Charles Stevens stared when Anthony told him of the burning of the
old ledgers. Then he smiled. "What matter?" said he. "It's a curious
happening, to be sure; but let them go, and think no more of them."
Anthony put his hand on his uncle's arm.
"Through those books," said he, "I hoped to come at certain things that
have been troubling this house."
"What things?" asked Charles. He wore a smiling lightness; but there
was a sick look in his eyes.
"I don't know," said Anthony. "I can only hazard a guess." He regarded
his uncle a moment, his hand still on his arm. "Up to this time I have
never spoken to you directly," said he, "and I had not meant to until I
had all the facts that it were possible to collect. But I ask you, now:
has it never come into your mind that things here have not been well?"
"Nothing could come out of those old books but ghosts," said Charles.
"Ghosts of old transactions, of old merchants, of old voyages. Shall we
give time to such things now,--shadows, matters past and done,--when
there is so much present substance to engage one's attentions? Let us
fill our minds with the future, for the future has gifts to give, and
all its days are unused. The past is dust. Let us close our eyes to
it; let us put its sad corpses back into their graves." Charles patted
Anthony on the back. "Come, now! You've spoken of this once; let that
once be enough." He went to a cabinet, took out a decanter, and poured
out two brimming goblets of wine. "To the days ahead!" said Charles.
"To the good days ahead: a sharp lookout, swift voyages, and rich
cargoes!"
In the immediate days that followed this, Charles was more active than
any one had ever seen him before. A fever of energy seemed to consume
him; he tracked up and down the floor of his private room, his lame
foot dragging, his brain glowing and planning; the letters he wrote
went to the ends of the world. May passed. June came and spent its
sunny days. And on one of these the _Rufus Stevens_ slipped down the
ways and into the water--a mighty ship, her hull dipping and bowing
before hundreds. And how the workmen swarmed in her; how her masts
reared when set in place; how wide and smooth and clean her deck was!
What wondrous spaces were in the hold! What excellent quarters for'ard!
What enormous yards and sails. And the goods that were stored in her!
There seemed no end to it! And then she sailed away for the Far East,
sail over sail, her bow cutting the water and piling it whitely about
her. Charles and Anthony and Captain Weir left her outside the capes,
and, from the deck of a sloop, saw her wing away into the depths beyond
the ocean's curve.
"With wind and weather," said Charles, "she'll dock in Calcutta in
ninety days. And next spring, when the ice is well out, she'll show
her topsails in the river once again. And then," he slapped Anthony
gleefully on the back, "I'll engage to surprise you. Such a cargo as
she'll carry you'll never have seen before. I'll make their eyes pop,"
said Charles extravagantly, his own snapping with expectation. "There
has never been any merchandizing in this port that could properly
be called such. Small ships make narrow markets; trade has been
undernourished. But with vessels like the _Rufus Stevens_ we'll mark a
change; we'll come to our due now, swiftly enough."
In the days that followed this, Charles fitted back into his old habits
and ways. He was cheerful and easy; he ceased walking the floor; he
sat in the corner of his sofa and dreamed; he talked with confidence
of the great gull of a ship, pushing eastward around the world. He
loved the idea of her return. That day was to be one of amazements;
strange lights were to be in the sky; the ship, as though manned by
genii and sailing out of enchanted seas, was to appear suddenly,
magnificently laden. What was to result was like the providence of a
young and generous god; wharves and warehouses were to be showered with
extraordinary stuffs.
Charles touched this picture with a new color each day; and every touch
seemed to fit him more snugly into his old groove. Each sad corpse,
of which he had spoken to Anthony, had been buried deep, and its dull
woe had been buried with it. He took his old, careless hold upon the
business; he gave unusual orders in a casual way; he chuckled over
the pages of "Tom Jones"; he voyaged with his robust old mariners; he
laughed with the dramatists of the Restoration. Fear fell from him.
July, hot, wearing, lowering, drew its length through the port; and out
of the steam and stink of it a terror grew and took shape. Among the
islands, the Barbados distemper lifted its head. But it had done this
in every hot season in the memory of living men, and so no attention
was paid to it. A ship brought its poisonous essence into the port;
several persons died of it along the waterfront; but still no heed was
given. Many people whom it touched had died at various times; it was a
thing to be expected. And so, ghostly and furtive and purposeful, the
thing crept on its million feet, and took hold with its million hands.
August came in, even hotter than July. Dock Creek, ill favored, filled
with market sloops, threw up a steam; at low tide the accumulated
filth in the city docks poured poison into the air; carcasses of
animals rotted in the streets.
"Nine dead this week," said Christopher Dent. "Inflamed eyes, rough
tongues, aching heads, hot skins, at first; then the whites of the eyes
turned yellow, free bleeding at the nose, black vomit, and death in
eight days with the body turned purple. 'Tis the Barbados monster come
freshly among us."
A stout old man in a wig, and with a walking-staff and varnished boots,
who stood at the counter in the apothecary's shop, smiled at this.
"Let him grimace as he will," said he. "He'll frighten none but the old
women. We know him, and have measured the lengths he can go."
"Nine dead in a week," said Christopher Dent. "That's a deal, Dr. Blue."
"It is nothing," said the physician. "You have your mind fixed on it,
and so it seems important. As many will die in the same time of the
bloody-flux, and you'll never say a word." Having transacted his
business, Dr. Blue grasped his staff firmly and prepared to go. "But if
it advance," said he, with stout assurance, "we know how to meet it.
The letting of a little blood takes the venom out of these disorders
fast enough; and where the lancet will not do a purge will act in its
stead. After all," said the doctor, "the pill of aloes and white soap
is the final defense of mankind."
After he had gone Christopher turned to Tom Horn.
"I have noticed," said he, "that fat men always talk like that. Little
can disturb their confidence. Nevertheless," and he shook his head, "I
look to see much trouble from this visitation."
"Of a night," said Tom Horn, "there is a thickness in the air--a warm,
slippery thickness such as I've noticed in hot countries in time of
pestilence. And the dawn breaks yellow across the Jerseys. I've seen
it many a morning of late from my window; people are going about with
dread in their faces, and every man looks oddly at his neighbor."
The next week seven only died; and those who were disposed to take the
threat lightly, smiled and wore tolerant looks.
"Seven dead," said Christopher, as he looked up from a mortar in which
he was grinding some bark; "but do you take heed to those who are ill?
There are more poor people tossing on hot beds to-night with yellow
death sitting beside them than have ever done so in this region before."
Anthony spoke to Dr. King across the physician's table.
"From time to time this distemper takes a great toll of lives in New
Orleans," said he. "And there's little done to fight it back, except
bitter drafts and things that are a deal like witchcraft."
Dr. King looked serious.
"We practise equal follies here," said he. "Blood has always run to
propitiate the demons in time of pestilence; and we are still calling
for it. Only to-day I heard of a man who had been bled five times
between dawn and sundown, to drain the venom of the complaint from his
system. But, I suppose, if the disease mounts, these things must go
their course; after they've failed we can have the filth of the town
buried or burned, and bring some degree of sanity into practise."
So each day the city's surgeons proudly flashed their lancets; blood
ran into basins in every household; the sick were given slimy, bitter
drinks; not a stir of air was permitted in their chambers. Outdoors
the heat poured down on the rotting masses in docks and byways; street
by street the beleaguering pestilence took the town. The church-bells
began to toll early of a morning; at first there were little spaces
between their ringing; then the spaces closed up--filled in; the
tolling grew constant--never ceasing. It was death sounding in the
citizen's ear; and death met his eye in the funeral cortèges that
darkened the streets.
The roads leading from the town were filled with vehicles and people
on foot, carrying bundles of belongings, all in flight before the
pestilence. Those who kept in the city lighted fires in the streets, as
the smoke and flame were said to have a killing effect on the plague.
The burning of gunpowder was universally recommended; fowling-pieces,
muskets, small ordnance, holster pistols, barked and roared and
stuttered through the storm of bells, and the smoke of the fires.
Tobacco was cherished as a foe to the disease by many, and was smoked
and snuffed in quantities; garlic was considered unfriendly to the
thing and was chewed and kept in the pockets and placed in the shoes;
pitch was set alight in fire-shovels and carried smoking through
dwellings to drive out the possible presence.
[Illustration: "THE ROADS LEADING FROM THE TOWN WERE FILLED WITH
VEHICLES AND PEOPLE ON FOOT."]
"I cling to it," said Christopher Dent, as he labored in his
laboratory, distilling and compounding the cures and preventatives most
in demand, "that camphor is the most efficient and harmless agent in
treatment of this disorder; unctuous, pellucid, bitterly aromatic, if
inhaled it overcomes the poisons of the fever, and has a cooling effect
upon the brain and blood."
"Many keep to a remedy discovered by four French thieves," said Tom
Horn. "These villains went about among the sick and dead while the
plague ravaged Marseilles some years ago, never catching the disorder.
When taken in their plundering they said the medicine had kept it from
them, and bartered the secret for their liberty."
"Rogues who would rob the dead would lie with little remorse," said
Christopher. "And the thing is but a vinegar sprinkled upon the
clothes. It may have a certain virtue, but I doubt the method of its
use; to do good a medicine must be drunken, or inhaled directly, or
taken up through the pores of the body. However, if a man comes to my
shop who has faith in _vinaigre des quatre voleurs_, make it for him
quickly, and of good materials."
The number of people who left the city as the pestilence advanced was
large; among them were government officials and doctors of medicine,
whose fear was greater than their sense of duty. So thick was the
flying horde along the roads that the outlying villages and towns were
stirred with fright; sentinels were posted, weapons in their hands, to
stem the advance. New York, in a panic, refused to allow the stricken
port's shipping to come up to the city, forbade coaches to run between
the two places, and appointed a day of fasting and prayer. The highways
were abandoned by commerce; the mails were discontinued; armed guards
were stationed at all the ferries, and patrolled the waterfronts.
What physicians were left in the city were worked to desperation:
nurses of character could not be had; and the friendless sick fell
into the hands of the reckless, drunken, and depraved. The hospital at
Bush Hill was gorged with the stricken; loathsome wretches made sport
of burying the dead. And, as the gates of doom seemed folding back,
fanatics made haste in coming forward, lifting their doleful voices
as they came. Woe! woe! unto the wicked! As the cities of the plain
had withered under the anger of the Almighty, so would this city on
the river. Its sins had been many; it had given itself to lechery, to
strong drink, and to following after idols; it had lusted after women,
after gold; evil desires had burned shameful letters into its forehead;
it had been strong in its wickedness, and had looked at righteousness
with a face of brass. And now it was stricken; evil had come upon
it. Woe! Sorrow to the sinner caught in the day of his sin, and the
strength of his passion. Heavy was the hand of the Almighty: dreadful
was the day when an answer was asked, and none could be given!
As the infection grew and the customary remedies failed, one by one,
the protests of Dr. King, of Charles Stevens, and other forward-looking
men began to be heeded. The streets and open gutters were cleaned and
flushed, pestilential pits were filled in, rotting accumulations were
burned. The ceaseless tolling of bells, keeping death ever before the
eyes of the sick, was stopped; the solemn-pacing funeral processions,
which frightened the public mind, were forbidden; the burning of
street-fires, the exploding of muskets were put an end to, for the
mental states they brought about could not but feed fresh lives to the
plague. The dead were now buried in the still of the night, and no
bells marked their going to their graves; the glare of the fires and
rattling of shots no longer frightened the timid.
The hospital established for the poor was an old mansion on the
outskirts of the city; here, so the thought was, beds were to be
had, also food and nurses, and physicians were to be frequently in
attendance. Anthony had heard of it during the days and nights which he
spent striving to ease the suffering of the desperately circumstanced;
but he had had no time to pause for facts. The young man's experience
with the same malady at New Orleans had taught him many shrewd ways of
meeting it; and his money went in medicines and in food the sick could
eat. But after a month of this he felt his strength going; and his
nerves were shaken. The number of his charges had grown enormously; he
could not take care of them all; so he spoke of Bush Hill.
But they cried out in fright! Any suffering, but not that place! Any
death, uncared for, unthought of, but not Bush Hill! So, frowning,
surprised, Anthony went to the place to look and see.
It was night; few people were abroad; the death-carts, lighted by
torches in the hands of men walking ahead, trundled through the
streets; at each door marked with the dreaded sign a sad, wrapped form
was thrust out and thrown into the vehicle with its fellows in death.
Torches glimmered in the potter's-field, as the young man passed; dim
figures were digging, digging; the place was scarred as by a plow.
Anthony approached Bush Hill across the fields; a veil of insects
hummed in the glare from its open windows; a stench seemed to drip from
it; now and then the roar of drunken carnival came from its recesses.
He went in. The sick were huddled on dirty straw, filthy, abandoned,
terrible in the smoky lamplight; they moaned and called for water; they
raved and babbled and cursed in their utter wretchedness. The awful
dead, stark and neglected, were on every side.
"In God's name!" said Anthony.
At his feet a woman was gasping: she was a Spanish woman; she held
tightly to a brass crucifix, and called upon angels and saints, upon
glorious martyrs and confessors to see her die. O immaculate heart of
God! Most holy and exalted Virgin! Cherubim! Pillars of high heaven!
Shining archangels! A naïve paradise was strewn about her in the filth;
the way of death was ranked with the holy, gathered to watch her pass.
"Water!" A man lifted himself out of the dirty straw. "If there's a
human heart in this place, and a hand that's able to give it--water!"
A woman moved forward with a cup; after the man had drunk she eased him
back, and, as she turned, Anthony saw it was Mademoiselle Lafargue.
"Here!" said he, startled.
"Some one must do it," she said.
"Are there no nurses?"
The roar of drunken carnival lifted from the recesses of the buildings;
shrieks of laughter and screamed curses rose with it.
"Those are the nurses," she said. "None would risk death but them; and
they are here not to care for the sick but to eat and drink what has
been given for the comfort of the sick."
"How long have you been here?"'
"I come for a time each day, but I am able to do very little."
Anthony looked about at the piteous horror of the place.
"I wonder," he said, "that you have been able to do anything. It seems
beyond human help."
During the last few weeks, while he was working himself deeper and
deeper into the rotting heart of the plague, he caught the flitting of
another, on ahead of him, who was giving of strength and spirit, and
who was followed by blessings. Then the name came to him, back along
the way she had gone, and a comfort had soothed him, an exaltation had
stirred his heart. Then one night they met in a place of death, and he
had marveled at the courage in her face, the readiness of her hands. A
second time he met her, again in the night, and heard her plead with
the brutal drivers of the death-carts for reverence for the dead;
once in the potter's-field he had taken the spade from her hands, and
finished the shallow grave she had been digging for a dead child.
And now, as he stood talking with her in the pest-house, there arose a
voice.
"In the garret, my dear sons," it said. "I must lie in the garret; that
is the place I like best."
A bent, withered old woman, whom Anthony had noted prowling among the
sick, muttering and chuckling, paused beside the man's bed; her long,
discolored teeth showed in a kind of horrid glee as she looked down at
him.
"So you'd like the garret, would you, my gentleman?" she said. "The
garret of that little place which you have kept so close all these
years? So would I. I'd like to lie there, too. God's truth, I would.
It'd be a rare place to ransack; I'd love, sir, to go about in it."
The man tried to arise; but he could not.
"Where is Rehoboam? Where is Nathaniel?" he asked. "Where are my sons?"
The old woman cackled.
"Now, there are the shrewd ones for you," she said. "There is the
careful pair. Down at the door, outside, they put you; and away with
them, as hard as they could pelt!"
The old man closed his eyes and began to mutter.
"It is nothing, my sons. Nothing at all. Have I not had pains in the
head before? The plague will not enter my house. No, no! There is no
gorging and stuffing and high living here. And so there is nothing to
attract it."
"Gorging and stuffing," said the hag, her yellow teeth showing all the
more. "Not enough food has gone into that house in a year to keep a
pigeon fat a fortnight."
"The garret is high," said the old man. "It's well out of reach, and
airy, and cool. From there I can watch the wind blow the smoke from the
chimneys, and see the weather-vanes turn, and the flags fly from the
mast tops. So put me in the garret, Nathaniel. And draw the cupboard
near to my bed."
"Ha, ha!" said the old woman. "The cupboard!"
"And the chest, Rehoboam; place the chest where I can reach it. Beside
my bed. And then I will sleep; and to-morrow I will be well."
"To-morrow," said the old woman, "you'll be with the worms. And you'll
give them no joy, either; for there'll be spare picking, indeed, on the
like of you."
"Who is this?" asked Anthony, as he moved toward the bed.
"This, sir," said the hag, "is old Bulfinch. He's a usurer by trade,
and now lies here rotting of the fever."
"Is he badly off?" asked the young man.
"I would not care to be as badly," said the crone. "I've seen men
better off than he die like that," and she puffed out her breath. "But
_he'll_ not die readily. Oh, no; he's one of the kind whose claws are
sunk into life. He has cupboards and chests to anchor him to the world,
has this gentleman; and, if all the tales you hear are true, they'll
be rare, heavy bits of furniture, indeed." She chuckled and wagged
her ancient head. "They'd be a fine sight for famished eyes, those
two things," she said. "And I wish it were given to me to open them.
Gold," she said. "And silver. Bags of it. Spanish and Dutch and British
pieces, as broad as your hand. He was a sharp-nosed one for minted bits
of metal, was old Bulfinch. Chests and cupboards stuffed with them. God
save us! And, for all, here we have him, with yellow-jack pinched tight
in his bowels."
"And his sons brought him here, you say?"
"They did; in a cart; and in the night. And they pitched him down by
the door, and stayed hardly long enough for a word."
"I'll lie in the garret, Nathaniel," persisted the old man. "I'll lie
in the garret, where it's airy and cool. I'll be quiet, there, and the
pain in my head will leave me."
The hag chuckled gleefully.
"What, my gentleman," she said, "would you be where you'd stop the
brisk snapping of locks, the opening of drawers, the throwing back of
chest-lids? Out on you for a spoil-sport! Some one else counts your
money to-night," she said. "Your noble sons have the handling of your
broad, fine, bright pieces. I can see them settling to it now like a
pair of weasels."
The clouded mind of the sick man sensed only a little of what she said.
"Plenty of room in the chest," he muttered. "Oh, yes, plenty of room
for more. The years and years it takes to gain a very little. The weary
years."
The old woman held a candle so that the light could fall on his face.
"There will be no more years for you," she said. "Hours will tell your
tale." She nodded toward Anthony. "And short hours, too."
"It's a deep chest," said old Bulfinch. "As deep as a ship."
Gradually a look of glee came into his face; his hands opened and
shut covetously. "A fine ship," he said. "A tall ship; and with the
old man's name painted on her. Such spaces she has for storing goods.
Such wide, wonderful spaces! There is the room of a town in her. She
went away grandly," he said. "Like a bride, all in white. And when she
returns, what a dowry she'll bring! There will be magnificence! There
will be splendor! Her cargo will be a jewel, and her oaken hull the
casket." He gloated over this for a space; and then a trouble began to
show. "If it were not Gorman, now," he said. "If it were not Gorman
that is to step aboard her at Calcutta. We could trust Hollister. He is
sound and tried. But he's done too much. Oh, yes, far too much to be
safe; for there are sharp eyes watching; there are minds, too, that are
like knife-blades, and they are thinking, always thinking."
Anthony's eyes met those of Mademoiselle Lafargue; but before either
could speak there came the choking shriek:
"Water! One drop to cool my throat! Water, for God's love!"
"Hold your tongue!" said the old woman, lowering evilly at the
sufferer. "It's always something with you. There's not enough water in
the river to fill your gullet; so ease yourself back, and be still."
The French girl gave the sick man a cup of water; and while she was
doing so old Bulfinch stirred uneasily.
"Nathaniel," he said, "are you there? Rehoboam, my son, where are you?
I am not sick. The doctor is a fool. I am well and strong. It is true
I have a pain in my head, and the hot sun has got into my blood. But
I am not sick. The doctors are all frightened. Do not listen to them.
They know nothing. By and by," and he laughed with a ghastly assumption
of lightness, "this one will say I have the plague. It would be like
him. Turn him away, Nathaniel; do not listen to him. And do not pay
him money for his folly; it is waste, my sons, and money is hard to
get. Take me to the garret; it will be quiet there, and I'll be up and
strong in another day. Be careful, Nathaniel; lift me gently, and see
to the stairs, Rehoboam; they are crooked and treacherous." There was a
pause, and sudden panic seemed to seize him. His eyes stared, and his
jaws fell open; he clawed about in the straw, and then, with sudden
power, rose up. "No, no!" he raved. "Not here! Not this place of death!
My curse on you, Nathaniel, if you leave me; my blood and death on you,
Rehoboam, if you give me into the hands of these wretches!"
Shriek after shriek came from him; then he fell back with a foam about
his lips and his eyes full of fear and loathing.
With the blood pounding in his head, Anthony took mademoiselle by the
arm.
"Come, let us go," said he.
And he led her out, and across the hot, moon-bathed fields, toward the
city.