The Scarlet Plague Page 4

  IV

  I WENT away hastily, down a cross-street, and at the first corner I sawanother tragedy. Two men of the working class had caught a man and awoman with two children, and were robbing them. I knew the man by sight,though I had never been introduced to him. He was a poet whose verses Ihad long admired. Yet I did not go to his help, for at the moment I cameupon the scene there was a pistol shot, and I saw him sinking to theground. The woman screamed, and she was felled with a fist-blow by oneof the brutes. I cried out threateningly, whereupon they dischargedtheir pistols at me and I ran away around the corner. Here I was blockedby an advancing conflagration. The buildings on both sides were burning,and the street was filled with smoke and flame. From somewhere in thatmurk came a woman's voice calling shrilly for help. But I did not go toher. A man's heart turned to iron amid such scenes, and one heard alltoo many appeals for help.

  "Returning to the corner, I found the two robbers were gone. The poetand his wife lay dead on the pavement. It was a shocking sight. The twochildren had vanished--whither I could not tell. And I knew, now, whyit was that the fleeing persons I encountered slipped along so furtivelyand with such white faces. In the midst of our civilization, down in ourslums and labor-ghettos, we had bred a race of barbarians, of savages;and now, in the time of our calamity, they turned upon us like the wildbeasts they were and destroyed us. And they destroyed themselves aswell.

  Now in the time of calamity they turned on us 108]

  "They inflamed themselves with strong drink and committed a thousandatrocities, quarreling and killing one another in the general madness.One group of workingmen I saw, of the better sort, who had bandedtogether, and, with their women and children in their midst, the sickand aged in litters and being carried, and with a number of horsespulling a truck-load of provisions, they were fighting their way outof the city. They made a fine spectacle as they came down the streetthrough the drifting smoke, though they nearly shot me when I firstappeared in their path. As they went by, one of their leaders shoutedout to me in apologetic explanation. He said they were killing therobbers and looters on sight, and that they had thus banded together asthe only-means by which to escape the prowlers.

  "It was here that I saw for the first time what I was soon to see sooften. One of the marching men had suddenly shown the unmistakable markof the plague. Immediately those about him drew away, and he, withouta remonstrance, stepped out of his place to let them pass on. A woman,most probably his wife, attempted to follow him. She was leading alittle boy by the hand. But the husband commanded her sternly to go on,while others laid hands on her and restrained her from following him.This I saw, and I saw the man also, with his scarlet blaze of face, stepinto a doorway on the opposite side of the street. I heard the report ofhis pistol, and saw him sink lifeless to the ground.

  "After being turned aside twice again by advancing fires, I succeeded ingetting through to the university. On the edge of the campus I cameupon a party of university folk who were going in the direction of theChemistry Building. They were all family men, and their families werewith them, including the nurses and the servants. Professor Badmintongreeted me, I had difficulty in recognizing him. Somewhere he had gonethrough flames, and his beard was singed off. About his head was abloody bandage, and his clothes were filthy.

  He told me he had been Cruelly Beaten 112]

  "He told me he had prowlers, and that his brother had been killed theprevious night, in the defence of their dwelling.

  "Midway across the campus, he pointed suddenly to Mrs. Swinton's face.The unmistakable scarlet was there. Immediately all the other women setup a screaming and began to run away from her. Her two children werewith a nurse, and these also ran with the women. But her husband, DoctorSwinton, remained with her.

  "'Go on, Smith,' he told me. 'Keep an eye on the children. As for me,I shall stay with my wife. I know she is as already dead, but I can'tleave her. Afterwards, if I escape, I shall come to the ChemistryBuilding, and do you watch for me and let me in.'

  "I left him bending over his wife and soothing her last moments, whileI ran to overtake the party. We were the last to be admitted to theChemistry Building. After that, with our automatic rifles we maintainedour isolation. By our plans, we had arranged for a company of sixty tobe in this refuge. Instead, every one of the number originally plannedhad added relatives and friends and whole families until there were overfour hundred souls. But the Chemistry Building was large, and, standingby itself, was in no danger of being burned by the great fires thatraged everywhere in the city.

  "A large quantity of provisions had been gathered, and a food committeetook charge of it, issuing rations daily to the various families andgroups that arranged themselves into messes. A number of committees wereappointed, and we developed a very efficient organization. I was on thecommittee of defence, though for the first day no prowlers came near. Wecould see them in the distance, however, and by the smoke of their firesknew that several camps of them were occupying the far edge of thecampus. Drunkenness was rife, and often we heard them singing ribaldsongs or insanely shouting. While the world crashed to ruin about themand all the air was filled with the smoke of its burning, these lowcreatures gave rein to their bestiality and fought and drank and died.And after all, what did it matter? Everybody died anyway, the good andthe bad, the efficients and the weaklings, those that loved to live andthose that scorned to live. They passed. Everything passed.

  "When twenty-four hours had gone by and no signs of the plague wereapparent, we congratulated ourselves and set about digging a well. Youhave seen the great iron pipes which in those days carried water to allthe city-dwellers. We feared that the fires in the city would burst thepipes and empty the reservoirs. So we tore up the cement floor of thecentral court of the Chemistry Building and dug a well. There were manyyoung men, undergraduates, with us, and we worked night and day on thewell. And our fears were confirmed. Three hours before we reached water,the pipes went dry.

  "A second twenty-four hours passed, and still the plague did notappear among us. We thought we were saved. But we did not know what Iafterwards decided to be true, namely, that the period of the incubationof the plague germs in a human's body was a matter of a number of days.It slew so swiftly when once it manifested itself, that we were led tobelieve that the period of incubation was equally swift. So, when twodays had left us unscathed, we were elated with the idea that we werefree of the contagion.

  "But the third day disillusioned us. I can never forget the nightpreceding it. I had charge of the night guards from eight to twelve,and from the roof of the building I watched the passing of all man'sglorious works. So terrible were the local conflagrations that all thesky was lighted up. One could read the finest print in the red glare.All the world seemed wrapped in flames. San Francisco spouted smoke andfire from a score of vast conflagrations that were like so many activevolcanoes. Oakland, San Leandro, Haywards--all were burning; and to thenorthward, clear to Point Richmond, other fires were at work. It was anawe-inspiring spectacle. Civilization, my grandsons, civilization waspassing in a sheet of flame and a breath of death. At ten o'clock thatnight, the great powder magazines at Point Pinole exploded in rapidsuccession. So terrific were the concussions that the strong buildingrocked as in an earthquake, while every pane of glass was broken. It wasthen that I left the roof and went down the long corridors, from room toroom, quieting the alarmed women and telling them what had happened.

  "An hour later, at a window on the ground floor, I heard pandemoniumbreak out in the camps of the prowlers. There were cries and screams,and shots from many pistols. As we afterward conjectured, this fight hadbeen precipitated by an attempt on the part of those that were wellto drive out those that were sick. At any rate, a number of theplague-stricken prowlers escaped across the campus and drifted againstour doors. We warned them back, but they cursed us and discharged afusillade from their pistols. Professor Merryweather, at one of thewindows, was instantly killed, the bullet striking him squarely betweenthe eyes. We ope
ned fire in turn, and all the prowlers fled away withthe exception of three. One was a woman. The plague was on them and theywere reckless. Like foul fiends, there in the red glare from the skies,with faces blazing, they continued to curse us and fire at us. One ofthe men I shot with my own hand. After that the other man and the woman,still cursing us, lay down under our windows, where we were compelled towatch them die of the plague.

  "The situation was critical. The explosions of the powder magazineshad broken all the windows of the Chemistry Building, so that we wereexposed to the germs from the corpses. The sanitary committee was calledupon to act, and it responded nobly. Two men were required to go out andremove the corpses, and this meant the probable sacrifice of their ownlives, for, having performed the task, they were not to be permitted toreenter the building. One of the professors, who was a bachelor, andone of the undergraduates volunteered. They bade good-bye to us andwent forth. They were heroes. They gave up their lives that four hundredothers might live. After they had performed their work, they stood fora moment, at a distance, looking at us wistfully. Then they waved theirhands in farewell and went away slowly across the campus toward theburning city.

  "And yet it was all useless. The next morning the first one of us wassmitten with the plague--a little nurse-girl in the family of ProfessorStout. It was no time for weak-kneed, sentimental policies. On thechance that she might be the only one, we thrust her forth from thebuilding and commanded her to be gone.

  We thrust her forth from the building 121]

  "She went away slowly across the campus, wringing her hands and cryingpitifully. We felt like brutes, but what were we to do? There were fourhundred of us, and individuals had to be sacrificed.

  "In one of the laboratories three families had domiciled themselves, andthat afternoon we found among them no less than four corpses and sevencases of the plague in all its different stages.

  "Then it was that the horror began. Leaving the dead lie, we forced theliving ones to segregate themselves in another room. The plague began tobreak out among the rest of us, and as fast as the symptoms appeared, wesent the stricken ones to these segregated rooms. We compelled them towalk there by themselves, so as to avoid laying hands on them. It washeartrending. But still the plague raged among us, and room afterroom was filled with the dead and dying. And so we who were yet cleanretreated to the next floor and to the next, before this sea of thedead, that, room by room and floor by floor, inundated the building.

  "The place became a charnel house, and in the middle of the nightthe survivors fled forth, taking nothing with them except arms andammunition and a heavy store of tinned foods. We camped on the oppositeside of the campus from the prowlers, and, while some stood guard,others of us volunteered to scout into the city in quest of horses,motor cars, carts, and wagons, or anything that would carry ourprovisions and enable us to emulate the banded workingmen I had seenfighting their way out to the open country.

  "I was one of these scouts; and Doctor Hoyle, remembering that his motorcar had been left behind in his home garage, told me to look for it. Wescouted in pairs, and Dombey, a young undergraduate, accompanied me. Wehad to cross half a mile of the residence portion of the city to getto Doctor Hoyle's home. Here the buildings stood apart, in the midst oftrees and grassy lawns, and here the fires had played freaks, burningwhole blocks, skipping blocks and often skipping a single house in ablock. And here, too, the prowlers were still at their work. We carriedour automatic pistols openly in our hands, and looked desperate enough,forsooth, to keep them from attacking us. But at Doctor Hoyle's housethe thing happened. Untouched by fire, even as we came to it the smokeof flames burst forth.

  "The miscreant who had set fire to it staggered down the steps and outalong the driveway. Sticking out of his coat pockets were bottles ofwhiskey, and he was very drunk. My first impulse was to shoot him, andI have never ceased regretting that I did not. Staggering and maunderingto himself, with bloodshot eyes, and a raw and bleeding slash down oneside of his bewhiskered face, he was altogether the most nauseatingspecimen of degradation and filth I had ever encountered. I did notshoot him, and he leaned against a tree on the lawn to let us go by.It was the most absolute, wanton act. Just as we were opposite him,he suddenly drew a pistol and shot Dombey through the head. The nextinstant I shot him. But it was too late. Dombey expired without a groan,immediately. I doubt if he even knew what had happened to him.

  "Leaving the two corpses, I hurried on past the burning house to thegarage, and there found Doctor Hoyle's motor car. The tanks were filledwith gasoline, and it was ready for use. And it was in this car that Ithreaded the streets of the ruined city and came back to the survivorson the campus. The other scouts returned, but none had been sofortunate. Professor Fairmead had found a Shetland pony, but the poorcreature, tied in a stable and abandoned for days, was so weak from wantof food and water that it could carry no burden at all. Some of the menwere for turning it loose, but I insisted that we should lead it alongwith us, so that, if we got out of food, we would have it to eat.

  "There were forty-seven of us when we started, many being women andchildren. The President of the Faculty, an old man to begin with, andnow hopelessly broken by the awful happenings of the past week, rodein the motor car with several young children and the aged mother ofProfessor Fairmead. Wathope, a young professor of English, who had agrievous bullet-wound in his leg, drove the car. The rest of us walked,Professor Fairmead leading the pony.

  "It was what should have been a bright summer day, but the smoke fromthe burning world filled the sky, through which the sun shone murkily,a dull and lifeless orb, blood-red and ominous. But we had grownaccustomed to that blood-red sun. With the smoke it was different. Itbit into our nostrils and eyes, and there was not one of us whose eyeswere not bloodshot. We directed our course to the southeast through theendless miles of suburban residences, travelling along where the firstswells of low hills rose from the flat of the central city. It was bythis way, only, that we could expect to gain the country.

  "Our progress was painfully slow. The women and children could not walkfast. They did not dream of walking, my grandsons, in the way all peoplewalk to-day. In truth, none of us knew how to walk. It was not untilafter the plague that I learned really to walk. So it was that the paceof the slowest was the pace of all, for we dared not separate on accountof the prowlers. There were not so many now of these human beasts ofprey. The plague had already well diminished their numbers, but enoughstill lived to be a constant menace to us. Many of the beautifulresidences were untouched by fire, yet smoking ruins were everywhere.The prowlers, too, seemed to have got over their insensate desire toburn, and it was more rarely that we saw houses freshly on fire.

  "Several of us scouted among the private garages in search of motor carsand gasoline. But in this we were unsuccessful. The first great flightsfrom the cities had swept all such utilities away. Calgan, a fine youngman, was lost in this work. He was shot by prowlers while crossing alawn. Yet this was our only casualty, though, once, a drunken brutedeliberately opened fire on all of us. Luckily, he fired wildly, and weshot him before he had done any hurt.

  "At Fruitvale, still in the heart of the magnificent residence sectionof the city, the plague again smote us. Professor Fair-mead was thevictim. Making signs to us that his mother was not to know, he turnedaside into the grounds of a beautiful mansion. He sat down forlornly onthe steps of the front veranda, and I, having lingered, waved him a lastfarewell. That night, several miles beyond Fruitvale and still in thecity, we made camp. And that night we shifted camp twice to get awayfrom our dead. In the morning there were thirty of us. I shall neverforget the President of the Faculty. During the morning's march hiswife, who was walking, betrayed the fatal symptoms, and when shedrew aside to let us go on, he insisted on leaving the motor car andremaining with her. There was quite a discussion about this, but in theend we gave in. It was just as well, for we knew not which ones of us,if any, might ultimately escape.

  "That night, the second of
our march, we camped beyond Haywards in thefirst stretches of country. And in the morning there were eleven of usthat lived. Also, during the night, Wathope, the professor with thewounded leg, deserted us in the motor car. He took with him his sisterand his mother and most of our tinned provisions. It was that day, inthe afternoon, while resting by the wayside, that I saw the last airshipI shall ever see. The smoke was much thinner here in the country, and Ifirst sighted the ship drifting and veering helplessly at an elevationof two thousand feet. What had happened I could not conjecture, but evenas we looked we saw her bow dip down lower and lower. Then the bulkheadsof the various gas-chambers must have burst, for, quite perpendicular,she fell like a plummet to the earth.

  She fell like a plummet to the earth 132]

  "And from that day to this I have not seen another airship. Often andoften, during the next few years, I scanned the sky for them, hopingagainst hope that somewhere in the world civilization had survived. Butit was not to be. What happened with us in California must have happenedwith everybody everywhere.

  "Another day, and at Niles there were three of us. Beyond Niles, in themiddle of the highway, we found Wathope. The motor car had broken down,and there, on the rugs which they had spread on the ground, lay thebodies of his sister, his mother, and himself.

  "Wearied by the unusual exercise of continual walking, that night Islept heavily. In the morning I was alone in the world. Canfield andParsons, my last companions, were dead of the plague. Of the fourhundred that sought shelter in the Chemistry Building, and of theforty-seven that began the march, I alone remained--I and the Shetlandpony. Why this should be so there is no explaining. I did not catch theplague, that is all. I was immune. I was merely the one lucky man ina million--just as every survivor was one in a million, or, rather, inseveral millions, for the proportion was at least that."