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American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section
central court of the Chemistry Building and dug a
well. There were many young men, undergraduates,
with us, and we worked night and day on the well.
And our fears were confirmed. Three hours before
we reached the water, the pipes went dry.
“A second twenty-four hours passed, and still the
plague did not appear among us. We thought we
were saved. But we did not know what I afterward
decided to be true, namely, that the period of the
incubation of 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 to
believe that the period of incubation was equally swift.
So, when two days had left us unscathed,we were elat
ed with the idea that we were free of the contagion.
“But the third day disillusioned us. I can never
forget the night preceding 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’s
glorious works. So terrible were the local conflagra
tions that all the sky was lighted up. One could read
the finest print in the red glare. All the world
seemed wrapped in flames. San Francisco spouted
smoke and fire from a score of vast conflagrations
that were like so many active volcanoes. Oakland,
San Leandro, Haywards—all were burning; and to
the northward, clear to Point Richmond, other fires
were at work. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle.
Civilization, my grandsons, civilization was passing
in a sheet of flame and a breath of death. At ten
o’clock that night, the great powder magazines at
Point Pinole exploded in rapid succession. So
terrific were the concussions that the strong building
rocked as in an earthquake, while every’ pane of glass
was broken. It was then that I left the roof and
went down the long corridors, from room to room,
quieting the alarmed women and telling them what
had happened.
“An hour later, at a window on the ground floor,
I heard pandemonium break out in the camps of the
prowlers. There were cries and screams, and shots
from many pistols. As we afterward conjectured,
this fight had been precipitated by an attempt on the
part of those that were well to drive out those that
were sick. At any rate, a number of the plague-
stricken prowlers escaped across the campus and
drifted against our doors. We warned them back,
but they cursed us and discharged a fusillade from
their pistols. Professor Merryweather, at one of
the windows, was instantly killed, the bullet strik
ing him squarely between the eyes. We opened
fire in turn, and all the prowlers fled away with the
exception of three. One was a woman. The plague
was on them and they were 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 of the men I shot with my own hand.
After that the other man and the woman, still curs
ing us, lay down under our windows, where we were
compelled to watch them die of the plague.
“The situation was critical. The explosions of the
powder magazines had broken all the windows of the
Chemistry Building, so that we were exposed to the
germs from the corpses. The sanitary committee
was called upon to act, and it responded nobly. Two
men were required to go out and remove the corpses,
and this meant the probable sacrifice of their own
lives, for, having performed the task, they were not
permitted to re-enter the building. One of the pro
fessors, who was a bachelor, and one of the under
graduates volunteered! They bade good-bye to us
and went forth. They were heroes. They gave
up their lives that four hundred others might live.
After they had performed their work, they stood for
a moment, at a distance, looking at us wistfully. Then
they waved their hands in farewell and went away
slowly across the campus toward the burning city.
“And yet was it all useless. The next morning
the first one of us was smitten with the plague—a
little nurse-girl in the family of Professor Stout. It
was no time for weak-kneed sentimental policies.
On the chance that she might be the only one, we
thrust her forth from the building and commanded
her to be gone. She went away slowly across the
campus, wringing her hands and crying pitifully.
We felt like brutes, but what were we to do? There
were four hundred of us, and individuals had to be
sacrificed.
“In one of the laboratories three families had
domiciled themselves, and that afternoon we found
among them no less than four corpses and seven
cases of the plague in all its different stages.
“Then it was that the horror began. Leaving the
dead lie, we forced the living ones to segregate them
selves in another room. The plague began to break
out among the rest of us, and as fast as the symptoms
appeared we sent the stricken ones to these segre
gated rooms. We compelled them to walk there
by themselves, so as to avoid laying hands on them.
It was heartrending. But still the plague raged
among us, and room after room was filled with the
dead and dying. And so we who were yet clean
retreated to the next floor, and to the next, before
this sea of dead, that, room by room, and floor by
floor, inundated the building.
“The place became a charnel house, and in the
middle of the night the survivors flew forth, taking
nothing with them except arms and ammunition and
a heavy store of tinned foods. We camped on the
opposite side 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 our
provisions and enable us to emulate the banded
workingmen I had seen fighting their way out to the
open country.
Chapter IV
WAS one of these scouts; and
Doctor Hoyle, remembering that
his motor car had been left be
hind in his home garage, told me
to look for it. We scouted in
pairs, and Dombey, a young un
dergraduate, accompanied me.
We had to cross half a mile of the
residence portion of the city to get to Doctor Hoyle’s
home. Here the buildings stood apart, in the midst
of trees and grassy lawns, and here the fires had
played freaks, burning whole blocks, skipping blocks,
and often skipping a single house in a block. And
here, too, the prowlers were still at their work. We
carried our automatic pistols openly in our hands,
and looked desperate enough, forsooth, to keep them
from attacking us. But at Doctor Hoyle’s house
the thing happened. Untouched by fire, even as we
came to it, the smoke and flames burst forth.
“The miscreant who had set fire to it staggered
down the steps and out along the driveway. Stick
ing out of his coat pockets were bottles of whiskey,
and he was very drunk. My first impulse was to
shoot him, and I have never ceased regretting
that I did not. Staggering and maundering to him
self, with bloodshot eyes and a raw and bleeding
slash down one side of his bewhiskered face, he was
altogether the most nauseating specimen of degrada
tion and filth 1 had ever encountered. 1 did not
shoot him, and he leaned against a tree on the lawn
and 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 next instant 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 the garage, and there found Doc
tor Hoyle’s motor car. The tanks were filled with
gasoline, and it was ready for use. And it was in
this car that I threaded the streets of the ruined
city and came back to the survivors on the campus.
The other scouts returned, but none had been so
fortunate. Professor Fairmead had found a Shet
land pony, but the poor creature, tied in a stable
and abandoned for days, was so weak from want
of food and water that it could carry no burden at
all. Some of the men were for turning it loose, but
I insisted that we should lead it along with us, so
that, if we got out of food, we would have it to cat.
“There were forty-seven of us when we started,
many being women and children. The President
of the Faculty, an old man to begin with, and now
hopelessly broken by the awful happenings of the
past week, rode in the motor car with several young
children and the aged mother of Professor Fairmead.
Wathope, a young professor of English, who had a
grievous 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 from the burning world filled the
sky, through which the sun shone murkily, a dull and
lifeless orb, blood-red and ominous. But we had
grown accustomed to that blood-red sun. With the
smoke it was different. It bit into our nostrils and
eyes, and there was not one of us whose eyes were not
bloodshot. We directed our course to the southeast
through the endless miles of suburban residences,
travelling along where the first swells of low hills rose
from the flat of the central city. It was by this way,
only, that we could expect to gain the country.
“Our progress was painfully slow. The women
and children could not walk fast. They did not
dream of w-alking, my grandsons, in the way all
people walk to-day. In truth, none of us knew how
to walk. It was not until after the plague that I
learned really to walk. So.it was that the pace of
the slowest was the pace of all, for we dared not sep
arate on account of the prowlers. There were not
so many now of these human beasts of prey. The
plague had already well diminished their numbers,
but enough still lived to be a constant menace to us.
Many of the beautiful residences were untouched by
fire, yet smoking ruins were everywhere. The
prowlers, too, seemed to have got over their insensate
desire to burn, and it was more rarely that we saw
houses freshly on fire.
“ Several of us scouted among the private garages
in search of motor cars and gasoline. But in this we
were unsuccessful. The first great flights from the
cities had swept all such utilities away. Calgan,
a fine young man, was lost in this work. He was
shot by prowlers while crossing a lawn. Yet this
was our only casualty, though, once, a drunken
brute deliberately opened fire on all of us. Luckily,
he fired wildly, and we shot him before he had done
any hurt.
“At Fruitvale, still in the heart of the magnificent
residence section of the city, the plague again smote
us. Professor Fairmead was the victim. Making
signs to us that his mother was not to know, he
turned aside into the grounds of a beautiful mansion.
He sat down forlornly on the steps of the front
veranda, and I, having lingered, waved him a last
farewell. That night, several miles beyond Fruit-
vale and still in the city, we made camp. And that
night we shifted camp twice to get away from our
dead. In the morning there were thirty of us. I
shall never forget the President of the Faculty.
During the morning’s march his wife, who was walk
ing, betrayed the fatal symptoms, and when she
drew aside to let us go on, he insisted on leaving
the motor car and remaining with her. There was
quite a discussion about this, but in the end W’e
gave in. It was just as well, for we knew not
which one of us, if any, might ultimately escape.
“That night, the second of our march, we camped
beyond Haywards in the first stretches of country.
And in the morning there were elev cn of us that lived.
Also, during the night, Wathope, the professor with
the wounded leg, deserted us in the motor car. He
took with him his sister and his mother and most
of our tinned provisions. It was that day, in the
afternoon, while resting by the wayside, that I saw
the last airship I shall ever see. The smoke was
much thinner Here in the country, and I first sighted
the ship drifting and veering helplessly at an eleva
tion of two thousand feet. What had happened
I could not conjecture, but even as we looked we
saw her bow dip down lower and lower. Then the
bulkheads of the various gas-chambers must have
burst, for, quite perpendicular, she fell like a plum
met to the earth. And from that day to this I have
not seen another airship. Often and often, during
the next few years, 1 scanned the sky for them,
hoping against hope that somewhere in the world
civilization had survived. But it was not to be.
What happened with us in California must have
happened with everybody everywhere.
“Another day, and at Niles there were three of
us. Beyond Niles, in the middle 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 the bodies of his sister, his mother and
himself.
“Wearied by the unusual exercise of continual
walking, that night I slept heavily. In the morning
I was alone in the world. Canfield and Parsons, my
last companions, were dead of the plague. Of the
four hundred that sought shelter in the Chemistry