Part 19

"If our presence in the city was a peril to these men, why was not this fear used to drive us away?"

"Was it not used to drive mademoiselle away?" asked Anthony. "Did I not find her on board _Le Mousquet_, flying from the phantom they raised in her mind?"

Again the shaking hand went to the lips of Monsieur Lafargue. And he said:

"But they did not desire _me_ to be gone. And I wanted to. I longed to go back to France. But they begged me to remain."

"And why?" said Anthony. "I think, from what I've seen to-night in monsieur's manner, he has had some thoughts as to that."

Here the girl's arms went about her father as though to protect him.

"They had use for you, I think," said Anthony. "They had plans, had they not? And these plans mademoiselle did not altogether favor. Am I right? They wanted her influence away. They desired you to be alone and unadvised." Monsieur Lafargue got up. His face was gray and drawn; his legs shook under him.

"At my years," said he, "the mind does not think directly. I may have been wrong in acting against your wish," to the girl; "but it was for France; it was for the republic, one and indivisible. Do not our enemies crowd the sea? Only a word was asked of me. It was a word that would launch a blow against the enemy. Could I withhold it?"

"Please, please!" said the girl, and the gentleness in her voice made Anthony marvel. "There is no one to blame you." Her arms were tightly about him. "No one _can_ blame you!"

"Is it wrong to do a deed for one's country?" said monsieur. "If the fat bustards flock in the air, shall I not loose the hawks against them? If a man puts a weapon in my hand to use against the foes of France, am I to think that man a--"

He sagged here, and for an instant the girl held his weight; then Anthony carried him to a sofa and laid him carefully down.

"He is old," said the girl; "he is very old. And he is not strong." In a few moments, under her ministrations, he began to revive. She looked at Anthony. "He has been uneasy," she said, "and this was too much for him."

Anthony took up his hat, but at the head of the stairs he paused.

"I hope," said he, "that I have made certain things plain. And I urge you to close your mind to these people, for they are your enemies as they are mine."

And so he followed the quadroon maid down the stairs and went out of the house. For an hour or more he paced the streets, his mind full of the girl; and then he went home. The door of his room he found unlocked, which was not usual. Inside there was the smell of burnt paper, the fireplace was choked with a blackened mass of ash; upon the floor lay the covers of some half-dozen of Rufus Stevens' Sons' old ledgers. The dates on the backs of them told Anthony they were of the period of Lucas and Carberry; and he sat down and stared dully at the ruin of that upon which he had counted so much.

XXVIII

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."