“Is it that way all over Corinth?” asked Robert. “I haven’t noticed. Yes, I have. There haven’t been any Catholics at most of the functions. And there did seem to be some dissention at the club. There’s no sense to it. It’s got to stop. Why should a fellow risk his life in Europe fighting for democracy and come home to find his own town torn up by the most undemocratic barriers in the world—religion.
“We’re forming an organization—that is the veterans of the war—a democratic organization where every one is on the same footing as every one else. Even rank means nothing there. The private has the same rights and privileges as the general. Race, social position, religion—all these distinctions have been swept away. The American Legion is for all who have been in the service. Why, it doesn’t even matter whether they enlisted or were drafted! That’s real Americanism. But Pinkney keeps talking about the Tribe’s campaign for Americanism. There must be some mistake somewhere. If the Knights of Columbus are going into politics and stirring up religious prejudice, it’s got to stop. I don’t know exactly what Pinkney means by white supremacy, aside from the supremacy it naturally has, and I don’t see the necessity of a society standing for pure womanhood—why that’s part of every man’s religion, of every social and moral law in the world!—but I do know what Americanism means. I can see that it’s needed here and I’m going into the Tribe because I believe a powerful organization like that can help spread it!”
XXIV
Late Tuesday night Robert was picked up at a street corner which had been designated, by an automobile filled with white-robed and hooded figures. The Tribesman beside him placed his finger on his lips and the journey was made in silence. It was a fantastic ride, through the dimly lighted streets, then through the shadowy suburbs, into the country. There was a full moon and under it the earth looked a grotesque thing of shadows—a phantasy in black and white.
As they left the city, Robert noticed other cars, with similar loads of hooded figures, ahead and behind them, all moving silently and without lights. Within a half hour they had reached a large field, the fences guarding which had been pulled down, and in the center of which a circle of cars was being parked under the silent direction of Tribesmen.
Robert and the members of his party dismounted and crossed the field to a thickly-wooded glade, at the edge of which a narrow path was faintly visible in the moonlight. Other candidates joined him until there were perhaps one hundred. These were formed into a long column by means of whispers and gestures. It was exactly midnight by Robert’s wrist watch when suddenly a tall figure in white, bearing aloft a fiery cross, appeared. He marched to the head of the column, the light of the rood casting a ruddy reflection on the upturned faces of the initiates and on the figures in white and causing the shadows to dance back and forth grotesquely. As the bearer of the fiery cross moved slowly forward, the neophytes in groups of ten, each conducted by a Tribesman, followed along the path in the grove, which now gleamed and faded before their footsteps.
It was an awe-inspiring sight. Hamilton was carried back to his childhood, to his first fear of shadows and spectres. Weird ghost stories flickered through his mind. He remembered strange rites of primitive peoples—the initiation of headhunters into their bloody mysteries, of the fearful Thugs, of the secret societies of the Bantus. The shadows clutched about him and the blaze of light flamed up and down ahead.
He had proceeded perhaps fifty feet, when he was suddenly aware of a hooded figure standing motionless beside the path, a grim sentinel, peering at him through the slits in his mask. Fifty feet farther, at a bend in the path, stood another sentinel. They had passed six of these silent figures in white, when the winding column was brought to a sudden halt. The bearer of the cross was being questioned by a guardian. His voice rang through the grove:
“What if any of your party should prove a traitor?”
The reply came in a deep, solemn voice to the hushed initiates: