Whole streets of the city are suddenly deserted and the business houses closed, for this or that lightly given reason, and the next hour that street, under obscure leaders may be filled with a howling mob, that seems to be howling about nothing.
The slander still persists, with infinite variations, that the man who poisoned Drug Store Smith and Coffee House Kusuko did it at the direct instigation of old Boone. Such an action is indeed far from Boone’s nature. And this, all discredited leaders, in a panic for their personal safety, steadily maintain.
July 25:—I am again the Malay servant at the house of the Man from Singapore.
The death of Drug Store Smith and Coffee House Kusuko was exacted of the Mayor’s son by Montague Rock. It was an earnest of the sincerity of his conversion to the Singaporian cult. The Man from Singapore had nothing to do with it and, in fact, does not approve of the use of such a drastic initiation, “But who can control these zealous proselytes, these foreigners?” he says. The slandering of Boone, it appears, by the talk of the Man from Singapore with his daughter, is also the work of this fanatical convert, Montague Rock. It is not exactly the Singaporian way. But again “who can control these foreigners?”
July 26:—About the beginning of July, four men come to town, who took part in the burning alive of a negro in Chicago. The burning was provoked by a yellow journal’s account, giving hear-say evidence against the negro. Disturbing their minds not at all over the subsequent vindication of the black man, his executioners come to Springfield, intoxicated with their recent leadership, the first taste of public power they have ever known, the smell of burning flesh delighting their cannibal nostrils. They take odd jobs from Boone and profess to be his violent partizans. They are more violent than he desires or uses.
And so tonight, while I am chained in the body of the Malay body-servant, the news comes over the phone, particularly grieving the Man from Singapore, that Boone has been hanged from the same tree at the northwest corner of the State House ground, where Surto Hurdenburg was hanged on the twentieth of June. The four men from Chicago, who lead the mob, want to burn Boone to death, but the rest of the crowd insist on a hanging. The crowd is not composed of partizans of the City Hall. There are few people who were at the murder of Hurdenburg; according to the report over the phone, equally obscure members of all factions are represented.
The Man from Singapore says he deeply regrets the death of Boone who was an honorable and open foe of Singapore. He almost weeps before the beautiful Mara and, as to what she thinks, I know not. He says that if he had had his way, Boone should have lived several years longer, but the fashions, even of proselytes in Springfield, are past finding out. “They are WHITE people, you know,” he says to Mara, “even if they are converted.”
Then he is gone to his writing room in the white tower of his house, and Mara sits waiting for Crawling Jim, who is due later this evening.
And here let it be recorded that, the Singaporian issue becoming more bitter, the towers of Springfield and all the principal cities of the United States have been painted white this last month, to drive out the more fanatical Singaporians. In complete harmony with this hysterical and fantastic and humorous procedure, Crawling Jim has been under the necessity of wearing a small white plume in his hat, or resigning his place as President of the Robin Redbreast Flying Club. Nothing is said among the members. Plumes begin to appear one at a time. Soon a majority have them. Jim put on his plume late yesterday. He values his supremacy in that flying club more than any victory in love or any dogma of religion.
But having had a part in the Judas tricks which have ended in the hanging of Boone, he knocks most confidently on the door tonight, when it is almost midnight, and I let him in. He carries in his hand the hat with the white plume.