The Scarlet Plague Page 3

  III

  THE old man wiped the tears away on his grimy knuckles and took up thetale in a tremulous, piping voice that soon strengthened as he got theswing of the narrative.

  "It was in the summer of 2013 that the Plague came. I was twenty-sevenyears 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 ofmiles. And the word came of a strange disease that had broken out inNew York. There were seventeen millions of people living then in thatnoblest city of America. Nobody thought anything about the news. It wasonly 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 ofthe disease was the turning red of the face and all the body. Withintwenty-four hours came the report of the first case in Chicago. And onthe same day, it was made public that London, the greatest city in theworld, next to Chicago, had been secretly fighting the plague for twoweeks and censoring the news despatches--that is, not permitting theword to go forth to the rest of the world that London had the plague.

  "It looked serious, but we in California, like everywhere else, werenot alarmed. We were sure that the bacteriologists would find a way toovercome this new germ, just as they had overcome other germs in thepast. But the trouble was the astonishing quickness with which this germdestroyed human beings, and the fact that it inevitably killed anyhuman body it entered. No one ever recovered. There was the old Asiaticcholera, when you might eat dinner with a well man in the evening, andthe next morning, if you got up early enough, you would see him beinghauled by your window in the death-cart. But this new plague was quickerthan that--much quicker.

  But this new plague was quicker 078]

  "From the moment of the first signs of it, a man would be dead in anhour. Some lasted for several hours. Many died within ten or fifteenminutes 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 andbody. 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. Butthese convulsions did not last long and were not very severe. If onelived through them, he became perfectly quiet, and only did he feel anumbness swiftly creeping up his body from the feet. The heels becamenumb first, then the legs, and hips, and when the numbness reachedas high as his heart he died. They did not rave or sleep. Their mindsalways remained cool and calm up to the moment their heart numbed andstopped. And another strange thing was the rapidity of decomposition. Nosooner was a person dead than the body seemed to fall to pieces, tofly apart, to melt away even as you looked at it. That was one of thereasons the plague spread so rapidly. All the billions of germs in acorpse were so immediately released.

  "And it was because of all this that the bacteriologists had so littlechance in fighting the germs. They were killed in their laboratorieseven 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 telegraphedeverywhere. Trask was the name of the man who succeeded in this, butwithin thirty hours he was dead. Then came the struggle in all thelaboratories to find something that would kill the plague germs. Alldrugs failed. You see, the problem was to get a drug, or serum, thatwould kill the germs in the body and not kill the body. They tried tofight it with other germs, to put into the body of a sick man germs thatwere the enemies of the plague germs--"

  "And you can't see these germ-things, Granser," Hare-Lip objected, "andhere 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 havebeen all fools in them days. That's why they croaked. I ain't goin' tobelieve 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 walkabout."

  "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 youdon't see. Go on, Granser."

  Hare-Lip, crushed by this metaphysical defeat, remained silent, andthe old man went on. Often and often, though this narrative must not beclogged by the details, was Granser's tale interrupted while the boyssquabbled among themselves. Also, among themselves they kept up aconstant, low-voiced exchange of explanation and conjecture, as theystrove to follow the old man into his unknown and vanished world.

  "The Scarlet Death broke out in San Francisco. The first death came ona Monday morning. By Thursday they were dying like flies in Oaklandand San Francisco. They died everywhere--in their beds, at theirwork, walking along the street. It was on Tuesday that I saw my firstdeath--Miss Collbran, one of my students, sitting right there before myeyes, in my lecture-room. I noticed her face while I was talking. It hadsuddenly 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 knewthat it had come. The young women screamed and ran out of the room. Sodid the young men run out, all but two. Miss Collbran's convulsions werevery mild and lasted less than a minute. One of the young men fetchedher 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 anyfeet. 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 wecould do nothing. The coldness and the numbness crept up past her hipsto her heart, and when it reached her heart she was dead. In fifteenminutes, by the clock--I timed it--she was dead, there, in my ownclassroom, dead. And she was a very beautiful, strong, healthy youngwoman. And from the first sign of the plague to her death only fifteenminutes elapsed. That will show you how swift was the Scarlet Death.

  "Yet in those few minutes I remained with the dying woman in myclassroom, the alarm had spread over the university; and the students,by thousands, all of them, had deserted the lecture-room andlaboratories. When I emerged, on my way to make report to the Presidentof the Faculty, I found the university deserted. Across the campus wereseveral stragglers hurrying for their homes. Two of them were running.

  "President Hoag, I found in his office, all alone, looking very old andvery gray, with a multitude of wrinkles in his face that I had neverseen before. At the sight of me, he pulled himself to his feet andtottered away to the inner office, banging the door after him andlocking 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 forgetmy feelings as I walked down the silent corridors and out across thatdeserted campus. I was not afraid. I had been exposed, and I lookedupon myself as already dead. It was not that, but a feeling of awfuldepression that impressed me. Everything had stopped. It was like theend of the world to me--my world. I had been born within sight and soundof the university. It had been my predestined career. My father had beena professor there before me, and his father before him. For a centuryand a half had this university, like a splendid machine, been runningsteadily on. And now, in an instant, it had stopped. It was like seeingthe 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 fledaw
ay. And when I rang, I found the housemaid had likewise fled. Iinvestigated. In the kitchen I found the cook on the point of departure.But she screamed, too, and in her haste dropped a suitcase of herpersonal 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 notact in this way when ordinary diseases smote us. We were always calmover such things, and sent for the doctors and nurses who knew justwhat to do. But this was different. It struck so suddenly, and killed soswiftly, and never missed a stroke. When the scarlet rash appeared on aperson's face, that person was marked by death. There was never a knowncase of a recovery.

  "I was alone in my big house. As I have told you often before, in thosedays we could talk with one another over wires or through the air. Thetelephone bell rang, and I found my brother talking to me. He told methat he was not coming home for fear of catching the plague from me, andthat he had taken our two sisters to stop at Professor Bacon's home. Headvised me to remain where I was, and wait to find out whether or not Ihad caught the plague.

  The telephone bell rang 088]

  "To all of this I agreed, staying in my house and for the first time inmy life attempting to cook. And the plague did not come out on me. Bymeans of the telephone I could talk with whomsoever I pleased and getthe news. Also, there were the newspapers, and I ordered all of them tobe thrown up to my door so that I could know what was happening with therest of the world.

  "New York City and Chicago were in chaos. And what happened with themwas happening in all the large cities. A third of the New York policewere dead. Their chief was also dead, likewise the mayor. All law andorder had ceased. The bodies were lying in the streets un-buried. Allrailroads and vessels carrying food and such things into the greatcity had ceased runnings and mobs of the hungry poor were pillagingthe stores and warehouses. Murder and robbery and drunkenness wereeverywhere. Already the people had fled from the city by millions--atfirst the rich, in their private motor-cars and dirigibles, and then thegreat mass of the population, on foot, carrying the plague with them,themselves starving and pillaging the farmers and all the towns andvillages on the way.

  Fled from the city by millions 092]

  "The man who sent this news, the wireless operator, was alone with hisinstrument on the top of a lofty building. The people remaining in thecity--he estimated them at several hundred thousand--had gone mad fromfear and drink, and on all sides of him great fires were raging. He wasa hero, that man who staid by his post--an obscure newspaperman, mostlikely.

  "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 forthe plague. That was the last word, to this day, that we of Americaever received from Europe. If Hoffmeyer discovered the serum, it was toolate, or otherwise, long ere this, explorers from Europe would havecome looking for us. We can only conclude that what happened in Americahappened in Europe, and that, at the best, some several score may havesurvived 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 loftybuilding, had either died of the plague or been consumed in the greatconflagrations he had described as raging around him. And what hadoccurred in New York had been duplicated in all the other cities. It wasthe same in San Francisco, and Oakland, and Berkeley. By Thursday thepeople were dying so rapidly that their corpses could not be handled,and dead bodies lay everywhere. Thursday night the panic outrush forthe country began. Imagine, my grandsons, people, thicker than thesalmon-run you have seen on the Sacramento river, pouring out of thecities by millions, madly over the country, in vain attempt to escapethe ubiquitous death. You see, they carried the germs with them. Eventhe airships of the rich, fleeing for mountain and desert fastnesses,carried the germs.

  "Hundreds of these airships escaped to Hawaii, and not only did theybring the plague with them, but they found the plague already therebefore them. This we learned, by the despatches, until all order in SanFrancisco vanished, and there were no operators left at their posts toreceive or send. It was amazing, astounding, this loss of communicationwith the world. It was exactly as if the world had ceased, been blottedout. For sixty years that world has no longer existed for me. I knowthere must be such places as New York, Europe, Asia, and Africa; but notone word has been heard of them--not in sixty years. With the coming ofthe Scarlet Death the world fell apart, absolutely, irretrievably. Tenthousand years of culture and civilization passed in the twinkling of aneye, 'lapsed like foam.'

  "I was telling about the airships of the rich. They carried the plaguewith them and no matter where they fled, they died. I never encounteredbut one survivor of any of them--Mungerson. He was afterwards a SantaRosan, and he married my eldest daughter. He came into the tribe eightyears after the plague. He was then nineteen years old, and he wascompelled to wait twelve years more before he could marry. You see,there were no unmarried women, and some of the older daughters of theSanta Rosans were already bespoken. So he was forced to wait untilmy Mary had grown to sixteen years. It was his son, Gimp-Leg, who waskilled last year by the mountain lion.

  "Mungerson was eleven years old at the time of the plague. His fatherwas one of the Industrial Magnates, a very wealthy, powerful man. It wason 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 plaguebroke out amongst them, and this boy of eleven was the only survivor.For eight years he was alone, wandering over a deserted land and lookingvainly for his own kind. And at last, travelling south, he picked upwith us, the Santa Rosans.

  "But I am ahead of my story. When the great exodus from the citiesaround San Francisco Bay began, and while the telephones were stillworking, I talked with my brother. I told him this flight from thecities was insanity, that there were no symptoms of the plague inme, and that the thing for us to do was to isolate ourselves and ourrelatives in some safe place. We decided on the Chemistry Building, atthe university, and we planned to lay in a supply of provisions, and byforce of arms to prevent any other persons from forcing their presenceupon us after we had retired to our refuge.

  "All this being arranged, my brother begged me to stay in my ownhouse for at least twenty-four hours more, on the chance of the plaguedeveloping in me. To this I agreed, and he promised to come for me nextday. We talked on over the details of the provisioning and the defendingof the Chemistry Building until the telephone died. It died in the midstof our conversation. That evening there were no electric lights, andI was alone in my house in the darkness. No more newspapers were beingprinted, so I had no knowledge of what was taking place outside.

  I heard sounds of rioting and of pistol shots 098]

  "I heard sounds of rioting and of pistol shots, and from my windows Icould see the glare of the sky of some conflagration in the directionof Oakland. It was a night of terror. I did not sleep a wink. A man--whyand 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 minuteslater the wounded wretch crawled up to my door, moaning and crying outfor help. Arming myself with two automatics, I went to him. By the lightof 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 heardhim moan and cry out for half an hour longer.

  "In the morning, my brother came to me. I had gathered into a handbagwhat things of value I purposed taking, but when I saw his face I knewthat he would never accompany me to the Chemistry Building. The plaguewas on him. He intended shaking my hand, but I went back hurriedlybefore him.

  "'Look at yourself in the mirror,' I commanded.

  Look at yourself in the mirror
100]

  "He did so, and at sight of his scarlet face, the color deepening as helooked 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 hewas conscious to the last, complaining about the coldness and loss ofsensation in his feet, his calves, his thighs, until at last it was hisheart and he was dead.

  "That was the way the Scarlet Death slew. I caught up my handbag andfled. The sights in the streets were terrible. One stumbled on bodieseverywhere. Some were not yet dead. And even as you looked, you saw mensink down with the death fastened upon them. There were numerous firesburning in Berkeley, while Oakland and San Francisco were apparentlybeing swept by vast conflagrations. The smoke of the burning filled theheavens, so that the midday was as a gloomy twilight, and, in the shiftsof 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 andthe engine supplies of the garages had given out. I remember one suchcar. A man and a woman lay back dead in the seats, and on the pavementnear it were two more women and a child. Strange and terrible sightsthere were on every hand. People slipped by silently, furtively, likeghosts--white-faced women carrying infants in their arms; fathersleading children by the hand; singly, and in couples, and infamilies--all fleeing out of the city of death. Some carried suppliesof food, others blankets and valuables, and there were many who carriednothing.

  "There was a grocery store--a place where food was sold. The man to whomit belonged--I knew him well--a quiet, sober, but stupid and obstinatefellow, was defending it. The windows and doors had been broken in, buthe, inside, hiding behind a counter, was discharging his pistol at anumber of men on the sidewalk who were breaking in. In the entrance wereseveral bodies--of men, I decided, whom he had killed earlier in theday. Even as I looked on from a distance, I saw one of the robbers breakthe windows of the adjoining store, a place where shoes were sold,and deliberately set fire to it. I did not go to the groceryman'sassistance. The time for such acts had already passed. Civilization wascrumbling, and it was each for himself."