The man with the mask :: :: University of Virginia Library

The carriage no longer waits in the shadows
on the opposite side of the street. What has
become of Lester's hardy friend, who at midnight
was watching there, anxious to do the
bidding of Ellen's Brother? We cannot tell.
All is silent and deserted along the broad street.
Brother Caleb's House, with its shutters fast
closed, from the first story to the roof, glows
in the moonlight, but is silent as the grave.
Not a ray streams from a window, to tell us
that this mansion is tenanted by a waking
soul.

What deeds are those, which at the moment
are enacting within the walls of Caleb Goodleigh's
mansion?

We will enter the door, step quietly along

the broad entry, ascend the stairs, and pass
into Brother Caleb's room on the second floor.

A lamp, which stands upon a small mahogany
table, sheds its dim light over the curtains
of Brother Caleb's bed. Very luxurious curtains,
rich crimson in colour, velvet in texture,
and spotted with small flowers and bees, embroidered
in gold. The light falls upon one
side of the bed, but all the rest of the chamber
— you may picture its elegant furniture for
yourselves — is enveloped in vague twilight.

The curtains are parted, and the light shines
on Brother Caleb's face. His lean form wrapped
in a blue satin dressing gown, he rests upon
the coverlet, and turns him in his sleep, as
though he was the victim of some troubled
dream.

His face — whose bronzed hues and bold
features are strongly defined against the soft
satin of the pillow which supports his head
— is turned to the light, and you discover that
Brother Caleb is sleeping with his eyes wide
open and teeth set firmly together. Brother
Caleb's face, with sunken cheeks, wide mouth
and thin lips, forehead widening over the brows,
and eyes bulging from their lids, does not present
a pleasant picture at any time, but now,
agitated by the terrors of a dream, and mocked
by the very contrast of the silken pillow and
velvet curtain, it is as hideous as the phantom
of a nightmare.

And yet he is sleeping there, the owner of
the splendid mansion, like an unsightly kernel,
within a rich, luxurious shell. He is so very,
very rich. A bachelor, too, with no care of
wife or child upon his soul. For him, a thousand,
and ten thousand slaves, are waiting ever
— not slaves with black faces, and owned by
the life-time merely — but slaves of all hues
and races, whose services he may purchase
with his pieces of gold, and his slips of bank
note paper.

There is something grand in the idea. Here
sleeps a Rich Man who has no care, save that
involved in the legal enjoyment of his appetites.
His money — how gained, where acquired, is
not your business — his money, is but the
embodied toil of some ten thousand slaves;
the work of ten thousand common people,
petrified into bank notes and brick walls.

This money would make ten thousand poor
men happy. This money would give educa
tion to twenty thousand poor men's children.
This money, properly applied, would deprive
the penitentiary and the gallows of many a
victim, and very likely turn every victim into
an honest man.

But away with thoughts like these. Who
talks of depriving Brother Caleb of his —
PROPERTY? Property, however won, is defended
by Law, and sanctified by Religion.
Whatever robbery Property may choose to
commit, it is your part to remain silent. But
let any ragged wretch, pilfer only one of
Property's bank notes, and you shall see,
forthwith, that Property is soundly backed by
Judge and Penitentiary.

One day I saw a crowd of meanly dressed
women, holding children by their hands, go
sadly up the marble steps of a Bank. That
bank had failed, and these women and children
were by its failure, deprived of the very means
of life. There was no law for the woman and
the child; there was no Judge, bold enough to
try these robbers of the Bank.

Another day, I heard, that some thief — or
band of thieves — had stolen seventy thousand
dollars, from the President of a bank. At
once the whole community was in uproar. The
press rung out, the terrible theft, from Maine to
the Rio Grande. Judges and juries were
ready to try the thieves, and Courts sat week
after week, in patient investigation, of the
enormous crime. Fifty thousand dollars of
the people's money, were spent in recovering
seventy thousand dollars, which had been stolen
from the Bank.

Do you wonder that I compared these two
cases?

In the first case, a bank had robbed a crowd of
women and children of at least one hundred thousand
dollars. Other banks, by scores and hundreds,
had committed similar robberies. Robberies,
not of money merely, but of the very
means of subsistence, robberies of life itself.
And in these cases there was neither Judge, Jury,
nor investigation of any kind.

But in the second instance, a Bank had been
robbed — robbed of only seventy thousand
dollars — and then Judges and Courts awoke,
and Juries hungry to be just, sat up day and
night, until the Bank, once more received the
Stolen Dollars.

You need not wonder at the contrast between

these cases. The explanation is as clear
as a sunbeam. In one case Property was
robbed; in the other, it was only Labor.
The laws, the courts, the judges, belong to
Property. What Labor has on its side, is not
often named: it is amply provided, however,
with Factory, Almshouse, and Penitentiary.

And Brother Caleb was a Rich Man. Is
there no music in that name? Rich Man!
Rich because others have toiled by night and
day, in hot and cold. Rich at all hazards, and
in spite of every tie that binds the human
heart to God; rich, upon the harvest of the
common laborer's suffering; rich, with the
price of blood! This may be. Yet he is
Rich. That is enough. What a pity it is,
for Brother Caleb, that his path covered with
gold, must end at last at the same point which
terminates the poor man's way, which is only
paved with flints and thorns — end at last, at a
narrow pit, seven feet long, by eight feet
deep!

Why is not Brother Caleb immortal? Why
must your Rich Men come down to dust and
grave worms at last, just like your ragged common
people? This question troubles me
oftentime. Why does the New Testament
speak so terribly of Rich Men? Why does it
pronounce the awful sentence of divine wrath
upon the usurer, the money changer, and
“the Rich Man,” in all his varied shapes?
This also causes me much anxiety. Could
we not have a Rich Man's edition of the New
Testament, with all improper expressions carefully
expurgated? Think of it. A Money
Changer's Gospel, warranted not to offend any
Rich Man in the world, or any Rich Corporation,
from the last broken Bank, up to Trinity
Church. It is a fine idea; ponder upon it,
Preachers and Vestrymen of the Rich Churches.

While these thoughts pass over me, I am
often forced, against my will, to frame a
thought like this:

Suppose every poor man in the world, could
be removed to some other state of being only
for a month, leaving the globe to the care of
your Men of Money. What a scene would
ensue — just picture it for a moment! Rich
Men dining on gold, wearing bank notes, and
sleeping upon parchment title deeds — it would
be very singular. Trinity Church would find
a hard time of it, then. How would it pay its
Preachers, and feed its Vestrymen? Could
they eat brick walls, and drink ground rents?

So, we must be forced to the conclusion:
All the comfort, wealth and luxury in the
world, is produced by the sinew of labor —
labor that is oftentime without a crust to eat
or a couch for its repose.

And some day perchance — a thousand years
hence it may be — this ragged and hungry
Labor, may open its eyes and say to Property,
certain words, which I dare not write, but
which you can easily imagine.

But while we are preaching upon the sacred
rights of Property; our friend, Brother Caleb,
tosses uneasily upon his silken pillow, and
turns his writhing features, from side to side.

Rich, very rich, he is still afflicted by a hideous
dream. This dream divides itself into
four scenes, which sometimes appear to his
soul as separate pictures, and then melt confusedly
into each other, like the colors of a
kaleidescope.

First, Brother Caleb beholds a brave ship
resting upon the waters of a waveless sea,
under a burning sky. The sky is without a
cloud, the ship is distinctly mirrored in the
glassy surface of the becalmed ocean, and the
sun, from the very centre of the heavens, pours
down a flood of intense, yes, intolerable heat.

“My good ship Falcon!” muttered Brother
Caleb in his dream. “If we land the cargo
at Cuba, we will clear two hundred thousand
dollars.”

Then from the lower decks, yes from the
nooks, and caverns of this gallant Ship, the
“cargo” comes crawling into light. For it is
a living cargo. It breathes, eats and drinks,
and may be sold, for actual dollars. It is composed
of three hundred men and women and
children, who now throng the deck, and gaze
with fevered eyes, upon the fiery sky.

But lo! a boat, propelled by oars, and bearing
armed men, with the Flag of the Union
at the helm, appears on the horizon, within
sight of the telescope, and skims silently
over the waters. It is many a mile away, but
Brother Caleb sees it with his telescope and
knows it well.

“The boat of that cursed frigate, which has
pursued me for days, and which I would have
escaped but for this calm.” Thus he murmurs
in his dream.

The boat comes nearer — what shall Brother
Caleb do? Make resistance? The idea is
vain, for two-thirds of his men are sick with
a plague, engendered by the foul atmosphere
of the Slave Ship. Shall Brother Caleb be
taken, on board of his good ship Falcon, and
arrested as a Slaver, a sort of mercantile
Pirate, whose Capital is flesh and blood?

Look with your own eyes, and see how
Brother Caleb relieves himself from his peril.

The negroes are sent below, and then
brought forth again, one by one. To the plank
with him, to the plank with her, to the plank
with every one! Weights of iron and lead are
tied to each negro's limbs, and a walk along a
plank, followed by a sudden plunge into the
still ocean, removes the cargo, from the sight of
day. Thus Brother Caleb rids himself of his
cargo — men, women, children, all, are quietly
put out of sight, under that fervid sky, and beneath
the gloomy surface of that waveless sea.

“Ho, ho, now let them come,” laughed
Brother Caleb in his dream. “Overboard with
handcuffs and manacles — overboard with
every thing that may even hint the character
of our late cargo. Up with the Star-Spangled
Banner, and then we'll see who dares to call
our good Falcon by the name of Slaver.”

This was the first part of Brother Caleb's
dream. The light beside the bed shone full
upon his cold blue eyes, as his soul became
absorbed in the details of a new scene.

“Come, Lemuel, we are in Paris, and we
will have a quiet game of rouge et noir. This
way — up the stairs, my boy — we are in
Frascati's saloon. Stake your money, on the
red, on the red, my good fellow.”

And in his dream, he saw his friend Lemuel
Gardiner stake his money on the red, until
twenty thousand dollars — the heritage of
Annie and Harry Bayne — had passed from
Lemuel's hands.

“Poor Lem!” mutters Brother Caleb —
“So unsuspecting! Little does he dream that
ten of the twenty thousand passed into my
hands.”

In his sleep his chest heaved violently, and
he made an effort to raise his hands to his
face, but they remained cramped and stiffened
by his side.

Then came the third part of his dream.

A beautiful woman with golden hair and
eyes of summer blue. Alone in a darkened
chamber, she awaits the coming of Dr. Gatherwood.

“Alice Bayne!” mutters brother Caleb,
and then pursues this scene to its sequel.

It must have been a fearful sequel, for as he
dream it over, Brother Caleb's forehead was
wet with beaded moisture.

The last scene of the dream.

Brother Caleb stood at the foot of a stairway,
which led upward — far, far upward,
into the clouds. It seemed to him, that he was
forced to ascend this stairway, whose every
step of cold white alabaster, quivered to and
fro, like the folds of a curtain. He shrank
shuddering from the first step, but an invisible
influence urged him onward. In his dream he
began to ascend.

And as in his dream, he touched the first
step of the stairway, he arose from the bed,
and clad in the loose dressing gown, took the
light from the table.

He moves to the door of his chamber, while
his eyes are cold and death-like, imagining that
at every step across the velvet carpet, he is
gaining another step upon the stairway of his
dream.

He passes into the entry, still asleep, although
his limbs possess the power of motion.
He begins slowly to ascend that wide stairway
of his own mansion, up which he passed with
Charles Lester, an hour ago. And while his
body ascends the real stairway, his soul is
absorbed with the endless stairway, which
leads upward, into infinite space.

Is it not a strange spectacle? Light in hand,
the dressing gown flowing loosely around his
gaunt frame, he passes upward, with a noiseless
step, at the same time, gazing straight
forward with his fixed eyeballs.

Following the windings of the stairway, he
reaches the third floor, and his light streams in
uncertain gleams, upon the entry below.

Two figures steal from the shadows — they
approach the stairway and look upward toward
the light. You recognize the rubicund face of
Stewel Pydgeon, and the spare form and harsh
features of Lemuel Gardiner, “the Converted
Monk.”

While the lamp sheds a dim light from the
third floor, listen to the hurried conversation
of those men:

`Who is it Lem? Kin you see his face?”
asks Stewel.

“Yes — yes — it's Goodleigh,” whispered
Lemuel, grasping the bannister of the staircaso.
“Awake too, and at this hour!”

“Then our cake is all dough,” again said
Stewel.

Lemuel presses his hand to his forehead,
and at that moment the light passes away.

“I have not gained entrance into this house,
at this hour, for nothing,” says Lemuel with
an oath: “Wait here, Stewel. I will go up
stairs, and meet him face to face. When I
call, you come — will you?”

“Yes, my dear,” responded Stewel.

“Wait,” whispers the Converted Monk and
with that word he stealthily ascends the stairs.

As he reaches the top, a sudden light flashes
upon his face. He beholds the form of Brother
Caleb, as he stands before the door of an apartment,
on the third floor.

“He goes to the Iron Room,” the thought
half escapes Lemuel's lips, and at the very
moment Brother Caleb disappears.

Cautiously along the entry, steals Lemuel
Gardiner. He listens for a moment at the
door — all is still — but the light from within
streams once more into his face.

“I will enter, and meet him face to face,”
he mutters, and pushing open the door, enters
the apartment. It is the same into which
Brother Caleb conducted Charles Lester, an
hour ago.

Brother Caleb is there. His back toward
Lemuel, he holds the light extended in his
right hand, and pauses before a narrow door-way,
which is sunken in the thickness of the
wall.

“The door of the Iron Room!” mutters
Lemuel.

Through that door, you remember, not long
ago, Charles Lester disappeared.

Lemuel does not pause, although his blood
is cold and hot by turns — although his heart
leaps to his throat. He glides on tip-toe across
the floor, he stands directly behind Brother
Caleb, as Brother Caleb is gazing upon the
panel of the narrow door.

It is a moment of feverish suspense.

Clenching his hands, Lemuel surveys the
tall form of Goodleigh, awaiting with set
teeth and hushed breath, the moment when he
shall turn and look into his face.

“It rocks, this cursed stairway, but I shall
soon gain its summit,” thus Brother Caleb, still
asleep, murmurs as he ascends the stairway of
his dream.

The sound of his voice, breaking so abruptly
upon the stillness, penetrates Lemuel at once
with the extremity of cowardice and hardihood.
He is resolved to dare the worst, although
he trembles in every nerve.

Brother Caleb turns, and looks into the face
of Lemuel, with his glassy eyes.

Here, at the entrance of the Iron Room, let
us leave them for a little while, and take up
the adventures of Charles Lester. It is an
hour since he passed that threshold. Let us
relate the history of that hour.