The old man wiped the tears away on his grimy knuckles and took up the
tale in a tremulous, piping voice that soon strengthened as he got the
swing of the narrative.
“It was in the summer of 2013 that the Plague came. I was twenty-seven
years old, and well do I remember it. Wireless despatches--”
Hare-Lip spat loudly his disgust, and Granser hastened to make amends.
“We talked through the air in those days, thousands and thousands of
miles. And the word came of a strange disease that had broken out in
New York. There were seventeen millions of people living then in that
noblest city of America. Nobody thought anything about the news. It was
only a small thing. There had been only a few deaths. It seemed, though,
that they had died very quickly, and that one of the first signs of
the disease was the turning red of the face and all the body. Within
twenty-four hours came the report of the first case in Chicago. And on
the same day, it was made public that London, the greatest city in the
world, next to Chicago, had been secretly fighting the plague for two
weeks and censoring the news despatches--that is, not permitting the
word to go forth to the rest of the world that London had the plague.
“It looked serious, but we in California, like everywhere else, were
not alarmed. We were sure that the bacteriologists would find a way to
overcome this new germ, just as they had overcome other germs in the
past. But the trouble was the astonishing quickness with which this germ
destroyed human beings, and the fact that it inevitably killed any
human body it entered. No one ever recovered. There was the old Asiatic
cholera, when you might eat dinner with a well man in the evening, and
the next morning, if you got up early enough, you would see him being
hauled by your window in the death-cart. But this new plague was quicker
than that--much quicker.
[Illustration: But this new plague was quicker 078]
“From the moment of the first signs of it, a man would be dead in an
hour. Some lasted for several hours. Many died within ten or fifteen
minutes of the appearance of the first signs.
“The heart began to beat faster and the heat of the body to increase.
Then came the scarlet rash, spreading like wildfire over the face and
body. Most persons never noticed the increase in heat and heart-beat,
and the first they knew was when the scarlet rash came out. Usually,
they had convulsions at the time of the appearance of the rash. But
these convulsions did not last long and were not very severe. If one
lived through them, he became perfectly quiet, and only did he feel a
numbness swiftly creeping up his body from the feet. The heels became
numb first, then the legs, and hips, and when the numbness reached
as high as his heart he died. They did not rave or sleep. Their minds
always remained cool and calm up to the moment their heart numbed and
stopped. And another strange thing was the rapidity of decomposition. No
sooner was a person dead than the body seemed to fall to pieces, to
fly apart, to melt away even as you looked at it. That was one of the
reasons the plague spread so rapidly. All the billions of germs in a
corpse were so immediately released.
“And it was because of all this that the bacteriologists had so little
chance in fighting the germs. They were killed in their laboratories
even as they studied the germ of the Scarlet Death. They were heroes.
As fast as they perished, others stepped forth and took their places.
It was in London that they first isolated it. The news was telegraphed
everywhere. Trask was the name of the man who succeeded in this, but
within thirty hours he was dead. Then came the struggle in all the
laboratories to find something that would kill the plague germs. All
drugs failed. You see, the problem was to get a drug, or serum, that
would kill the germs in the body and not kill the body. They tried to
fight it with other germs, to put into the body of a sick man germs that
were the enemies of the plague germs--”
“And you can't see these germ-things, Granser,” Hare-Lip objected, “and
here you gabble, gabble, gabble about them as if they was anything,
when they're nothing at all. Anything you can't see, ain't, that's what.
Fighting things that ain't with things that ain't! They must have
been all fools in them days. That's why they croaked. I ain't goin' to
believe in such rot, I tell you that.”
Granser promptly began to weep, while Edwin hotly took up his defence.
“Look here, Hare-Lip, you believe in lots of things you can't see.”
Hare-Lip shook his head.
“You believe in dead men walking about. You never seen one dead man walk
about.”
“I tell you I seen 'em, last winter, when I was wolf-hunting with dad.”
“Well, you always spit when you cross running water,” Edwin challenged.
“That's to keep off bad luck,” was Hare-Lip's defence.
“You believe in bad luck?”
“Sure.”
“An' you ain't never seen bad luck,” Edwin concluded triumphantly.
“You're just as bad as Granser and his germs. You believe in what you
don't see. Go on, Granser.”
Hare-Lip, crushed by this metaphysical defeat, remained silent, and
the old man went on. Often and often, though this narrative must not be
clogged by the details, was Granser's tale interrupted while the boys
squabbled among themselves. Also, among themselves they kept up a
constant, low-voiced exchange of explanation and conjecture, as they
strove to follow the old man into his unknown and vanished world.
“The Scarlet Death broke out in San Francisco. The first death came on
a Monday morning. By Thursday they were dying like flies in Oakland
and San Francisco. They died everywhere--in their beds, at their
work, walking along the street. It was on Tuesday that I saw my first
death--Miss Collbran, one of my students, sitting right there before my
eyes, in my lecture-room. I noticed her face while I was talking. It had
suddenly turned scarlet. I ceased speaking and could only look at her,
for the first fear of the plague was already on all of us and we knew
that it had come. The young women screamed and ran out of the room. So
did the young men run out, all but two. Miss Collbran's convulsions were
very mild and lasted less than a minute. One of the young men fetched
her a glass of water. She drank only a little of it, and cried out:
“'My feet! All sensation has left them.'
“After a minute she said, 'I have no feet. I am unaware that I have any
feet. And my knees are cold. I can scarcely feel that I have knees.'
“She lay on the floor, a bundle of notebooks under her head. And we
could do nothing. The coldness and the numbness crept up past her hips
to her heart, and when it reached her heart she was dead. In fifteen
minutes, by the clock--I timed it--she was dead, there, in my own
classroom, dead. And she was a very beautiful, strong, healthy young
woman. And from the first sign of the plague to her death only fifteen
minutes elapsed. That will show you how swift was the Scarlet Death.
“Yet in those few minutes I remained with the dying woman in my
classroom, the alarm had spread over the university; and the students,
by thousands, all of them, had deserted the lecture-room and
laboratories. When I emerged, on my way to make report to the President
of the Faculty, I found the university deserted. Across the campus were
several stragglers hurrying for their homes. Two of them were running.
“President Hoag, I found in his office, all alone, looking very old and
very gray, with a multitude of wrinkles in his face that I had never
seen before. At the sight of me, he pulled himself to his feet and
tottered away to the inner office, banging the door after him and
locking it. You see, he knew I had been exposed, and he was afraid.
He shouted to me through the door to go away. I shall never forget
my feelings as I walked down the silent corridors and out across that
deserted campus. I was not afraid. I had been exposed, and I looked
upon myself as already dead. It was not that, but a feeling of awful
depression that impressed me. Everything had stopped. It was like the
end of the world to me--my world. I had been born within sight and sound
of the university. It had been my predestined career. My father had been
a professor there before me, and his father before him. For a century
and a half had this university, like a splendid machine, been running
steadily on. And now, in an instant, it had stopped. It was like seeing
the sacred flame die down on some thrice-sacred altar. I was shocked,
unutterably shocked.
“When I arrived home, my housekeeper screamed as I entered, and fled
away. And when I rang, I found the housemaid had likewise fled. I
investigated. In the kitchen I found the cook on the point of departure.
But she screamed, too, and in her haste dropped a suitcase of her
personal belongings and ran out of the house and across the grounds,
still screaming. I can hear her scream to this day. You see, we did not
act in this way when ordinary diseases smote us. We were always calm
over such things, and sent for the doctors and nurses who knew just
what to do. But this was different. It struck so suddenly, and killed so
swiftly, and never missed a stroke. When the scarlet rash appeared on a
person's face, that person was marked by death. There was never a known
case of a recovery.
“I was alone in my big house. As I have told you often before, in those
days we could talk with one another over wires or through the air. The
telephone bell rang, and I found my brother talking to me. He told me
that he was not coming home for fear of catching the plague from me, and
that he had taken our two sisters to stop at Professor Bacon's home. He
advised me to remain where I was, and wait to find out whether or not I
had caught the plague.
[Illustration: The telephone bell rang 088]
“To all of this I agreed, staying in my house and for the first time in
my life attempting to cook. And the plague did not come out on me. By
means of the telephone I could talk with whomsoever I pleased and get
the news. Also, there were the newspapers, and I ordered all of them to
be thrown up to my door so that I could know what was happening with the
rest of the world.
“New York City and Chicago were in chaos. And what happened with them
was happening in all the large cities. A third of the New York police
were dead. Their chief was also dead, likewise the mayor. All law and
order had ceased. The bodies were lying in the streets un-buried. All
railroads and vessels carrying food and such things into the great
city had ceased runnings and mobs of the hungry poor were pillaging
the stores and warehouses. Murder and robbery and drunkenness were
everywhere. Already the people had fled from the city by millions--at
first the rich, in their private motor-cars and dirigibles, and then the
great mass of the population, on foot, carrying the plague with them,
themselves starving and pillaging the farmers and all the towns and
villages on the way.
[Illustration: Fled from the city by millions 092]
“The man who sent this news, the wireless operator, was alone with his
instrument on the top of a lofty building. The people remaining in the
city--he estimated them at several hundred thousand--had gone mad from
fear and drink, and on all sides of him great fires were raging. He was
a hero, that man who staid by his post--an obscure newspaperman, most
likely.
“For twenty-four hours, he said, no transatlantic airships had arrived,
and no more messages were coming from England. He did state, though,
that a message from Berlin--that's in Germany--announced that Hoffmeyer,
a bacteriologist of the Metchnikoff School, had discovered the serum for
the plague. That was the last word, to this day, that we of America
ever received from Europe. If Hoffmeyer discovered the serum, it was too
late, or otherwise, long ere this, explorers from Europe would have
come looking for us. We can only conclude that what happened in America
happened in Europe, and that, at the best, some several score may have
survived the Scarlet Death on that whole continent.
“For one day longer the despatches continued to come from New York.
Then they, too, ceased. The man who had sent them, perched in his lofty
building, had either died of the plague or been consumed in the great
conflagrations he had described as raging around him. And what had
occurred in New York had been duplicated in all the other cities. It was
the same in San Francisco, and Oakland, and Berkeley. By Thursday the
people were dying so rapidly that their corpses could not be handled,
and dead bodies lay everywhere. Thursday night the panic outrush for
the country began. Imagine, my grandsons, people, thicker than the
salmon-run you have seen on the Sacramento river, pouring out of the
cities by millions, madly over the country, in vain attempt to escape
the ubiquitous death. You see, they carried the germs with them. Even
the airships of the rich, fleeing for mountain and desert fastnesses,
carried the germs.
“Hundreds of these airships escaped to Hawaii, and not only did they
bring the plague with them, but they found the plague already there
before them. This we learned, by the despatches, until all order in San
Francisco vanished, and there were no operators left at their posts to
receive or send. It was amazing, astounding, this loss of communication
with the world. It was exactly as if the world had ceased, been blotted
out. For sixty years that world has no longer existed for me. I know
there must be such places as New York, Europe, Asia, and Africa; but not
one word has been heard of them--not in sixty years. With the coming of
the Scarlet Death the world fell apart, absolutely, irretrievably. Ten
thousand years of culture and civilization passed in the twinkling of an
eye, 'lapsed like foam.'
“I was telling about the airships of the rich. They carried the plague
with them and no matter where they fled, they died. I never encountered
but one survivor of any of them--Mungerson. He was afterwards a Santa
Rosan, and he married my eldest daughter. He came into the tribe eight
years after the plague. He was then nineteen years old, and he was
compelled to wait twelve years more before he could marry. You see,
there were no unmarried women, and some of the older daughters of the
Santa Rosans were already bespoken. So he was forced to wait until
my Mary had grown to sixteen years. It was his son, Gimp-Leg, who was
killed last year by the mountain lion.
“Mungerson was eleven years old at the time of the plague. His father
was one of the Industrial Magnates, a very wealthy, powerful man. It was
on his airship, the Condor, that they were fleeing, with all the family,
for the wilds of British Columbia, which is far to the north of here.
But there was some accident, and they were wrecked near Mount Shasta.
You have heard of that mountain. It is far to the north. The plague
broke out amongst them, and this boy of eleven was the only survivor.
For eight years he was alone, wandering over a deserted land and looking
vainly for his own kind. And at last, travelling south, he picked up
with us, the Santa Rosans.
“But I am ahead of my story. When the great exodus from the cities
around San Francisco Bay began, and while the telephones were still
working, I talked with my brother. I told him this flight from the
cities was insanity, that there were no symptoms of the plague in
me, and that the thing for us to do was to isolate ourselves and our
relatives in some safe place. We decided on the Chemistry Building, at
the university, and we planned to lay in a supply of provisions, and by
force of arms to prevent any other persons from forcing their presence
upon us after we had retired to our refuge.
“All this being arranged, my brother begged me to stay in my own
house for at least twenty-four hours more, on the chance of the plague
developing in me. To this I agreed, and he promised to come for me next
day. We talked on over the details of the provisioning and the defending
of the Chemistry Building until the telephone died. It died in the midst
of our conversation. That evening there were no electric lights, and
I was alone in my house in the darkness. No more newspapers were being
printed, so I had no knowledge of what was taking place outside.
[Illustration: I heard sounds of rioting and of pistol shots 098]
“I heard sounds of rioting and of pistol shots, and from my windows I
could see the glare of the sky of some conflagration in the direction
of Oakland. It was a night of terror. I did not sleep a wink. A man--why
and how I do not know--was killed on the sidewalk in front of the house.
I heard the rapid reports of an automatic pistol, and a few minutes
later the wounded wretch crawled up to my door, moaning and crying out
for help. Arming myself with two automatics, I went to him. By the light
of a match I ascertained that while he was dying of the bullet wounds,
at the same time the plague was on him. I fled indoors, whence I heard
him moan and cry out for half an hour longer.
“In the morning, my brother came to me. I had gathered into a handbag
what things of value I purposed taking, but when I saw his face I knew
that he would never accompany me to the Chemistry Building. The plague
was on him. He intended shaking my hand, but I went back hurriedly
before him.
“'Look at yourself in the mirror,' I commanded.
[Illustration: Look at yourself in the mirror 100]
“He did so, and at sight of his scarlet face, the color deepening as he
looked at it, he sank down nervelessly in a chair.
“'My God!' he said. 'I've got it. Don't come near me. I am a dead man.'
“Then the convulsions seized him. He was two hours in dying, and he
was conscious to the last, complaining about the coldness and loss of
sensation in his feet, his calves, his thighs, until at last it was his
heart and he was dead.
“That was the way the Scarlet Death slew. I caught up my handbag and
fled. The sights in the streets were terrible. One stumbled on bodies
everywhere. Some were not yet dead. And even as you looked, you saw men
sink down with the death fastened upon them. There were numerous fires
burning in Berkeley, while Oakland and San Francisco were apparently
being swept by vast conflagrations. The smoke of the burning filled the
heavens, so that the midday was as a gloomy twilight, and, in the shifts
of wind, sometimes the sun shone through dimly, a dull red orb. Truly,
my grandsons, it was like the last days of the end of the world.
“There were numerous stalled motor cars, showing that the gasoline and
the engine supplies of the garages had given out. I remember one such
car. A man and a woman lay back dead in the seats, and on the pavement
near it were two more women and a child. Strange and terrible sights
there were on every hand. People slipped by silently, furtively, like
ghosts--white-faced women carrying infants in their arms; fathers
leading children by the hand; singly, and in couples, and in
families--all fleeing out of the city of death. Some carried supplies
of food, others blankets and valuables, and there were many who carried
nothing.
“There was a grocery store--a place where food was sold. The man to whom
it belonged--I knew him well--a quiet, sober, but stupid and obstinate
fellow, was defending it. The windows and doors had been broken in, but
he, inside, hiding behind a counter, was discharging his pistol at a
number of men on the sidewalk who were breaking in. In the entrance were
several bodies--of men, I decided, whom he had killed earlier in the
day. Even as I looked on from a distance, I saw one of the robbers break
the windows of the adjoining store, a place where shoes were sold,
and deliberately set fire to it. I did not go to the groceryman's
assistance. The time for such acts had already passed. Civilization was
crumbling, and it was each for himself.”