Part 18

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.

"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."

"The garret is high," said the old man. "It's well out of reach, and airy, and cool. From there I can watch the wind blow the smoke from the chimneys, and see the weather-vanes turn, and the flags fly from the mast tops. So put me in the garret, Nathaniel. And draw the cupboard near to my bed."

"Ha, ha!" said the old woman. "The cupboard!"

"And the chest, Rehoboam; place the chest where I can reach it. Beside my bed. And then I will sleep; and to-morrow I will be well."

"To-morrow," said the old woman, "you'll be with the worms. And you'll give them no joy, either; for there'll be spare picking, indeed, on the like of you."

"Who is this?" asked Anthony, as he moved toward the bed.

"This, sir," said the hag, "is old Bulfinch. He's a usurer by trade, and now lies here rotting of the fever."

"Is he badly off?" asked the young man.

"I would not care to be as badly," said the crone. "I've seen men better off than he die like that," and she puffed out her breath. "But _he'll_ not die readily. Oh, no; he's one of the kind whose claws are sunk into life. He has cupboards and chests to anchor him to the world, has this gentleman; and, if all the tales you hear are true, they'll be rare, heavy bits of furniture, indeed." She chuckled and wagged her ancient head. "They'd be a fine sight for famished eyes, those two things," she said. "And I wish it were given to me to open them. Gold," she said. "And silver. Bags of it. Spanish and Dutch and British pieces, as broad as your hand. He was a sharp-nosed one for minted bits of metal, was old Bulfinch. Chests and cupboards stuffed with them. God save us! And, for all, here we have him, with yellow-jack pinched tight in his bowels."

"And his sons brought him here, you say?"

"They did; in a cart; and in the night. And they pitched him down by the door, and stayed hardly long enough for a word."

"I'll lie in the garret, Nathaniel," persisted the old man. "I'll lie in the garret, where it's airy and cool. I'll be quiet, there, and the pain in my head will leave me."

The hag chuckled gleefully.

"What, my gentleman," she said, "would you be where you'd stop the brisk snapping of locks, the opening of drawers, the throwing back of chest-lids? Out on you for a spoil-sport! Some one else counts your money to-night," she said. "Your noble sons have the handling of your broad, fine, bright pieces. I can see them settling to it now like a pair of weasels."

The clouded mind of the sick man sensed only a little of what she said.

"Plenty of room in the chest," he muttered. "Oh, yes, plenty of room for more. The years and years it takes to gain a very little. The weary years."

The old woman held a candle so that the light could fall on his face.

"There will be no more years for you," she said. "Hours will tell your tale." She nodded toward Anthony. "And short hours, too."

"It's a deep chest," said old Bulfinch. "As deep as a ship." Gradually a look of glee came into his face; his hands opened and shut covetously. "A fine ship," he said. "A tall ship; and with the old man's name painted on her. Such spaces she has for storing goods. Such wide, wonderful spaces! There is the room of a town in her. She went away grandly," he said. "Like a bride, all in white. And when she returns, what a dowry she'll bring! There will be magnificence! There will be splendor! Her cargo will be a jewel, and her oaken hull the casket." He gloated over this for a space; and then a trouble began to show. "If it were not Gorman, now," he said. "If it were not Gorman that is to step aboard her at Calcutta. We could trust Hollister. He is sound and tried. But he's done too much. Oh, yes, far too much to be safe; for there are sharp eyes watching; there are minds, too, that are like knife-blades, and they are thinking, always thinking."

Anthony's eyes met those of Mademoiselle Lafargue; but before either could speak there came the choking shriek:

"Water! One drop to cool my throat! Water, for God's love!"

"Hold your tongue!" said the old woman, lowering evilly at the sufferer. "It's always something with you. There's not enough water in the river to fill your gullet; so ease yourself back, and be still."

The French girl gave the sick man a cup of water; and while she was doing so old Bulfinch stirred uneasily.

"Nathaniel," he said, "are you there? Rehoboam, my son, where are you? I am not sick. The doctor is a fool. I am well and strong. It is true I have a pain in my head, and the hot sun has got into my blood. But I am not sick. The doctors are all frightened. Do not listen to them. They know nothing. By and by," and he laughed with a ghastly assumption of lightness, "this one will say I have the plague. It would be like him. Turn him away, Nathaniel; do not listen to him. And do not pay him money for his folly; it is waste, my sons, and money is hard to get. Take me to the garret; it will be quiet there, and I'll be up and strong in another day. Be careful, Nathaniel; lift me gently, and see to the stairs, Rehoboam; they are crooked and treacherous." There was a pause, and sudden panic seemed to seize him. His eyes stared, and his jaws fell open; he clawed about in the straw, and then, with sudden power, rose up. "No, no!" he raved. "Not here! Not this place of death! My curse on you, Nathaniel, if you leave me; my blood and death on you, Rehoboam, if you give me into the hands of these wretches!"

Shriek after shriek came from him; then he fell back with a foam about his lips and his eyes full of fear and loathing.

With the blood pounding in his head, Anthony took mademoiselle by the arm.

"Come, let us go," said he.

And he led her out, and across the hot, moon-bathed fields, toward the city.

XXIX

Weeks went by; the plague drew its horrible length along the river, through the town's byways, through the unsunned huddled places, through creeks and docks and open gutters, through wells and cisterns and cesspools; and all its attendant horrors followed in ghastly procession. Death no longer stooped, hawk-like; it settled heavily down beside its victim as a vulture settles, filthy, evil, cold.

From the night of their meeting at Bush Hill, Anthony and Mademoiselle Lafargue saw a deal of each other; there were no words said, no compact made; but the fights which both were pressing were paired, and the good they had been able to accomplish was greatly multiplied. Seeing this, others added their help; Bush Hill was cleansed of its villainies; aid was carried into neglected quarters. The group became compact and strong; others, like it, sprang up; a wall of resolution began to rear itself in the path of the pestilence--a wall behind which fear and superstition died.

Those who had fled weeks before watched and waited from the heights beyond the city. Over the point of land between the two rivers, upon which the city had been built, they saw a bank of vapor hanging; and gradually the belief spread that in this was contained the essence of the plague. Frightened eyes watched it. If a wind stirred the trees on the hillsides, the refugees were up, thrilling with dread. In what direction did it blow? Was it from the city? What if it got under the poisonous mist and lifted it toward them? After all, were they quite safe? Would it not be better if they traveled north toward the higher hills?

At Rufus Stevens' Sons, as at other mercantile houses, things were at a stop. Charles was seldom there; at times he might be found in a deep sleep on a sofa at his house on Ninth Street; but his waking hours were spent among the sick. What little business stirred was taken care of by Captain Weir, who came punctually to the counting-house each day; Whitaker was gone, having been one of the first to leave the city; Griggs and Twitchell, men of family both, kept themselves close to their homes and ventured nowhere. But Tom Horn came. As regularly as day dawned, he was up and cooked himself a meager breakfast at his lodgings in Pump Court, and then off to Rufus Stevens' Sons in Water Street, and the ledgers, and the day's doings. The river was full of craft which had been forbidden to sail; hand-barrows and horse-drawn vehicles had disappeared from the streets during the day; the people met with were few; they passed furtively, and at as great a distance as possible for fear of contagion. Tom would take down the shutters, for the porters, too, were gone; then he'd take the books from the chest in which they were kept and put them upon the tall desk, and look at the clock.

"Five in the morning," he'd say, "and it might as well be the dead of night for all the movement there is. Indeed, the night has more stir, what with the death-carts and the calling of the ghouls that manage them."

At seven o'clock Captain Weir would come in, and nod to Tom.

"All's still well with you?" he'd ask.

"Still well," Tom would reply. "And you?"

"So far--brisk enough."

"Pump Court is a healthy place," said Tom. "There have been but twelve carried from it so far. But it may be that I'm too spare of body for the pestilence to bother with."

"It may be," said Captain Weir. "But take care."

"Just over the way from me," said Tom, "there was a fat man lodging, a great, strong fellow with thews like a bull, and a red face as broad as a bucket. He was a most excellent feeder; I've seen him cutting into joints of beef in eating-places in a most astonishing way."

"One can't keep away the yellow-boy by gorging," said Captain Weir.

"Of a morning," said Tom Horn, "he'd shave himself at an open window, and bellow songs out into the court. And he'd thump himself on the chest and defy the plague to harm him. 'The cart is not made,' said he, 'that'll carry me away in the night. When the scourge gets me, the city might well sit back on its haunches and take fear. For when I go what chance have the others? Here's solidness for you,' he says, and he thumps away at himself; 'here's guts and brawn! I'd like to see the plague that'll set itself to choking up _my_ vitals. I'll have a surprise waiting for it."

"Ah," said Captain Weir. "A surprise."

"The surprise came," said Tom Horn. "But it was for the fat man. The plague worked very quietly; but it made an end of him in two days. And when the cart came for him, it was quite an old one; it had been made many years. And I marked, as it rolled with him out of the court in the light of the torches, that the city was very quiet. For all his fatness, his brawn, and his blood, there was nothing unusual. He was but a man, the same as others; if the grave-makers were forced to make the pit a little wider to let him in, that was the only difference."

It was the day they talked about the fat man in Pump Court that visitors came to the counting-room, the first in many a day; and the visitors were Rehoboam and Nathaniel Bulfinch. They entered together, and stepped toward Tom together; their gaunt, gangling frames were alike, as were their outstanding ears and the large spaces between their teeth, and the same eager, covetous look was in both their faces.

"It is refreshing to see a place of business open in times like these," said Nathaniel. "But I knew Rufus Stevens' Sons would be. Your pushing merchant does not permit an unfortunate state of public mind to step into his path."

"As we were coming down the street," said Rehoboam, "I said to Nathaniel, 'Brother, I am sure Rufus Stevens' Sons will be open and thriving as usual.' It is not for nothing," and Rehoboam showed all the spaces between his teeth in a wide smile, "that this business has earned such approval in the community."

Tom Horn did not speak; he sat on his long-legged stool, and looked at them, as a man might look at a pair of corbies that had thrust themselves upon his attention.

"You are Mr. Horn," said Nathaniel, grinning engagingly; "Mr. Horn, who has been with the house so long. Faithful service, sir, will be rewarded. Oh, yes, sooner or later, it will be rewarded. That is a rule that has never failed." He looked about and asked, "Where is Mr. Charles?"

"I don't know," said Tom Horn.

"He has not gone away!" said Nathaniel hastily. "Oh, no. _He_ would not be afraid of the plague."

"He is still in the city," affirmed Rehoboam. "He has been seen more than once of late, in the street, and working with the grave-makers in the potter's-field."

"I have not said he had gone away," answered Tom Horn. "I have said, I do not know where he is; and no more do I."

"Very well," said Nathaniel. "It does not matter. We may see Captain Weir, I suppose?"

"You may," said Tom Horn, "if he is willing."

It proved that the captain was, and the twins, gangling, grinning, vulture-like, went into the room where he sat.

"We were quite sure we'd find you at your post," said Rehoboam. "No matter what the day, or who be absent, we knew you'd be at hand."

"Sit down," said Weir, and he said it coldly. And when they had done so, he added, "What is your errand?"

"A trifle," said Nathaniel. "Only a trifle." He coughed behind his hand and looked at Rehoboam. It was Rehoboam who spoke.

"It may, or may not, have come to your attention," said he, "but in the past half-year Mr. Charles Stevens has had some dealings with our house. A number of times--how often was it, brother?" appealing to Nathaniel.

"Four times," said Nathaniel. "Exactly four."