The Great Negro Plot by Mat Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

as this could easily grow beyond its initial source. Its hunger devouring an entire neighborhood
     without pause.
    Much commended in the aftermath, the gathered crowd got most of the furniture out of the lieutenant governor's home before
     the blaze completely engulfed it. Fine couches brought from Europe met sooty hands in the chill late afternoon air. Oil portraits
     risked becoming little more than flammables. But what did it matter? Despite their efforts, despite the eventual arrival of
     the fire engines, it was soon determined that not the home, nor the chapel next door, could be saved. A violent southeast
     gale had goaded the flames faster than could be discouraged.
    It was decided that efforts should be diverted instead to the secretary's office, situated right outside the English fort's
     gate, where the priceless records of the colony were kept, as well as the soldiers' barracks that stood across the quad from
     the governor's house. With speed and diligence born of desperation, the citizens stormed the buildings, throwing records and
     books out the windows on the town side to save them from destruction as the heaving winter wind blew documents chaotically
     down the city's streets. Most were later recovered, and it was a good thing, too, as soon after the office building was vacated,
     the roof became engulfed as well.
    Chaos took hold as the contents of these rich structures were vomited, neighbors trying desperately in the confusion to save
     their city from destruction. As if nature wanted an inferno, the wind continued its mischief, draped with smoke and decorated
     with the floating red embers of civilization. Soon, too, the nature of man seemed to conspire for the blaze as well. When
     fire ignited the roof of the nearby military barracks, not long after it took the office building, the rumor spread through
     the crowd that there was now a greater danger that must be avoided: there was gunpowder in that building. The humble barracks
     was now on the verge of becoming the largest bomb any had had the misfortune of standing next to.
    As the new alarm spread, so did the crowd flee. Magically, the majority remembered previous engagements for which they were
     due, and silently slipped away into the shadows.
    "People! Everyone! There is no greater danger! The barracks are empty! Come back!" pleaded the lieutenant governor, but his
     desperation only sent those he futilely addressed further. He was not exactly an objective source, was he? And so, without
     human impediment, the buildings were free to burn to the ground, and did so. After the military barracks and surrounding structures
     had collapsed to piles of char and ember, as feared, a collection of hand grenades suddenly exploded within the devastation.
    When night fell and Mr. Cornelius Van Home, captain of the local civilian militias, organized seventy armed men to go marching
     around the town, many just called him a madman. A paranoid fool, they said. Yes, the fire had taken down much of the military
     fort, but that was no cause for storming the streets, leading an armed band in circles till daybreak. Surely there was a less
     sensational reason behind the incident. The lieutenant governor had only just had his gutters cleaned by the plumber that
     morning. Was it not possible that an errant coal from his soldering iron's pot had started the inferno? Sure, the fire seemed
     to have started at several places along the roof at once, but no one could account for such things. Nothing to get hysterical
     about, nothing to see here. Everyone just go home.
    Then, exactly a week later, a fire broke out midday near the bridge at the southwest end of town at the house of Captain Warren,
     brother-in-law to Chief Justice DeLancey. The fire engines came soon enough, and despite the fact that much of the roof had
     already been consumed, they were successful in dousing the blaze before more damage could be done. Again, it was a roof that
     ignited. Another fire so