
 white women already. Wus'n Will 
 Johnson, ain't he?" 
 
 Copelin shuddered. This was a 
 stratum of his race of which he, though 
 a negro, knew nothing. They were the 
 jungle men, the wild beasts who could 
 not be tamed. Like their legendary an 
 cestors, they had gone back into the f or- 
 
 164 
 
THE LAIR. 
 
 est and turned again into gorilla-men. 
 He looked upon the " proprietor," with 
 his padded lips; his filthy, kinky head; 
 his stealthy, animal tread ; and noted the 
 wild look of the untamable in his coal- 
 black eyes and the distended nostrils 
 which long centuries had fashioned so 
 that by odor his life might be saved 
 whose wit had failed. 
 
 " I done a few stunts myse'f," the 
 " proprietor " continued. " I killed a 
 white man in South C'liny. Slid out for 
 Alabam; got a white woman out there. 
 Come back to Atlanta. This town's the 
 best 'un to hide in I ever saw. Niggers 
 sticks together, and don't peach none on 
 nobody. There's old Garrabrant out 
 there at the bar. If these d n white 
 p'licemen knowed he was down here, 
 they'd burn up Decatur Street. Pard- 
 
 165 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 ner, you look kinder sheety. Come on 
 an' have a drink." 
 
 To this, then, he Kongo Copelin 
 had descended. To these jungle men 
 he was indebted for his life. They had 
 counted him as a brother, and so in 
 stinctively protected him. Yet he 
 loathed them and all their kind. 
 
 The " proprietor " led him out to the 
 bar. For a moment it seemed to him 
 that he was in the jungle again. A for 
 est of black, animal faces gazed at him, 
 some with drunken leers. 
 
 " Sporty nigger," one remarked. 
 " What'dhedo?" 
 
 " Killed a white man, the ' prop/ 
 says." 
 
 " Nearly got him, didn't they? " 
 
 " Sho' did. He's the fourth come in 
 this week." 
 
 166 
 
THE LAIR. 
 
 " Coin' ter be trouble, too. Too many 
 of 'em comin'. Seen the Press to-day? 
 Look a-here ! " 
 
 The speaker drew out a copy of the 
 Evening Press, whose extra was being 
 cried on the street, and read from the 
 editorial columns : 
 
 " No law of God or man can hold back the 
 vengeance of our white men upon such a crimi 
 nal. If necessary, we will double and treble 
 and quadruple the law of Moses and hang off 
 hand the criminal; or, failing to find that a 
 remedy, we will hang two, three, or four of the 
 negroes nearest to the crime, until it is no 
 longer feared in all this Southern land that we 
 inhabit and love." 
 
 "Good God! Dey ain't talkin' dat 
 way 'bout killin' a white man, is dey? " 
 
 " Naw ! Will Johnson's got another 
 white woman ! " 
 
 167 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " How many nigger women has these 
 d n po' white trash got? Where'd he 
 go?" 
 
 " Down the street, then back here. 
 He's in the ' prop.'s ' room." 
 
 Copelin heard their words and shud 
 dered. He was a negro, but not such a 
 one as these. He was a negro man a 
 gentleman, as were most of his race. 
 
 But they were types of the NEGRO 
 WILD BEAST. 
 
 And he had been saved by fleeing to 
 their lair. 
 
 For very exhaustion's sake he drank 
 the whisky the " prop." gave him, and 
 looked about him. " Black-faced ani 
 mals " he could call them nothing else 
 crowded around the bar, mingling 
 snatches of old plantation songs, rem 
 nants of better days, with curses and 
 
 168 
 
THE LAIR. 
 
 filthy jokes. He finally sat down almost 
 unnoticed in a chair to think. Then he 
 noticed a curious thing. Whether they 
 stood or sat, these chronic criminals 
 turned their eyes steadily in one direc 
 tion, and it was not toward the door. 
 
 " Here's to her health! " he heard a 
 drunken vagrant shout. 
 
 At that he saw the great majority 
 look upward at a picture on the wall. 
 He followed their gaze. 
 
 He saw THE QUEEN OF THE LAIR. 
 
 It was a large chromo, suggestively 
 colored, showing a nude white woman 
 lying under a tree upon the leaves oi 
 the forest. Around and on the other 
 sides in fact, everywhere about the 
 walls there were other smaller pic 
 tures of similar suggestiveness ; but this 
 one was so gorgeously colored, so life- 
 
 169 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 like in size and seeming, that these jun 
 gle men looked at it and feasted theii 
 eyes upon it. To them it was all. It 
 was sometimes called " Social Equality," 
 sometimes " Criminal Assault," some 
 times by other names ; but these animals 
 of the forest saw names and distinc 
 tions but dimly. They only knew that 
 whisky fired the passions of hell within 
 them, and "The Queen of the Lair" 
 gave visions of heaven. 
 
 Copelin looked at the picture and then 
 at the passion-lit eyes of these outcast 
 men, and forgot that he was a man- 
 slayer. 
 
 " Great merciful Jesus ! " he ex 
 claimed. "And these are my people! 
 Why do not white men see why can't 
 they know where and how the peaceful, 
 unoffending negro man is turned into 
 
 170 
 
THE LAIR. 
 
 the passion-driven beast of the jun 
 gle? " 
 
 Then he remembered the words of the 
 Third-Race girl, the beautiful woman 
 whom he had accounted his : 
 
 "What would you do? If not one- 
 tenth part of your blood were negro, 
 and that not of an ignoble strain; if, 
 when dissociated from negroes, men 
 counted you white ; if your training and 
 ambitions and education all identified 
 you with the White Circle, would you 
 want to be called ' nigger? ' Would you 
 allow your life to be forced back with 
 the jungle people? " 
 
 She had said that, and he had not till 
 now understood. 
 
 But as he looked around him at the 
 sodden ignorance, the reeking filth, the 
 
 171 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 blatant crime, the bestial animality, he 
 understood. 
 
 He had seen the NEGRO WILD BEAST. 
 
 All the while that he studied their 
 faces there was in his mind a subdued 
 consciousness as of the falling of a 
 mighty cataract or the roaring of a wind 
 through the forest. Little by little he 
 cam'e to hear it. When at last the full 
 noise burst upon his ear, he noticed a 
 considerable diminution in the sea of 
 black faces that had thronged the dive. 
 Also the " proprietor " was hastening 
 nervously here and there, muttering 
 something to himself. 
 
 "Too many of 'em at last! D n 
 such luck ! " Copelin heard. 
 
 " It's a raid, sho's gun's iron ! " a 
 watcher shouted from the street. 
 
 " Better git into your closet or hide 
 
 172 
 
THE LAIR. 
 
 out there, you you eddicated nigger! " 
 the " prop." called. 
 
 " De whole d n po-lees is a-comin' ! " 
 yelled the man from the street. " Fse 
 gwine to shine my greasy ! " 
 
 A moment later a rock smashed 
 through the window and shivered half 
 a dozen bottles on the bar. 
 
 " It's a d n sight wuss'n a raid," 
 the " prop." muttered ; " it's a mob! " 
 
 173 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 THE RIOT. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE RIOT. 
 
 For centuries the unclean rivers pour 
 their mud and silt into the bosom of the 
 fair-faced sea. Slowly does their bur 
 den accumulate along the coast line. 
 All the while the pressure grows more 
 tense, and the heat lines of the inner 
 earth rise toward the surface. Then 
 there comes a day, fair, perhaps, and 
 unoffending, as that eventful day of Sep 
 tember came to Atlanta, when the ten 
 sion becomes too great, the subsurface 
 heat too fierce, and a fearful collapse 
 follows. The volcano belches, the calm 
 surface of things becomes a pandemo 
 nium of terror, the fountains of the un 
 known deep are broken up, and over all 
 
 177 
 
 12 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 there broods a horror of great darkness. 
 But from it, and eventually towering 
 over it all, there rises the eternal moun 
 tain peak linked hand in hand with his 
 brothers. 
 
 It was so with Atlanta on September 
 22, 1906. Years before there had been 
 a day in her history when the order she 
 loved and founded had passed into a 
 new order; and that she might remem 
 ber it, Sherman baptized her with fire. 
 While the ancient order lasted let this 
 be said to those who curse it her 
 women were safe and her daughters 
 knew no fear. With a singular lack of 
 foresight and a carelessness which, un- 
 excused by ignorance, was criminal, the 
 men who founded the republic of which 
 she was a part had sent into the Afri 
 can jungle and hunted down the savages 
 
 178 
 
THE RIOT. 
 
 there, to fetch them for labor in the 
 New World. The ineffaceable sadness 
 of the hunted thing, line bred for a 
 thousand generations, was in their eyes. 
 They blinked at the light of the White 
 Circle at first, and wondered why they 
 must now be taught new games to 
 play at. Guarded and controlled, they 
 learned to do the heavy work of the 
 South, until the chisels and saws and 
 hammers and hoes were all held by 
 black hands, from the Potomac to the 
 Rio Grande. They were dressed like 
 men and taught to do work like them, 
 and at last they became men ; and after 
 a while along came the good doctrine of 
 the universal brotherhood of man, its 
 coat tails tightly gripped by manhood 
 suffrage. Followed liberty. There 
 after most still reached out their hands 
 
 179 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 and clung to white men. Some few 
 went back into the jungle. 
 
 From the shadows of their forest 
 night these last came forth as passion 
 drove, and ever with increasing fre 
 quency. The white South saw it and 
 brushed away the tormenting prophet, 
 saying: "It will be all right!" The 
 black gentlemen of the South saw it, and 
 cried : " God save us ! " Atlanta saw 
 it, and knew it would be her part who 
 led the race to suffer first. 
 
 For months before the explosion came 
 the nervous tension of the city had 
 steadily augmented. There had been 
 story after story of how the beast had 
 come forth from his lair and glutted his 
 passion upon white women. All this 
 was in the papers. But the unnamable 
 terror of the black women was not, 
 
 180 
 
THE RIOT. 
 
 though they, too, suffered. Men had 
 turned sick at reading the details, know 
 ing the unmentionable things that were 
 never printed. A school-teacher, per 
 haps, passing in the evening on her way 
 home from a country school, waylaid 
 and assaulted! A man murdered at 
 night as he lay in his bed, and unspeak 
 able horrors perpetrated upon his wife 
 and daughter! These things Atlanta 
 saw, while her blood boiled within her. 
 
 Steadily they grew more frequent, 
 and were accompanied with greater 
 boldness and horrors, until the beast 
 feared not to attack his victims in the 
 city itself. Woman after woman, girl 
 after girl, child after child, the jungle 
 men assaulted ; and even the babes were 
 not exempt. 
 
 At last it could be stood no longer. 
 
 181 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 Another straw and the back was 
 broken. 
 
 Then came a deed of horror. A man 
 of Yankee descent had brought his 
 young wife South and built her a little 
 home at the edge of a pine grove near 
 the city. One morning a jungle man 
 came to the home, prying about it as a 
 wild beast would look at the house its 
 quarry had built. The man spoke to 
 him, and the negro asked some silly 
 question in response. The woman and 
 her husband were worried; for though 
 they had lived only four years in the 
 South, the horror of the great darkness 
 had fallen near enough to them for all 
 to know its terrors. Yet the man must 
 needs go away to his work, for only by 
 his labor could they get along in the 
 world. The nearest neighbor was to 
 
 182 
 
THE RIOT. 
 
 keep an eye open for the beast. The 
 man went. Returning, he found scores 
 of white men in his yard. He knew 
 that the jungle man had come and gone 
 on his passion-driven errand. He had 
 fled, and the woman could give no accu 
 rate description of him. 
 
 Those who gathered there before that 
 little green cottage knew then that the 
 storm had gathered. 
 
 So when the next morning had come, 
 and no word of the capture of the ne 
 gro wild beast with it, men left pistols 
 in the hands of their wives at home; 
 and the telephones kept ringing, lest all 
 might not be well. The normal gayety 
 of the city was gone, and an ominous 
 quiet had come in its stead. Those who 
 talked little were silent altogether, and 
 the garrulous spoke almost in whispers. 
 
 183 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 The police force was to be doubled on 
 October 1; this was only September 22. 
 Perhaps even that would avail but little. 
 
 And pitiful was the terror by day and 
 night of the sober mass of law-abiding 
 black people afraid of the rapists of 
 their own race and the rioters of the 
 other. 
 
 Saturday afternoon came and found 
 the eternal crowd before Silverman's 
 Corner swelled by hundreds of farmers 
 and country folk who had come to town 
 for the week-end shopping. Also, it 
 was still summer in Atlanta, and the 
 half holiday had poured out its thou 
 sands into the streets. 
 
 In the early afternoon there came the 
 first terror cry, and, to those who had 
 heard it in fear before, it was like the 
 hacking cough of a little babe at night 
 
 184 
 
THE RIOT. 
 
 to an anxious mother a cough that no 
 medicine could stop. 
 
 "Another assault!" 
 
 The newsboys took up the cry, and 
 handed the extra out to the trembling 
 hands. 
 
 "Paper, mister? Paper? All about 
 another assault ! " 
 
 The papers were quickly scattered 
 and read, and a " hillbilly," with a little 
 mustache growing on the end of his red 
 nose, but whose wife was alone in their 
 little home in the piny woods ten miles 
 away, muttered to himself : 
 
 D n 'em! They're a lot of hell-lit 
 beasts!" 
 
 His neighbor heard and volubly ap 
 proved. 
 
 " We are goin' to have to exterminate 
 'em yet," he said. 
 
 185 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Why in the h 1 don't you drive 'em 
 into the Gulf of Mexico? " an Ohio em 
 ployee of one of the big insurance com 
 panies, whose office building towered 
 above the speakers, questioned, hotly. 
 " We burn 'em out up in our country." 
 
 " What in the d 1 would we do fer 
 hands on the farm? " the " hillbilly " re 
 plied. "But, by G d, it's comin' to 
 that, and I'm ready to start it ! " 
 
 " Why do you not catch them and let 
 the law take its course?" a handsome, 
 well-groomed journalist from New York 
 asked. 
 
 " Ketch 'em ! My God, man, you 
 might as well talk o' ketchin' a mite on 
 a settin' hen! D n 'em, that's what 
 we got ag'in' 'em!" the "hillbilly" 
 yelled. " They hide their criminals! " 
 
 Mr. Elliston drew out his notebook. 
 
 186 
 
THE RIOT. 
 
 There was a point for the Modern 
 Trend. 
 
 " What I hate about 'em is," the Ohio 
 man continued, " they ain't people. I'll 
 be" 
 
 He stopped there, for they heard a 
 different noise a low, moaning sound 
 as of distant winds muttering in the 
 pines. Then above it came a sharp, 
 shrill cry. 
 
 " Second assault to-day! Extra, mis 
 ter? Here's your Evening Press! All 
 about the second assault ! " 
 
 The " hillbilly " clinched his fists and 
 ran forward to buy his paper. 
 
 By this time the crowd had grown 
 till, upon the great triangle at the in 
 tersection of Decatur and Peachtree 
 Streets, over a thousand men had col 
 lected. A premonition of impending 
 
 187 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 evil overshadowed them. There was a 
 singular quiet on all sides, as if the nerv 
 ous tension were great. As the dark 
 ness began to fall, fathers hastily closed 
 up their offices and hurried homeward 
 to their wives. Anxious women looked 
 out of the windows of thousands of 
 homes that night waiting for their pro 
 tectors to come. With never so much 
 joy before did the girls of Atlanta rush 
 into the arms of their fathers. The 
 shadow of unnamable fear was upon 
 every home. 
 
 So the streets were left for boys and 
 " hillbillies " and red necks, with here 
 and there a responsible man. 
 
 188 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 JUNGLE JUSTICE. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 JUNGLE JUSTICE. 
 
 "Where's the police?" the country 
 man with the little red mustache on the 
 end of his nose asked of a young hood 
 lum who stood by him. 
 
 " Raidin' the dives down on Decatur 
 Street." 
 
 "Listen to that!" 
 
 Again the cry : 
 
 " Third assault! Paper, mister?" 
 
 " By Q d, there's goin' to be trouble 
 here, and right now, at that ! Come on, 
 boys, let's give 'em h 1 ! " 
 
 " I just heard two little white boys 
 was held up and robbed in the suburbs," 
 the hoodlum answered. 
 
 "And look a-yonder ! " a gamin cried. 
 
 191 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Did you see that nigger grab that 
 white woman's pocketbook? " 
 
 " Gee-muny-chrismus ! They're fight- 
 in* ! " he yelled, as a white man sprang 
 on the negro and bore him down. 
 
 Two other negroes came instantly to 
 the aid of the first, and a rough-and- 
 tumble fight ensued. At last the crowd 
 became noisy, the tension began to give 
 way, the lightning flashed, and the 
 storm broke. 
 
 And above the tumult could be heard 
 the shrill cry of the newsboy : 
 
 "Fourth assault! Here's the Even 
 ing Press! All about the fourth as 
 sault!" 
 
 Then the mob formed. To the first 
 two thousand was quickly added a third, 
 a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh. 
 The night had come, and the saloons 
 
 192 
 
JUNGLE JUSTICE. 
 
 poured out their drunken revelers. For 
 some it was a game; for most it was 
 the long-delayed revenge against the 
 beast from whom they had suffered. 
 The mob was, for the most part, formed 
 of the under class the whites who came 
 in most intimate contact with the jungle 
 men. Added to these were the irre- 
 sponsibles the youth, the drunken, the 
 hoodlums. But here and there among 
 them, and ever the moving spirits, were 
 men whose wives were alone in cottages 
 on the by-streets or at the edge of dis 
 tant piny woods. And the burden of 
 their cry was : 
 
 " D n 'em ! They hide their crimi 
 nals! They run to the dens, they flee 
 to their lairs, and are lost in a sea of 
 jungle faces! " 
 
 Farther back in the distant centuries 
 
 193 
 
 13 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 (and not so far but that it may be 
 known to be) there was the forest 
 where the white man dwelt as half man, 
 half beast, of whom to this present 
 hour there are none so tame, so cultured 
 and locked up, but will have a wild trick 
 of his ancestors. To these all who 
 thronged the streets of the great city 
 that night the mob demon came. He 
 kindled hate in their breasts and mur 
 der in their hearts. He made them for 
 get the difference between negro men 
 and negro wild beasts, between those 
 who stood willingly as near the White 
 Circle as they might and those who 
 chose the night life of the jungle. To 
 maim, to bruise, to curse, to kill ! This 
 they hastened to do. 
 
 Yet in their minds there was a jun 
 gle justice. These black people did 
 
 194 
 
JUNGLE JUSTICE. 
 
 they choose to stand together, to hide 
 their woman slayers? Then let the 
 punishment be measured out to all. 
 There was enough to go around to the 
 whole race. They sheltered the wild 
 beasts in their dives and dens; they 
 were participants in the crime. If they 
 would sin as a race, let them so suffer. 
 That was the rude forest philosophy of 
 the first white mob in the South who 
 went out to murder the jungle men. 
 
 What so terrible as the blue eye of 
 the Anglo-Saxon when it is fairly red 
 with anger, no matter whether that eye 
 rests in a reeling head or in the sockets 
 of hoodlums? The black man found it 
 so that night. The unreasoning hate of 
 it was atavistic. A barber shaving a 
 white man shot down, and a bootblack 
 busy at an Aryan's foot; a negro woman 
 
 195 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 dragged from a street car and thrown 
 through a shop window with a crash; 
 Pullman porters mobbed from their 
 near-by cars these were but incidents 
 that marked the rising, unreasoning 
 fury of the rioters. 
 
 And still the shrill cry of the news 
 boys: 
 
 " Fourth assault! " 
 
 The " hillbilly," whose wife was alone 
 in the little cottage by the edge of the 
 piny woods, heard it. 
 
 " Come on, boys, let's burn 'em out! " 
 he cried. 
 
 Already the mob was as well armed 
 as the hardware stores of the city could 
 arm them. Now they broke into others, 
 and added the pawnshops and dens and 
 dives of Decatur Street to give the fire- 
 
 196 
 
JUNGLE JUSTICE. 
 
 arms wherewith to hunt down the black 
 man as well as black beast. 
 
 Then the awful storm burst. No 
 longer was there any discrimination at 
 all. Beating, killing, wounding, cursing 
 the mob went wild. Even the fire 
 hose could scarce dampen more than 
 the outskirts of it. The police were far 
 away down on Decatur Street. The 
 military could not be called out. 
 
 The passion of the rioters grew, the 
 blood lust increased. They overflowed 
 into the near-by streets, hunting for the 
 black man, eager for murder, craving 
 their blood. 
 
 Then the strange thing happened. 
 Into the notorious old train shed rolled 
 the midnight train from Dunvegan. 
 From it an aged man stepped lightly, 
 thinking of the sermon he was to preach 
 
 197 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 in the great Eastminster Church on the 
 morrow. Pleasant were his memories 
 of this eager city, upon all of whose 
 children the Eternal Urge was placed 
 of the magnificent church which had 
 once called him to its pastorate. Of 
 these things he was thinking when the 
 noise of the unfettered storm smote 
 upon his ear. 
 
 For a moment he was bewildered. 
 
 Then at his feet a negro fell. 
 
 " God! " the man yelled, with the 
 fright of the last hour in his words. 
 " Save me, boss, save me ! They're kill- 
 in' the niggers! Save me, for God's 
 sake ! Save me, save me ! " 
 
 His voice rose like the shriek of a 
 soul in hell whose God was passing him 
 by. 
 
 On his heels followed the mob. 
 
 198 
 
'He stepped upon the broad back of the negro man and 
 beckoned for silence." 
 
JUNGLE JUSTICE. 
 
 " Kill him ! D n him, kill him ! He 
 shelters the criminals of his race! 
 Shoot him!" 
 
 In a moment the aged man from Dun- 
 vegan was the center of the howling, 
 bloodthirsty mob. The negro, already 
 bloody with beating, crouched implor 
 ingly at his feet. 
 
 Then the Dunvegan minister cast his 
 light cloak upon the kneeling black man 
 and whispered to him: 
 
 " Hold yourself steady; I must stand 
 on your back to speak to these people. 
 There! On your hands and knees. 
 Steady now " 
 
 Then he stepped upon the broad back 
 of the negro man and beckoned for 
 silence. 
 
 The mob wavered. Perhaps it was 
 some one who would make announce- 
 
 199 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 ment of another assault perhaps some 
 news of importance. Then, too, he was 
 a gentleman of distinguished mien, and 
 stood unflinchingly before them upon 
 the black platform he had made. 
 
 Then some one who had heard and 
 seen him before in the great Eastmin- 
 ster Church shouted : 
 
 "Hush! It's Dr. Wilfong! " 
 
 200 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD SOUTH. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD SOUTH. 
 
 He spoke distinctly and with com 
 manding clearness, kindly, as if he un 
 derstood. They had not listened long 
 before they knew that it was the voice 
 of their master that night. The calm 
 look of the man, the face that knew no 
 fear, the spirit of infinite command 
 about him. 
 
 Arthur Elliston stood in the^ mob, 
 notebook in hand, listening. 
 
 " Who is he? " some one asked him. 
 
 " He is the Old South come to life 
 again ! " Elliston replied. " Hush, and 
 you will hear something worth listening 
 to." 
 
 The old gentleman spoke from the ne- 
 
 203 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 gro's back. He also loved Atlanta, even 
 ^the careless boyishness of the city. 
 Perhaps that superabundant exuber 
 ance carried them sometimes too far 
 and their enthusiasm was misdirected. 
 With a smile that for seventy years had 
 won men's confidence, he told them that 
 he was standing on the back of a ne 
 gro man, just as white men in the South 
 had been doing since the first Dutch 
 ship brought the black folk to the New 
 World. They were big and strong and 
 brawny, yet they were a child race, and 
 no Southern man with the ancient chiv 
 alry of his fathers in his blood would 
 fail to protect the innocent among them. 
 (Here there was a murmur as of ap 
 proval that ran through the crowd.) 
 
 " In my younger days," he continued, 
 " when I went as pastor to the manse in 
 
 204 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD SOUTH. 
 
 the little village from which I came to 
 night, I found there an old negro man 
 who for many years had been the ' boy ' 
 for my predecessor in the church. 
 Some days later, in arranging the yards, 
 I had occasion to plant some flowers, 
 and asked the elderly negro to dig up 
 a violet bed which seemed to me to have 
 been planted in the wrong place. The 
 gray-haired darky looked at me a little 
 strangely, and said : ' Yes, sir, boss.' A 
 week later I noticed that the violet bed 
 was still there, and spoke to him again, 
 this time rather sharply. Again the 
 ancient darky said : ' Yes, sir, boss/ 
 But when another week passed and the 
 violets were not removed, then I called 
 the old man to me and told him that if 
 he was to continue in my service, his 
 first lesson was to be that of obedience, 
 
 205 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 and asked him why he had failed twice 
 to do my bidding. The old darky's eyes 
 filled up at that, and he said : ' Boss, 
 when me an* my marster was little boys, 
 befo' dey done buy dis ole house from 
 him f er to be de manse, we planted dem 
 violets dere; an', boss, I jes' done been 
 trying but I can't, boss I can't dig dem 
 violets up what we planted when we 
 was boys.' Then I laid my hands upon 
 the old darky's shoulder and blessed 
 him. If you look closely, you will see 
 three violets in my buttonhole; they 
 came from that old man's violet bed. 
 And, men I speak to you as Southrons 
 who will dig up the beds of friendship 
 our fathers and theirs planted in the 
 times before the war? " 
 
 The pastor of Dunvegan paused there 
 and looked about him. Men were turn- 
 
 206 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD SOUTH. 
 
 ing here and there in the multitude and 
 taking away their fellows with them. 
 Little by little the mob began to dis 
 perse, one or two looking mistily at their 
 neighbors. 
 
 Arthur Elliston stood still, watching 
 the crowds. To him it was all more or 
 less a revelation. He had heard of the 
 part played by such ministers as Dr. 
 Wilfong in the South; but it did not 
 seem possible that a preacher could 
 really lead still in such affairs, much 
 less at such moments as this. Here, 
 then, in this handsome old man from the 
 village church was a power to be reck 
 oned with. That was the way he made 
 note of it for the readers of the Modern 
 Trend. As he was writing it down, the 
 Ohio man came up. 
 
 207 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Say, that was a swell talk he gave 
 them, wasn't it? " he commented. 
 
 " It was, indeed. He's just about 
 quelled this end of the riot." 
 
 " Gee, but it was great sport running 
 those niggers ! " a new voice put in. 
 " Sorry the old man came along. A fel 
 low from N'York and myself chased 
 one over the country, through cotton 
 patches, brier thickets, and I don't know 
 what else." 
 
 " Where are you from? " the journal 
 ist queried. 
 
 " Travel out of Boston born in Wor 
 cester. We shot at him more than a 
 dozen times, but he got away. What's 
 that the old man's saying to the nig 
 ger? " 
 
 Dr. Wilfong had stepped down from 
 his improvised platform and taken his 
 
 208 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD SOI;TH. 
 
 wrap from off the back of the black 
 man who had fled to him for protection. 
 The negro had risen, and stood upon his 
 feet, half fearfully, half trustfully. 
 
 " You had a very narrow escape, my 
 man. A little more and they would 
 have gotten you. I think you are safe 
 now; but perhaps you had best go along 
 with me. I am to stop at Dr. Lawson's 
 home to-night. You might guide me 
 there, for I have missed the carriage in 
 this mob. The Doctor, I am sure, will 
 let you stay with his servants to-night." 
 
 The negro turned ashy pale. 
 
 " My kind sir," he said, " I will guide 
 you there, but I I cannot stay." 
 
 " It doesn't matter. Come, let us 
 hurry. I understand the Doctor has not 
 quite recovered from an accident that 
 
 209 
 14 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 befell him last week. Come, we must 
 be going." 
 
 But the negro stood stock still, trem 
 bling from head to foot. 
 
 "Isn't he dead?" he almost 
 shouted. 
 
 " Dead? Why, no, he isn't dead. 
 Dead men do not send telegrams as he 
 has done to me this day. He was " 
 
 " 0, dear God ! " the negro cried. 
 "Then I am not a murderer! I shall 
 not be a jungle man ! " 
 
 "Your name, fellow?" the Doctor 
 aked, for by now they were alone on the 
 corner. "And why do you act so 
 strangely ? " 
 
 " Sir, my name is ' Kongo Copelin,' ' 
 he replied; "and I am the man who 
 stabbed Dr. Lawson." 
 
 As he spoke, Dr. Wilfong felt a light 
 
 210 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD SOUTH. 
 
 touch on his arm, and turned to see a 
 well-groomed white man standing beside 
 him. 
 
 " This is Dr. Wilfong? " the stranger 
 asked. " Elliston is my name. I am 
 one of the editors of the Modern Trend. 
 I should like very much to see you for a 
 moment to-morrow, Doctor, if you can 
 find the time." 
 
 " I am entirely at your service, sir, 
 on the day after to-morrow. Dr. Law- 
 son is my host " 
 
 " Then I shall avail myself of the op 
 portunity Monday morning. I want to 
 glean from you the attitude of the Best 
 South on the negro problem" 
 
 " The Best South, the negro prob 
 lem," the distinguished old man mused, 
 sadly. "Ah, sir, what is the negro 
 
 problem? Rakes and rum white 
 211 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 rakes, white men's rum. Some talk of 
 the danger of * amalgamation/ as if 
 there were a mulatto in the South whose 
 father was not a white man. This is 
 the negro problem white lepers that 
 father the Third Race, and white liquor 
 that fathers the black rapist; and for 
 which of these are the kindly black folk 
 responsible? But I shall give it all to 
 you Monday," he added, with a smile. 
 " To-morrow I give to God." 
 
 212 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 Miss Lawson seemed unusually quiet, 
 as if in trouble, while the motor car 
 sped on ; but then, unhaloed by sadness, 
 what face is perfectly beautiful? 
 
 " What an odd man that was ! " she 
 began. " Why is he so interested in 
 in them ? " pointing toward the driver 
 ahead. 
 
 " He is an editor," Keough suggested, 
 amused, " and they must have their 
 ' problems/ " 
 
 " I have read about ' the problem ' 
 till I am bewildered by it. Yet do you 
 know I sometimes wonder, despite what 
 I said to him a moment ago I wonder 
 
 215 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 how any one can doubt what will be the 
 final outcome of it." 
 
 "The outcome?" 
 
 " I was reading a book only last night. 
 I remember rather indistinctly the 
 prophecy of the last chapter. 'About 
 the two hundredth century of our era/ 
 it said, * there will be only one race on 
 earth rather small in stature, light 
 colored, in which anthropologists might 
 perhaps be able to discern indications 
 of English and Chinese descent.' " 
 
 " That," he said, " we will never per 
 mit!" 
 
 For a moment she was silent, while 
 the shadow of terror swept swiftly over 
 her face. 
 
 "Ah," she at length replied, " what 
 have we to do with that which is per 
 mitted? We should consult our gods 
 
 216 
 
THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 and our ancient monuments. There 
 were Romans once who despised their 
 slaves now the Italian. There were 
 Normans once who despised the Engles 
 now the Englishmen. There were 
 Teutons once who despised the negro 
 now the eternal now there are, there 
 will be " 
 
 She paused, gazing at him wistfully. 
 
 " There will be? " he asked. 
 
 " The American ? " she inquired, in 
 turn. 
 
 He seemed busy with his thoughts. 
 
 " Silently ah, so silently ! and un 
 noticed," she continued, softly, " the hu 
 man race drives forward to its destiny, 
 like the great family of the solar sys 
 tem speeding many miles per second to 
 ward its goal of mystery in the constel 
 lation Hercules." 
 
 217 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " ' To wash a black/ Geil says, ' is to 
 lose one's soap/ " he suggested, grimly. 
 " But what shall we say of washing the 
 immoral white rakes who betray black 
 and white and God by their shameless 
 seduction of the black women? To 
 cleanse him is to change the leopard's 
 spots." 
 
 " Perhaps. But where now are the 
 Aryans who left the common home of 
 their race and passed the Hindu-Kush 
 to conquer the fertile plains of India? 
 Their children are black to-day. They 
 did the thing no race can do and live 
 they left their isothermal line. It was 
 fifty mean in his Aryan home; it was 
 seventy in his new home. The sub- 
 tropics sapped his vitality, and he was 
 himself overcome by the negroid's cli 
 mate. Only his religion and his caste 
 
 218 
 
THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 are left. We whites are now almost in 
 the subtropics. See what such a cli 
 mate did to the fair-haired Aryans who 
 chose Greece and Italy as their home ! " 
 
 "And there were the Persians, too," 
 he assented. " The hot plain of the 
 Euphrates did the same for them, 
 but " 
 
 " There was ancient Hellas," she in 
 terrupted " Hellas, filled with deca 
 dent whites in a climatically foreign 
 land. The Dorian came, revivifying 
 the race. Then the age of Pericles; 
 then more decadence. Then Greece, 
 over which the world weeps pityingly, 
 remembering her former honors. Did 
 not Solomon say : ' The thing which 
 hath been is the thing which shall be? ' 
 Men may learn to turn back the flood 
 in its madness, to train the storm for 
 
 219 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 service; but the inexorable law of cli 
 mate and race who can change it, save 
 he who can command God as his serv 
 ant? And then, also, who can tell what 
 the negro's possibilities are? He is a 
 young race yet." 
 
 Eoy Keough listened. All this he had 
 thought out long ago. 
 
 " But there is a thing," he answered, 
 " about which I would not speak, except 
 to one who could understand that my 
 motive is not sinister. You have no 
 right to speak of the negroid as a young 
 race. It is of them all the oldest, the 
 first to flourish and to grow old. It 
 built the first Babylon. It preceded the 
 Semite in the valley of the Euphrates, 
 and by the Ganges grew as great as it 
 could before the Aryan came down from 
 
 the hills of the Hindu-Rush. It is the 
 220 
 
THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 oldest of all the races first in birth and 
 first in death. There was a Mesozoic 
 Age you learned of it in college with 
 its reptiles, hideous, monstrous, tre 
 mendously powerful. There also was 
 an age of ferns and an age of fishes. 
 Each has passed, as has passed the age 
 of the black race, the first age not of 
 iron, silver, or gold, but of wood. In 
 it they flowered in a sort of crude, gro 
 tesque civilization till, senescent, the 
 Semite came and took away their place 
 by the Nile and the Euphrates, and the 
 Brahmanic Aryan made of them hewers 
 of wood and drawers of water." 
 
 " But you forget," she interrupted, 
 " that one may absorb what one may 
 not create. The Japs used the Ger 
 man cannon to the best purpose. They 
 say : ' Look at the civilization around 
 
 221 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 you; make it yours, follow its logic. It 
 will give youth to the oldest of races.' ' 
 
 " If it were only a possible thing ! 
 God knows I have prayed for it, white 
 man though I am ! But each animal has 
 its covering the bird, feathers; the 
 fish, scales; the cat, fur; the dog, hair. 
 Each race has its civilization, its life. 
 Any adoption of it by a widely variant 
 people must be only temporary. There 
 was the American Indian, the Maori, 
 the Hawaiian. To these the Aryan's 
 civilization was poison. They may 
 smear themselves over with white paint, 
 but they will never think the world in 
 Aryan categories. Therein lies their 
 infinite hopelessness. They are an old 
 folk and a kindly folk and a trustful. 
 Their thoughts have form and color 
 
 which may not be changed. They have 
 222 
 
THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 come down through the ages to the 
 twentieth century. So has the kanga 
 roo. The Maori and the Dodo they 
 are types. There were Romans once; 
 there were Phenicians once. The 
 mammoth was. So some day they shall 
 say of the negro : ' He was ! ' " 
 
 " It was thus with the tree fern, the 
 mastodon, the cave bear/' she mur 
 mured. 
 
 " But, Laura, dear, what unearthly 
 affair could have put these things, these 
 needless worries, in your mind?" he 
 asked. 
 
 It was now time. 
 
 A suspicious moisture came into her 
 eyes, the while she muttered to her 
 self : " I despise to do it this way, but 
 there is no other ! " 
 
 She leaned forward toward him : 
 
 223 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " 0, if I could only tell you some 
 thing! " she murmured, slowly. 
 
 Not for a moment did those wonder 
 ful, dark eyes cease from their absorbed 
 gaze into his. A deep flush was creep 
 ing swiftly into her cheeks. He could 
 see that her breath was coming quickly, 
 and her lips quivered, as if they could 
 scarcely conquer their feelings. 
 
 He caught her hand under the lap- 
 robe. 
 
 " Laura, you are in trouble ! " he ex 
 claimed, softly, his heart all a-quiver. 
 " Tell me, darling ; we are one anoth 
 er's." 
 
 " If I only knew that you loved me so 
 much that that " 
 
 " That is just a little part of how 
 much I love you," he replied, gently. 
 "Tell me all!" 
 
 224 
 
THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 " You know the girl the negroid 
 woman the one who painted that 
 horrid picture about the' The End? ' " 
 she faltered. 
 
 " Yes, I have heard of her. Mr. Web 
 ster " 
 
 " But you you did not, you could not, 
 know that she " 
 
 Great tears sprang to her eyes, and 
 she turned her head away from him. 
 
 " Laura, dear girl, what can she have 
 done to ? " 
 
 " No, no, no not that! She, she is 
 my sister! " 
 
 The girl shook with sobs from head 
 to foot. 
 
 " Laura, Laura ! " he cried, softly. 
 " Listen ! You must not cry so ! All 
 men make mistakes. Your father " 
 
 " Hush ! Don't mention his name ! 
 
 225 
 15 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 I am never to go to his home again. I 
 upbraided him and he drove me 
 away in anger! " 
 
 He was silent in admiration of her 
 courage. 
 
 " I left him for and I came to 
 you ! " she whispered, tearfully. 
 
 In a moment her head was on his 
 breast and his trembling arms around 
 her. 
 
 "And you shall never leave," he said, 
 tenderly. "You are mine mine for 
 ever!" 
 
 With a gentle thudding of pistons, the 
 motor car stopped abruptly. 
 
 " Oakdale, Miss Lawson," the driver 
 announced. 
 
 In the distance they could see the glow 
 of the great electric headlight of No. 99 
 as it trembled and shifted upon the 
 
 226 
 
THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 clouds. In a moment the brakes of the 
 west-bound limited would be grinding 
 out their brilliant sparks against the 
 grumbling wheels. 
 
 It was his thought 
 
 " Why not? " he whispered, excitedly, 
 pointing to the light in the sky. 
 
 Her eyes seemed afire with love and 
 joy. 
 
 " Come on ! " she cried, softly, clasp 
 ing a full pocketbook. " We will go to 
 the end of the King's Highway! " 
 
 " I will get the tickets! " she added, 
 excitedly. " Luckily I have my purse." 
 
 There was a sweeping shift of the 
 electric searchlight as the train rounded 
 the last curve and the great engine 
 pointed its eye straight toward the sta 
 tion. There was a rumble as if of 
 Titan's steps. The sparks scintillated 
 
 227 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 from the brakes. The porter sprang, 
 with his little step in hand, to receive 
 the possible passenger. 
 
 " Hello, Keough ! " the conductor ex 
 claimed. "You here?" 
 
 " Why not? " the reporter retorted. 
 " Perhaps I am going farther than this 
 with you." 
 
 " God, man ! Haven't you heard the 
 news?" 
 
 "News! What news?" 
 
 "All Atlanta is in the hands of a howl 
 ing mob of murderers. They're killing 
 negroes by the hundred ! Four assaults 
 on white women in one day! The pa 
 pers are out with extras. The Com 
 monwealth is leading a fight for sanity 
 troops called out. You are the last 
 man on earth I would have expected to 
 find running away from duty ! " 
 
 228 
 
THE KING'S HIGHWAY. 
 
 Without a word, his face white with 
 excitement, Roy Keough rushed to the 
 ticket window. 
 
 " Stop, Laura Miss Lawson ! We 
 can't go; it is absolutely impossible! 
 Atlanta is in the hands of a mob ! " 
 
 "A mob Atlanta " she faltered. 
 " But I have bought the tickets." 
 
 " Then they must be returned. Here 
 quick, agent! It is but the matter of 
 a few days, sweetheart," he added. 
 " You can stay at the hotel until the 
 storm is over. Then, after duty, in 
 finite joy!" 
 
 229 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE LAW OF THE CAMP FIRE. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LAW OF THE CAMP FIRE. 
 
 The lights of the metropolis came in 
 sight again as the motor car rounded one 
 of the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and 
 soon, even above the regular thudding of 
 the cylinders, they seemed to hear wild 
 cries in the night. There was a volley 
 as if from pistols fired in concert, and 
 the dull, humming voice of the mob, soft, 
 purring like some gigantic feline, some 
 enormous locomotive steamed till its 
 very ligaments vibrated so it sounded 
 in the distance. 
 
 The car sped on while they both trem 
 bled one, with eager haste; the other, 
 with black terror. 
 
 As they whizzed the corner into Ely- 
 
 233 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 sium Street they came full speed upon 
 the mob. Lola Lawson fairly screamed 
 with fright. The motor swerved un 
 steadily as a pistol ball whirred past the 
 driver's head, and Roy Keough stood up 
 in the car. 
 
 " Stop the motor instantly, Will! " he 
 shouted. " Here, take this lap robe I 
 Crouch down there on the floor! Keep 
 covered ! Quick ! " 
 
 He threw the robe over the terrified 
 boy and sprang into the driver's seat. 
 
 The mob was by this time all about 
 them. The street was thronged with 
 rioters. 
 
 Some of them saw the woman in the 
 motor and the white man standing on 
 the seat. 
 
 "Where's that nigger gone?" a 
 
 234 
 
THE LAW OF THE CAMP FIRE. 
 
 hoodlum shouted. "Kill him, boys! 
 He's " 
 
 Keough understood. The mad blood 
 lust was in these people; they were wild 
 with the demon's craving for victims. 
 
 There was but a moment. But per 
 haps he had come into the kingdom for 
 such a time as this. 
 
 " Listen, men ! " he shouted. " What 
 madness! What folly! Avenging the 
 wrongs of our women upon the kindly, 
 trustful, genteel negro men and women ! 
 Do you not know that none of the wild 
 beasts are here? Go seek them in their 
 lairs. And listen! If you would burn 
 our laws and yourselves be the aven 
 gers; if by mob and murder you would 
 forever prevent the recurrence of these 
 awful crimes, go seek out the moral 
 lepers of our own race who taught them 
 
 235 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 how. Who are the fathers of the two 
 million Third-Race people in this coun 
 try? How many of them are here? " 
 
 Some of the nearest of the rioters 
 caught the drift of his words. After 
 all, it was they whom he wished to reach. 
 
 " While your fathers kept lonely vigil 
 by the sad camp fires of the sixties," he 
 continued, " who guarded their loved 
 ones? There were five million negro 
 friends of yours in those days, your 
 playmates " 
 
 He was interrupted by the pressure 
 of the outer ring, who could not under 
 stand why the negro was not already 
 dead. 
 
 "Aw, say now, friend," a " hillbilly " 
 drawled, " weVe got enough o' that ! 
 Hand over that nigger! He's just like 
 
 236 
 
THE LAW OF THE CAMP FIRE. 
 
 'em all; he's dangerous. Better kill 
 him and " 
 
 " Dangerous! " Keough retorted. 
 " I'll tell you who the dangerous men in 
 the South are, no matter how many 
 there be. They are white men the 
 lecherous, libidinous, incontinent, moral 
 lepers who seek out the negro women to 
 seduce them. It is as if a father be 
 trayed his child, as if a guardian led 
 his ward astray. These black people 
 were ours, body and soul, for two cen 
 turies, and they have looked to us for 
 moral law for a half century since. 
 What ideal have we set before them? 
 We have allowed the offscourings of 
 our race to set them an example of de 
 basement, crime, lascivious rottenness. 
 And some of these Aryan lepers have 
 risen from their licentious beds to join 
 
 237 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 decent men in condemning social equal 
 ity! These I arraign. They are the 
 disturbers of our peace in the South. 
 How may we expect honor for white 
 women when white men leave the trail 
 of the serpent over ? " 
 
 Thus far they stood it. Then 
 
 " Strike him down, the d d nigger 
 lover! Strike him down! " 
 
 " Shut up, blatherskite! " Keough re 
 torted, while he dodged a brick. " I am 
 a man lover anywhere, everywhere ; and 
 that is why I arraign the rottenness of 
 the man hater, the home destroyer. I 
 want us to teach them the LAW OF 
 THE WHITE CIRCLE. I wani>- " 
 
 He dodged again as a rock came 
 whirling by. 
 
 " To show you you white gods the 
 crime of letting our rakes and whips and 
 
 238 
 
THE LAW OF THE CAMP FIRE. 
 
 blacklegs lead negro women our wards 
 down into the demi-monde. I " 
 
 A brick struck his hat and carried it 
 whirling off into the air. 
 
 He stood there then, the clean, pure 
 Teuton, a gentleman, unafraid, his light 
 hair fanned gently by the soft breezes 
 from the Blue Ridge. Lola Lawson 
 looked on him. God! For the love of 
 such a man what would she not do? 
 
 " They come," Keough shouted again, 
 as the mob urged themselves on upward 
 into the car " they come from a land 
 where virtue was a garment to be put 
 on or off at pleasure, where an ad in 
 terim wife was provided for every guest 
 as part of his hospitality. Do you won 
 der, then, how rapidly they learn of our 
 blacklegs?" 
 
 " Kill him, too ! " a new voice shouted. 
 
 239 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " D n him the hypocrite ! He's got 
 old Sallie Johnson's gal there with him 
 now! " 
 
 Keough's eyes were on fire with an 
 ger. 
 
 " Liar ! " he cried. " How dare 
 you?" 
 
 " Liar I may be sometimes," the fel 
 low replied, grinning assuredly, " but I 
 ain't no liar now! Take off that veil, 
 Lola Johnson ! " 
 
 A rough hand was raised to fit the 
 deed to the word. 
 
 Keough struck out at the man, but the 
 blow fell short. A rock hit him in the 
 temple, and he sank, reeling, to the floor 
 of the car. 
 
 240 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Lola," the voice said, " you are my 
 promised wife, no matter if you were to 
 be married to this Aryan. Such a mar 
 riage is illegal through all the South, as 
 you know by your own confession in 
 the South you would have to be married. 
 Come, I beg " 
 
 " Kongo, why do you not listen to 
 me? " a woman's voice answered, quiet 
 ly, but with a word of suppressed feel 
 ing. " I have told you to go away. 
 Now I order it! What if he should 
 wake and find me talking to one of the 
 black folk? Go!" 
 
 " He will find it all out in God's good 
 time, Lola," the man protested. " You 
 
 243 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 cannot masquerade as Laura Lawson 
 forever. There are scores of negroes 
 who know you in this city who will flee 
 everywhere from Atlanta after this riot. 
 Your resemblance to her deceived him, 
 and your genius planned this awful 
 thing you have almost done. You " 
 
 "What did you call it, Kongo? 
 Why " 
 
 " I called it* ' awful/ but the laws 
 would call it 'adultery!' Am I not 
 the more considerate? " 
 
 "How dare you?" she shrieked. 
 "Hush! Go!" 
 
 Without a word the black man turned 
 upon his heels and vanished into the 
 night. 
 
 Keough roused slowly from his stu 
 por. The words kept repeating them 
 selves in his ears. The negro man, all 
 
 244 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 bruised and battered what was it he 
 had said? This woman, bending over 
 him as he lay upon the pavement those 
 beautiful eyes that 
 
 "My promised wife!" Ah, those 
 were the words ! " Lola," that was the 
 name. But this woman's was the face 
 he loved Laura Lawson, of Atlanta. 
 
 " He will find it all out in God's good 
 time, Lola." The negro man had looked 
 down at him when he uttered the words. 
 What did it all mean, anyway? Why 
 was he so wet and the girl all drenched 
 there, so that her very skirts clung to 
 her ? At that he closed his eyes again. 
 
 " It was a lucky thing the fire depart 
 ment turned the hose on the mob," she 
 muttered to herself, " else we had all 
 been killed." 
 
 245 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 There was a pistol shot in the dis 
 tance. 
 
 Ah, he had it the riot ! 
 
 He sat bolt upright. The woman 
 leaned forward and touched his fore 
 head again with a cold, wet handker 
 chief. 
 
 Laura Lola? He was wide-awake 
 now, and the negro man's words were 
 plain. 
 
 For a moment then Roy Keough sat 
 statue-still, while the facts the awful, 
 deathly facts gripped at the throat of 
 his soul. In the agony of it his tongue 
 parched and his jaws gripped, as if 
 there could never be need of words 
 again. 
 
 " Laura," he whispered, hoarsely 
 "Lola, what does it mean? Why 
 did" 
 
 246 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 "Laura Lola?" Had she heard 
 aright? 
 
 In a moment the woman bent over 
 him and was touching his forehead 
 lightly, as if it were a pain that coulcl 
 be rubbed away. Even in his moment 
 of anguish her beautiful shape and lis 
 som grace tugged at his heart. 
 
 " My sweetheart," she began, sooth 
 ingly. 
 
 " Hush, Laura Lola ! " he answered. 
 " I know it all!" 
 
 For a moment she looked at him to 
 read her fate. Would he reproach her 
 bitterly? Would he do as he said he 
 would once take his revolver and blow 
 his brains out? 
 
 "And yet I am the same," she mur 
 mured, softly. " I did it because I loved 
 
 247 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 you so. I am the same woman you have 
 loved." 
 
 He was silent, while the great tears 
 sprang again to his eyes. 
 
 " It was my law, my god, who bade 
 me do it," she continued, gently. " It 
 was because my soul yearned for you 
 so, and the dream of you was so 
 beautiful!" 
 
 He arose and stood before her. 
 
 " That was why I did it," she said 
 once more. " I wanted you till my 
 heart ached." 
 
 "Lola," he began, "listen. I can't 
 say much; for if I do, my feelings will 
 run away with my sense. I love you ; 
 but I am something more than myself. 
 I am a member of the White Circle. Its 
 law is upon me." 
 
 Keough was awake now in earnest. 
 
 248 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 The woman looked at him. This 
 thing had come then at last, the thing 
 whose shadow had long threatened and 
 now cursed her as a real thing of evil. 
 All that he had said she understood. To 
 her there was no insult in it, only bit 
 ter pathos and unrelenting Nemesis. 
 She, the white woman who had planned 
 and striven to redeem herself, the black 
 woman told herself that he was right. 
 That which had excluded Kongo Cope- 
 lin from her life she felt and understood. 
 To her it was only an instinctive disgust 
 at contact with the jungle people ; to this 
 white man it was the beetling menace 
 of the black flood. So she could under 
 stand her case, but accept it never ! 
 
 " You are sitting on a glacier, Roy 
 Keough," she exclaimed, "gripping 
 yourself tightly and swearing you shall 
 
 249 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 not move ; but all the time the icy mass 
 is moving on on on. Individuals can 
 not stay the end" 
 
 Yet, as she said it, she loved him for 
 what he was doing, and knew that, for 
 good or bad, he held her soul eternally. 
 For a moment the mad joy which had 
 been hers but a few hours before swept 
 over her again, and her will refused to 
 let him go. 
 
 " 0, darling, Roy, sweetheart, master, 
 don't leave me! For God's sake take 
 me keep me! I am yours; do with 
 me as you will! " 
 
 She flung herself upon his neck and 
 sobbed it out on his shoulders. 
 
 Gently, tenderly, he unlocked her 
 hands from about him, for the wild 
 abandon of her love was tugging at his 
 heart. 
 
 250 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 " Lola, you forget the great gulf " 
 
 "Gulf!" she cried, madly. "There 
 is no gulf too great for love ! " 
 
 Again he disentwined her embraces. 
 
 " It is the Law of the White Circle,'' 
 he murmured. " I dare not! " 
 
 The woman stood up before him as 
 she heard the words. 
 
 " Roy," she said, the shadow of an un 
 expected hope lighting her face for the 
 moment, " take me. What does it mat 
 ter about the marriage? Only love me 
 0, God ! you must, you shall ! " 
 
 For a moment the great temptation 
 was full upon him. Those wonderful 
 eyes; those delicately penciled features; 
 her form of soft, symmetrical fullness, 
 with its invitation of infinite pleading. 
 Ah, again those eyes which seemed able 
 to hold all others until they were done 
 
 251 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 with them ! He had craved all this, and 
 the exquisite rapture of it thralled him. 
 
 The woman took a step toward him, 
 her hands touched his arms, her black 
 curls were over his cheeks. 
 
 " Come," she whispered " you love 
 me. What matters it about the customs 
 men have of marriage? Come! " 
 
 Then the Teuton spoke. He saw him 
 self Roy Keough, child of vision the 
 sire of a race of phallic fathers and un 
 chaste mothers. 
 
 " Hush, girl ! " he commanded. " Do 
 you not see that in you the crime they 
 stoned me for telling them of is beck 
 oning me also? Have not our white 
 Lawsons wronged your race enough al 
 ready? Would you have me, who am a 
 teacher of my people ? " 
 
 Then he pitied her, for her sobs 
 
 252 
 
THE LAW OF THE WHITE CIRCLE. 
 
 touched his heart. She, too, saw how 
 the lecherous father and the abandoned 
 mother had spoken in their child. 
 
 " Go back to your people/* he added, 
 gently. " Is there none among them 
 whom you may love? " 
 
 THE END. 
 253 
 
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