Two of us white men of the better class! Willoughby Howard had taken him for a white man!
It was like an accolade. A light blazed through the haunted caverns of his soul; he swelled with a vast exultation.
Willoughby Howard had taken him for a white man! Then, by God, he would be one! Since he was nothing in this life, he could at least die—and in his death he would be a white man! Nay, more:—he would die shoulder to shoulder with one of that family whose blood he shared. He would show that he, too, could shed that blood for an idea or a principle! For humanity! At the thought he could feel it singing in his veins. Oh, to be white, white, white! The dreams and the despairs of all his miserable and hampered life passed before him in a whirl, and now the cry was answered!
“Yes,” he said, lifting his head, and rising at that instant into a larger thing than he had ever been, “I will stand by you. I will die with you.” And under his breath he added—“my brother.”
They had not long to wait. In the confused horror of that night things happened quickly. Even as Carter spoke the wounded negro struggled to his feet with a scarce articulate cry of alarm, for around the corner swept a mob, and the dwarf with matted hair was in the lead. He had come back with help to make sure of his job.
With the negro cowering behind them, the white man and the mulatto stepped forth to face the mob. Their attitude made their intention obvious.
“Don't be a damned fool, Willoughby Howard,” said a voice from the crowd, “or you may get hurt yourself.” And with the words there was a rush, and the three were in the midst of the clamoring madness, the mob dragging the negro from his two defenders.
“Be careful—don't hurt Willoughby Howard!” said the same voice again. Willoughby turned, and, recognizing the speaker as an acquaintance, with a sudden access of scorn and fury and disgust, struck him across the mouth. The next moment his arms were pinioned, and he was lifted and flung away from the negro he had been fighting to protect by half a dozen men.
“You fools! You fools!” he raged, struggling toward the center of the crowd again, “you're killing a white man there. An innocent white man——— Do you stop at nothing? You're killing a white man, I say!”
“White man?” said the person whom he had struck, and who appeared to bear him little resentment for the blow. “Who's a white man? Not Jerry Carter here! He wasn't any white man. I've known him since he was a kid—he was just one of those yaller niggers.”