FOOTNOTES:
[1] Alexander had just succeeded Terriss as our leading young man.
[2] Wenman had a rolling bass voice of which he was very proud. He was a valuable actor, yet somehow never interesting. Young Norman Forbes-Robertson played Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek with us on our second American tour.
[3] Once when Allen was rehearsing the supers in the Church Scene in "Much Ado about Nothing," we overheard him "show the sense" in Shakespeare like this:
"This 'Ero, let me tell you, is a perfect lady, a nice, innercent young thing, and when the feller she's engaged to calls 'er an 'approved wanton,' you naturally claps yer 'ands to yer swords. A wanton is a kind of—well, you know—she ain't what she ought to be!"
Allen would then proceed to read the part of Claudio: "... not to knit my soul to an approved wanton."
Seven or eight times the supers clapped their "'ands to their swords" without giving Allen satisfaction.
"No, no, no, that's not a bit like it, not a bit! If any of your sisters was 'ere and you 'eard me call 'er —— ——, would yer stand gapin' at me as if this was a bloomin' tea party?"
THE HERITAGE OF HAM
BY
LIEUTENANT HUGH M. KELLY, U. S. A.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ARTHUR S. COVEY
"To be hanged by the neck until dead." Well, no one was surprised. It was a foregone conclusion. Desertion to the enemy in time of war is one of the crimes military that cuts a man off from any chance for clemency. When he lifts his hands against his former comrades, he is as one already dead; that is, if he is caught. Private Wilson made the fatal mistake of being caught. The result was inevitable.
Though Private Wilson was expecting these very words, the sound of them, cutting the absolute silence, sent a cold contraction to his heart, and his thick lips drew themselves over his white teeth. Doubtless, if it had been possible, he would have turned pale; but since he was as black as the proverbial ace of spades, this was out of the question. Private Wilson belonged to the 19th Cavalry, which, as the initiated know, is a negro regiment.
There was no movement in the still line of the squadron when the fatal order was read, except a slight tremor, almost imperceptible, like the first faint rustling of leaves in the dead quiet that precedes a storm. Then from the right of "B" Troop there came a deep, indrawn breath, and the first sergeant's horse sprang sideways, in amazement, against that of the guidon. The animal was accustomed to being treated as tenderly as an infant, and now, for no fault whatever, he had received a rough pressure from his rider's knees, and a sharp dig from the spurs. The first sergeant was old Jeremiah Wilson, and the prisoner, standing to the "front and center" in the gathering dusk, and hearing his fate pronounced, was Jeremiah's son.
Sergeant Wilson was the one man in the squadron who had hoped against hope, and now that hope was dead. It died hard, and its death was recorded in that contraction of the knees and dig of the spurs. The guidon paid no attention. In his heart he believed that the sentence was just; but his pity went out to the old soldier on his right. His eyes, however, were fixed on Private Wilson, as were those of the rest of the squadron. The prisoner had acquired a new status. Here was a human being within two weeks of the solution of the greatest of all mysteries. He was worth looking at. The condemned man saw the interest shown in him, and, upheld by the feeling of self-importance inherent in the negro character, and always brought to the surface by applause or other manifestation of unusual attention, bore himself jauntily.
There was nothing of this to sustain his old father. He had participated in executions before. For him there were no visions of walking to death with a "firm tread," as the papers say, and "dying game" before the admiring eyes of soldiers and natives. With him it was steel-ribbed facts. He could hear the bang of the trap, the snap of the rope, and the quivering creak of the scaffold. And afterward, the lonely, hopeless years. Besides, the dishonor of it. What irony to parade with thirty years of service chevrons on his sleeves, and be pointed out as the father of a man hanged for deserting to the Filipinos!
The officers went to the front and center and the formation was over. Private Wilson departed to his closely guarded prison, and old Jeremiah took the troop to quarters and dismissed it. For the first time in twenty years he forgot to "open chamber and magazine," and publish the details for the next day. He wanted to be alone; away from the pitying eyes of the black men of the troop.
He had honestly believed that there were grounds for hope. He could not see now, in the face of the evidence, how the court could have given "Buff" the extreme penalty. He thought he had explained the circumstances so clearly. Hadn't he told the tribunal of the baleful influence of Mercedes Martinez? how this mestiza, had lured his boy to his downfall? He thought he had shown positively, by his testimony, that this woman had terrible "voodoo" powers and had conjured "Buff." Hadn't they apparently listened with wonder while he related the charms that had been brought to bear on his son? the devils that had pursued him; the angels that had beckoned him away to the hills; the divine call he had received to be the George Washington of the Filipinos, and lead them to freedom?
