Twice I fell full-length in my haste to reach the yards, stumbled to my feet, found my bag, lost my hat and did not stop to look for it. The third time I fell, I was only a few yards from the caboose of the nearest train and this time I was helped to my feet by a large, unkempt individual who, from his breath, might have been Roy Belgrade’s biggest customer. My bag was picked up by one of his several ragged companions, all yellow-eyed wastrels and loafers. I took them for the kind of scum which collects around any wealthy centre, hoping for a few free scraps from the rich people’s tables, willing to stoop to petty crime if necessary, but too cowardly to be a serious threat. ‘Thank you, my good fellow.’ I patted the large man on the back. ‘Help me to the nearest New-York-bound train, and I’ll make it worth your while. Fifty cents apiece! Hurry now! I am a plain-clothes police officer on urgent business!’
This changed their scowls to smiles. One of them even bowed to me. What happened in the next few seconds has always been hard to explain. I felt a violent blow in the kidneys and fell again to my hands and knees. A metal-shod boot struck me on my forehead and I was blinded, shouting with pain. I felt one more violent blow on my thigh and heard a guttural voice say something about a ‘fucking squarehead bastard’ before I passed out. Even at that moment it was clear to me that the Klan had never been far away and that it had been a mistake to use the name of Van der Kleer. Evidently he remained connected to that perverted quasi-Klan which had overthrown the old, pure-hearted band of idealists now jailed, framed for crimes they did not commit, or scattered across the continent. I had been led very cleverly into a trap.
I awoke to hear more yelling. Someone who had been tugging at my shoes suddenly stopped and cursed. Then I felt a warm hand on my jugular and for a second thought they meant to finish me off. But the hand was simply looking for a pulse. ‘How bad are you hurt, do you know?’ I heard the deep, lazy voice of the better type of black man, my rescuer. Nobody can ever reasonably call me a racialist. I am the first to tell the story of how a negro saved my life by single-handedly driving away the white men who would cheerfully have killed me. The cur-dog pack of the KKK, operating like cowards out of darkness, were all that remained of those hooded vigilantes who had sworn to wipe away the evils of the world but had been betrayed by cross-bred infiltrators of every foul persuasion, united only in their determination to destroy the best and noblest blood of Christendom. The black giant was lifting me to my feet. I was in almost as much pain as after the Klan’s last attack. I was becoming something of an expert on their strongarm methods. Next, I checked for my wallet and found that, together with my left shoe, my overcoat, my bag and my belt, it had disappeared with my assailants. ‘We’ll get you to the cops,’ declared the noble black. Like some friendly, large dog, he had attached himself to me for reasons best known to himself. I was not ungrateful and made it clear he would be well rewarded once we reached New York and I cabled Los Angeles for funds. Ich furchte, die Tiere betrachten den Menschen als ein Wesen ihresgleichen, das in hõchst gefährlicher Weise den gesunden Tierverstand verloren hat. . . ‘But our first priority,’ I informed him, ‘is to get there before dawn. I am due to meet my sweetheart’s boat when it docks. My innocent knows nothing of America.’
He was clearly sympathetic. He helped me along the track towards the wailing locos, the stink of smoke, the sudden beams of tested lights, the flash of oiled metal, the gleam of polished brass, the sputtering sparks from the boiler stacks. ‘She’s starting for the Smoke.’ The negro indicated a massive freight train some distance away on our left. ‘And she’s pretty well guarded, so we’ll have to jump her when she gets going or the bulls’ll spot us for sure.’
‘You’re going to New York, too?’
‘Pilgrim,’ said my dusky guardian angel, ‘I am now.’ And he lifted a great, African head and opened a red mouth to bellow his cryptic amusement. I felt as Androcles must have felt to be befriended by some jungle beast for reasons that had little to do with the motives of a more advanced species. And yet there was a certain kind of self-contained dignity about my rescuer, a quality of loyalty, which more civilised whites might envy and seek to emulate. An intelligent black, like an intelligent woman, is one who recognises his limitations as well as his natural skills and virtues and puts himself at the service of some decent citizen who appreciates and respects him for what and who he is. This is a natural symbiosis. Again I do not speak of ‘superiority’ and ‘inferiority’ but of difference. There are few rational people who would question the white man’s natural grasp of technology and the nuts and bolts of the civilised world, or his sophistication in matters of political and religious institutions, and it is these things, of course, which have put us a rung or two above the others on the great Ladder of Civilisation. Make no mistake. I am the first to extend a hand down to my less-developed cousins, but that is not the same thing as artificially setting them on the rung above me. What good can that do for anybody? Many a negro has told me sincerely how he wants no part of this unnatural elevation, just as the majority of women are contemptuous of the so-called suffragists and feminists who make such fools of themselves in their ludicrous pseudo-male masquerading. Why assume the vices of an envied race and ignore the virtues of one’s own? I have never understood this impulse. We Russians have an instinctive grasp of the fundamentals of life, the great forces which are always at work in nature and which dictate so much of our fate. Woman serves man but man also serves woman, each fulfilling a role which, when in complete harmony, can make for almost heavenly happiness. Such is the relationship between master and servant, between priest and God. Christianity tells us these facts. Why are we forever forgetting or ignoring them?
To my immense relief I discovered, in a waistcoat pocket, my packet of cocaine. Soon I would be able to banish much of the pain. Determined to put myself in the hands of this good-hearted darkie (whose name, he announced, was Mr Jacob T. Mix), I already planned to offer him in Los Angeles a permanent job as my body-servant. Through no fault of his own he had fallen on hard times, a victim of prejudice in a world which had been happy to use his services in its negro regiments but had no use for him in peace. This, of course, was the hard lesson of ‘emancipation’. What use is freedom without the dignity of work?
In a daze, I was limping rapidly down the track, jumping over ties and rails, until I had reached a slow-moving box-car and was almost thrown into it by the strong arm of my new friend. I landed heavily on oily timber and banged my head again. Rolling over, I saw Mr Mix, his great tattered overcoat flying around him so that he resembled Dora’s Ancient Mariner, appearing to expand and fill the entire doorway. Then he had turned and banged shut the sliding door. ‘We’ll sit here in the dark until we’re through the town,’ he said. This suited me well enough, for I could now make surreptitious use of my cocaine. I did not offer him any, nor would he have expected it. There is a great difference between what happens to a white man under the influence of cocaine and the effects produced in the typical negro ‘hophead’. Besides, I heard the sound of a bottle being opened. ‘You’d better take a drink until you can get those bruises fixed up,’ murmured my concerned Man Friday, but I refused. I was already feeling considerably better, knowing that I was en route for the city and Esmé.