"Don't be afraid of my squealing. I'll play darky all right. I won't mind getting arrested and paying a fine, for the sake of the novelty of experiencing just what a darky does go through."
"All right; now, Christian, be merry. Play your part like a man."
The two go to a house of ill-fame, where Christian gets beastly drunk. Lanier slips out and goes to a place for which he had arranged beforehand. He undresses, applies his solution and is white again. He grasps a valise in which he has a number of things and returns to where he left Christian. He gets him by the arm and leads him until he comes to the jail in which John Wysong was incarcerated. He aroused the substitute jailer and, showing him his pass, was allowed to come in. He told the jail officials that he brought along a fellow who was going to do a kindly act for John's sister. The two, Lanier and Christian, were allowed to go into John Wysong's cell. Lanier left Christian in a drunken stupor in the cell and took the jailer and death watchman pro tem aside and supplied them with whiskey to drink. It was drugged and they were both very soon unconscious. Lanier seeing that they were sound asleep returned to John Wysong's cell. He took out a pair of clippers and soon had all of John Wysong's hair clipped off to the scalp. He got from his valise a wig made of Negro hair just like John's, and carefully adjusted it to Christian's head. He took out a syringe and injected a poison in Christian's upper lip which caused it to swell slightly. He looked from Christian to John to see how the likeness grew. He next injected a small quantity of the fluid into each of Christian's cheeks and they came out. He was astonished himself at the resemblance Christian now bore to John. He had omitted to fix the lower lip which he now did and stood off and surveyed his work.
Mr. Lanier and John together then undressed Christian, putting Christian's clothes on John and John's clothes on Christian. Lanier now examined the wig again and saw to it that it was so closely connected with the scalp that only the most rigid examination would reveal that it was a wig. He observed that the representation of the scar behind John's neck was in exactly the right place, in the adjustment of the wig to Christian's head. Christian's feet were somewhat smaller than John's, but shoes were exchanged anyway, John cutting Christian's open to get his feet into them. John did all of this without question, Erma having so often praised Mr. Lanier and having led him to believe that he would be largely instrumental in saving him. How little did she dream of the way in which it was to be done. Lanier now goes back to the drunken jailer and watchman, takes his seat as though he had never moved and finally arouses them from their slumber, joking them about being able to stand only a little drinking. After awhile he signifies his intention of leaving. John Wysong, acting as drunken Christian had acted on coming in, sat in the jail corridor waiting for Lanier. The jailer, watchman and Lanier walked down the corridor, glancing into Wysong's cell as they passed. The jail door was opened and Lanier and John Wysong walked forth, leaving Christian in the cell of the doomed to die. The death watchman drowsily took his seat by the side of the cell in which Horace Christian was sleeping his last sleep on earth.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HANGING.
On the night preceding the day set for John Wysong's execution, Erma did not retire to rest. She paced to-and-fro, wringing her hands in despair. She accused herself of having needlessly murdered her own brother, of having cast him into the midst of ravenous beasts, destitute of conscience and of feeling. She felt that Lanier had treated her shamefully to hold out to her a ray of hope, only to snatch it away and make the darkness all the more dark. She had not seen him nor heard from him since the day he made her such a faithful promise at Mrs. Turner's residence, whither she had gone concerning Margaret. This brought Margaret to her mind. She accused herself of being responsible for that poor child's ruin, in that she had allowed herself to be drawn into those social fetes in the hope of saving her brother. Instead of saving him, she had lost him, and destroyed that girl as well, she thought. As the night wore on, her agony became more and more intense.
Despair! despair! despair! Night of the soul. At the bottom of the pit of sorrow, millions and millions, deep, Erma crawled about, bitten by vipers put there, eyeless, to bite all the children of men whom God, for any cause, sends to them. Upward from the bottom of this pit Erma lifted her eyes, but the darkness was so intense that even night would have been swallowed up and lost therein. Yes, though in her room, Erma was nevertheless in this pit.
Eventually, and without apparent cause, a calm stole over Erma, her burden rolled away. As to why this was the case, she could not tell and did not know. All that she knew was, the burden had gone, and a calm had settled down upon her soul. She opened her front door and let the night air sweep down and kiss her fevered brow.