A little later, dressed once more in grotesque rags and carrying on his
shoulder a rusty mattock and a rusty spade, old King Solomon appeared
in the street below and stood looking up and down it with an air of
anxious indecision. Then shuffling along rapidly to the corner of Mill
Street, he turned up towards Main.
Here a full sense of the terror came to him. A man, hurrying along with
his head down, ran full against him and cursed him for the delay:
"Get out of my way, you old beast!" he cried. "If the cholera would
carry you off it would be a blessing to the town."
Two or three little children, already orphaned and hungry, wandered
past, crying and wringing their hands. A crowd of negro men with the
muscles of athletes, some with naked arms, some naked to the waist,
their eyes dilated, their mouths hanging open, sped along in tumultuous
disorder. The plague had broken out in the hemp factory and scattered
them beyond control.
He grew suddenly faint and sick. His senses swam, his heart seemed to
cease beating, his tongue burned, his throat was dry, his spine like
ice. For a moment the contagion of deadly fear overcame him, and,
unable to stand, he reeled to the edge of the sidewalk and sat down.
Before him along the street passed the flying people--men on horseback
with their wives behind and children in front, families in carts and
wagons, merchants in two-wheeled gigs and sulkies. A huge red and
yellow stage-coach rolled ponderously by, filled within, on top, in
front, and behind with a company of riotous students of law and of
medicine. A rapid chorus of voices shouted to him as they passed:
"Good-bye, Solomon!"
"The cholera'll have you befoah sunset!"
"Better be diggin' yoah grave, Solomon! That 'll be yoah last cellah."
"Dig us a big wine cellah undah the Medical Hall while we are away."
"And leave yo' body there! We want yo' skeleton."
"Good-bye, old Solomon!"
A wretched carry-all passed with a household of more wretched women;
their tawdry and gay attire, their haggard and painted and ghastly
faces, looking horrible in the blaze of the pitiless sunlight. They,
too, simpered and hailed him and spent upon him their hardened and
degraded badinage. Then there rolled by a high-swung carriage, with
the most luxurious of cushions, upholstered with morocco, with a
coat-of-arms, a driver and a footman in livery, and drawn by sparkling,
prancing horses. Lying back on the satin cushions a fine gentleman; at
the window of the carriage two rosy children, who pointed their fingers
at the vagrant and turned and looked into their father's face, so that
he leaned forward, smiled, leaned back again, and was whirled away to a
place of safety.
Thus they passed him, as he sat down on the sidewalk--even physicians
from their patients, pastors from their stricken flocks. Why should
not he flee? He had no ties, except the faithful affection of an old
negress. Should he not at least save her life by going away, seeing
that she would not leave him?
The orphaned children wandered past again, sobbing more wearily. He
called them to him.
"Why do you not go home? Where is your mother?" he asked.
"She is dead in the house," they answered; "and no one has come to bury
her."
Slowly down the street was coming a short funeral train. It passed--a
rude cortege: a common cart, in the bottom of which rested a box of
plain boards containing the body of the old French dancing-master;
walking behind it, with a cambric handkerchief to his eyes, the old
French confectioner; at his side, wearing the robes of his office and
carrying an umbrella to ward off the burning sun, the beloved Bishop
Smith; and behind them, two by two and with linked arms, perhaps a
dozen men, most of whom had been at the ball.
No head was lifted or eye turned to notice the vagrant seated on the
sidewalk. But when the train had passed he rose, laid his mattock and
spade across his shoulder, and, stepping out into the street, fell into
line at the end of the procession.
They moved down Short Street to the old burying-ground, where the
Baptist church-yard is to-day. As they entered it, two grave-diggers
passed out and hurried away. Those before them had fled. They had been
at work but a few hours. Overcome with horror at the sight of the dead
arriving more and more rapidly, they, too, deserted that post of peril.
No one was left. Here and there in the church-yard could be seen bodies
awaiting interment. Old King Solomon stepped quietly forward and,
getting down into one of the half-finished graves, began to dig.
The vagrant had happened upon an avocation.