THE END OF ALL.
BY NYM CRINKLE.
The difficulty that I experience in complying with your request, dearspirit, springs from the terrestrial limitations of thought andexpression, from which, as you may well know, I have not been longenough with you to free myself.
I shall, however, give you a plain narrative of the events attending theextinction of life on our planet, asking you only to remember that I amdoing it just as I would have done it, were it possible, for a fellowhuman being while on earth, using the phraseology and the terrestrialtime divisions with which I am most familiar.
The circumstance which at our last intercourse I was trying to explainto you was simply this: In the early summer of the year 1892 a suddeninterruption of navigation occurred on the Pacific coast, which,curiously enough, attracted very little attention outside of scientificcircles. I was living at the house of my wealthy friend, Judge Brisbane,in Gramercy Park. To tell you the truth, I was in love with hisbeautiful daughter, of whom I shall have to speak more fully to you, forshe was intimately associated with me in the appalling scenes which youdesire me to describe.
I was sitting in the Judge's library on the night of June 25. Hisdaughter was present, and I had been conversing with her in an undertonewhile the Judge read the evening papers. He suddenly laid down thepaper, took off his spectacles, and, turning round in his chair, said tome: "Did you see the brief dispatch in the morning papers two days agofrom San Francisco, saying that all the eastern-bound vessels wereoverdue on that coast?"
I replied at once that I had not noticed it.
"It is astonishing," he said, "that in our present system of journalismthe most important events connected with the welfare of mankind receivethe slightest attention from the newspapers, and the trivialities oflife are most voluminously treated. A movement in the iron trade thataffects millions of homes gets a brief paragraph in small type, and thequarrel of a ballet girl with her paramour receives illuminatedattention down whole columns. Here is something taking place in thePacific Ocean of surpassing interest to the race, and nobody pays theslightest attention to it except, perhaps, the consignees and shippingclerks."
"What is it?" we both asked, with the languid interest that youngpeople, having an overmastering personal affair on hand, would be apt totake in matters of national or universal importance.
The Judge got up, and going to a side table, where he kept his paperspiled in chronological order, pulled out a recent issue of a morningjournal, and after looking it over searchingly a moment, said:
"Here. I should think you would notice such a paragraph as this." Thenhe read, as I recollect, a telegraphic dispatch to this effect:
"SAN FRANCISCO, June 23.--Considerable anxiety is felt here in commercial circles by the non-arrival of any eastward-bound vessels for a week. The steamship _Cathay_ of the Occidental Line is overdue four days. An unusual easterly wind has been blowing for twenty-four hours. Weather mild.
"That dispatch, you will perceive," said the Judge, "was sent two daysago. Now here, on the 25th, I read in the evening paper another dispatchfrom San Francisco, hidden away at the bottom of a column of commercialnews. Listen to this:
"SAN FRANCISCO, June 25.--The entire suspension of travel from the West continues to excite the gravest apprehensions. Nothing but coastwise vessels have come in during the past eight days. The U. S. cruiser _Mobile_ left Honolulu three weeks ago for this coast. There is no official intimation of a storm in the Chinese seas."
The Judge laid the paper down, and regarded us both a moment in silence,as if expecting to hear some remark that indicated our suddenly awakenedcuriosity.
I don't think we responded with any adequate interest to the occasion.Miss Brisbane did, indeed, stare at her father in her dreamy, abstractedway a moment, and then got up, and, going to the open window, began toarrange the curtains, as if relinquishing whatever problem there was tothe superior acumen of the masculine mind.
I think I said that it looked as if there had been a cyclone somewhere,and if there had we should in all probability get the accounts of itsoon enough.
"But, young man," replied the Judge, with his majesterial emphasis,"cyclones do not extend from the fiftieth degree of north latitude tothe fortieth degree of south latitude, and vessels are due at SanFrancisco from Melbourne and Japan."
"What, then, other than a storm at sea could have caused a detention ofall these vessels?" I asked, and I must have unwittingly betrayed in thetone of my voice, or the expression of my face, that consideratesuperciliousness with which youth regards the serious notions of maturephilosophers, for the Judge, putting his gold spectacles upon his nose,and regarding me over the top of them a moment, said rather severely:
"Other than the known and regular phenomena of this planet do notinterest young men. If I could answer your question there would be nospecial interest in the matter."
I mention these trivial incidents because, insignificant as they mayseem, they were the first ripples of that disaster which was soon enoughto overwhelm us all, and to show you what were the only premonitions theworld had of the events which were to follow.
On June 26, the subject did not occur to me. A hundred other things offar more immediate consequence to me occupied my attention. A young manwho is preparing to get married is not apt to take somber views ofanything. Nor is he very apt to allow the contumacy of age in hisprospective father-in-law to aggravate him. It was a pardonable freak, Ithought, in a man who had retired in most respects from the activeworld, to dogmatize a little about that world now that he judged itthrough his favorite evening paper. When, therefore, on the night of the26th, while at the tea-table, the Judge broke out again about themeteorological wave on the Pacific coast, his daughter Kate and Iexchanged a rapid but furtive glance which said, in the perfectunderstanding of lovers, "There comes the old gentleman's new hobbyagain, and we can well afford to treat it leniently."
The Judge had the damp evening paper in his hand, and he disregarded thesteaming cup of tea which his daughter had poured for him.
"Well," he said, with a toss of self-satisfied import. "Now thenewspapers are waking up to the significance of the California news." Hethen read from the paper, as nearly as I can recollect, something likethe following:
SAN FRANCISCO, June 26.--There is an intense and growing anxiety on this coast with respect to the non-appearance of any eastward-bound vessels. The breeze from the east continues, and is unprecedented.
"Now, I should like to know," said the Judge, as he laid down the paperand took up his tea-cup, "why a breeze from the east in Californiashould be unprecedented."
"Because," I ventured to remark, "it usually blows from the sea at thisseason."
"Nonsense," exclaimed the Judge with vigor. "A variation for a few daysin wind or weather is a common occurrence everywhere. Fancy a messagesent all over the world from the West Indies that the trade winds weresix days late, or a telegram from Minnesota that the winter frosts hadbeen interfered with for a week by pleasant sunshine. No, sir. The eventof importance to the Californian at this moment is the mysterioussomething that has happened out at sea, and there is no excuse for hisassociating a summer breeze from the east with it, except that there issomething peculiar about that breeze that associates it in the mind withthe predominant mystery."
I smiled. "You will pardon me, Judge, but it seems to me," I said, "thatyou are trying to invest the whole affair with an occult significancethat is subjective. I suppose that in a few hours the matter will beexplained and forgotten."
In a moment we were in one of those foolish little wrangles in which, sofar as argument is concerned, the younger man is at a greatdisadvantage, when the elder, however unreasonable his claims, enforcesthem with the advantage of age and position. I remember that the desireto convince Kate on the one hand that I was free from what I conceivedto be her father's unreasonableness, and sustain my independence ofviews on the other hand, led me to say much more
than was polite, for Iexasperated the old gentleman, and with a curt and not altogethercomplimentary remark he got up and left the room.
The moment he was gone I turned to the daughter and laughingly said:"Well, my dear, I am afraid I have offended your father withoutintending it, but you at least understand me, and are free from hissuperstition."
To my surprise she regarded me with a serious air, and replied: "I donot know what you mean by superstition. My father believes thatsomething has happened, and I feel that he is right."
"You do not mean to tell me," I said, "that you believe anything hashappened that can concern us?"
She made no reply. I looked at her with some astonishment, and wonderedif I had offended her by opposing her father's childish views.
"Perhaps," I persisted, "you, too, think I am stupidly unreasonablebecause I will not consent to be dishonestly chimerical."
I well remember the look of sad reproach with which she silentlyregarded me, and I well remember, too, the thought that came into mymind. I said to myself: "This is the same obduracy that her father hasshown. Odd it is that I never noticed the trait in her before." Then Iadded, with an equal obduracy that I was not conscious of:
"Perhaps you, too, have discovered some peculiarity of good sense in methat is offensive, and you are afraid that something will happen ifwe----"
Here she interrupted me in her quiet, resolute, and reproachful way.
"Something has happened," she said.
I was amazed. If I had suddenly discovered that the woman I loved wasunfaithful to me it could not have produced, in my frame of mind at thatmoment, a greater shock. It seemed to me then that the wooing of months,the confidence and affection of a year, were to be sacrificed in amoment of infatuated stubbornness. The very thought was so unnaturalthat it produced a revulsion in my own feelings.
"My darling," I said, as I went toward her impulsively, "we are playingthe unworthy part of fools. Nothing can ever happen that will make uslove each other less, or prevent you from being my wife."
I put my arm around her in the old familiar way. She was passive andirresponsive. She stood there, limply holding the curtain, with onewhite arm upraised, her beautiful head bent over and her eyes cast downso that I could not look into her face. This stony obduracy was so newand unlike her that I withdrew my arm and stepped back a little toregard her with astonishment, not unmingled with pique. At that momentshe lifted her head slowly, and as she looked at me with a dreamy andfar-away pathos I saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
"It seems to me," she said, with a voice that sounded as if it wasaddressed to an invisible phantom way beyond me. "It seems to me that Ishall never be your wife!"
I must have stared at her several seconds in silence. Then I said:
"You are ill. You are not yourself. When you have recovered your normalcondition I will come back."
I snatched a kiss from her lips, that were strangely cold, and rushedfrom the house.
It was not till the next morning, when I woke up after a short anddisturbed sleep, that my mind reverted to the cause of all this purelysentimental disagreement, and I felt a strong desire to have eventsprove that the Judge was slightly monomaniacal, and that I was right. Iwent to Riccadonnas' for my breakfast and got all the morning papers, asusual, but this time with a distinct confidence that the news would bethe best vindication of my good sense, and that I should yet have a goodlaugh at the Judge.
I opened the paper as I sipped my coffee, and the first thing my eyesfell on were the headlines of a dispatch from St. Louis. I read themwith an inexplicable sense of something sinking in me. As I recall themthey ran as follows:
"Strange news from the West. All communication west of Salt Lake Cityceases. Meteorological puzzle. What is the matter with the wires?"
Then followed the dispatch, which I have not forgotten:
ST. LOUIS, June 26, 8 P. M.--A dispatch received here from Yuma on the Texas Pacific announces that no eastern-bound train has come in since morning, and all attempts to open communication by telegraph with points west of that place have failed. It is the opinion of railroad men that a great storm is raging in California. Weather here pleasant, with a steady, dry wind from the east blowing.
Immediately following this was another news item which I can quote frommemory:
DENVER, June 26, 9 P. M.--Intelligence from Cheyenne is to the effect that railway travel and telegraphic communication west of Pocatello on the Union Pacific and Ogden and on the Central Pacific have been interrupted by a storm. The telegraph wires are believed to be in good condition, but up to nine o'clock there has been no return current.
I read these paragraphs over three or four times. Ordinarily I shouldhave passed them by and given my attention to other and more congenialnews. But now a dull fear that events were conspiring to widen thebreach between myself and the Brisbanes focussed my interest on them.There was that easterly wind blowing again; was I, too, growingsuperstitious? I turned over all the papers. The news was the same inall, but there was not an editorial paragraph of comment in any of thesheets, which, indeed, teamed with all the details of active commercial,political, and social life.
I went down town after eating my breakfast and found that theintelligence had not awakened any public attention that was observable.The two or three persons to whom I spoke with regard to it treated it asone of the passing sensations of the hour that would be explained sooneror later. It was not till the evening papers of the 27th came out thatthe matter began to be discussed. The dispatches in these papers were ofa nature to arouse widespread anxiety. It was very obvious from theirconstruction and import that the feeling west of the Mississippi wasmore intense than had up to this time been suspected. The columns of thepapers were filled with brief but rather startling telegrams fromvarious points. Denver, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, St. Paul, St.Louis, and Chicago sent anxious sentences which had a thrill oftrepidation in their broken phrases. And it was easy to see that thisfeeling of deep concern increased with each dispatch from a pointfurther west.
Telegrams sent to St. Louis, Chicago, and St. Paul represented thecondition of anxiety in Ogden and Pocatello to be bordering onexcitement. Fears were entertained, the dispatches said, of a"meteorological cataclysm," and thousands who had friends either on thecoast or in transit were besieging the telegraph offices in vain.
The hurried comments of the evening papers on the news were singularlyunsatisfactory and non-committal. "The unprecedented storm that is nowraging on the Pacific slope," I read, "and which has temporarily cut offcommunications with the far West, will by its magnitude fill the countrywith the most serious apprehensions." "The earliest news fromCalifornia, which shall give us the details of the storm," said anotherpaper, "will be looked for with eagerness, and will be promptly andfully furnished to our readers."
As curious as anybody could be to know what kind of a storm it was thathad stopped railroad travel from Idaho to Mexico, and remarking withsurprise that the Signal Office utterly refused to recognize a greatstorm anywhere, I dismissed the subject from my mind with the reflectionthat there would in all probability be explanatory news in the morning,and resolved to make my usual visit to the Brisbane family.
To my surprise, Kate received me cordially, and with no other allusionto the unpleasantness of the night before than a demure remark that shewas afraid she had offended me.
"Let us not refer to it at all," I said, "and thus avoid making idiotsof ourselves."
"I am glad you came to-night," she remarked, after a moment's silence,"for I wanted to tell you of the change we are going to make."
A little pang darted through me. It was said so seriously.
"What is it, my dear," I asked, trying to be as affectionate as if theconditions had not changed.
"My father and I have determined to go to Europe."
"To Europe!" I repeated, aghast. "You surely do not mean it?"
"Yes," resolutely. "He wante
d to consult you about it, but was afraidyou would disagree with his plans."
"And when did he make up his mind to take this sudden move?"
"This morning."
"And you intend to go with him?"
"Yes, and I was going to ask you to go, too."
"When do you propose to go?"
"Immediately."
It was evident to my mind now that this old man was a panic-strickenmonomaniac, and had infected his daughter with his fears.
"Kate," I said, as I took her by her hands and pulled her to the sofabeside me, "you are running away from something; it is not from me, isit?"
"I want you to go with us," she answered.
"But you knew when you asked me that I could not go so suddenly. Youexpected me to refuse."
"No," she said, "I expect you to consent."
"Be careful. In a moment of bravado I may take you at your word, at anycost!"
She caught hold of me. "Do," she said, tremulously, and I felt a littleshiver in her hand. "Do, do."
"I would rather go with you than lose you," I said at a hazard, "and ifyou are determined to go, I believe I will accompany you if your fatherwill consent."
"We are determined," she calmly replied.
"But I must put my affairs in order," I suggested.
"How many hours will it take you?"
"Hours?" I repeated. "You would not like to start to-night, surely?"
"Yes," she answered, "I would gladly start to-night."
My patience was giving way very fast at this imperturbable obduracy."Perhaps," I said, "you will give me some adequate reason for a hastethat I cannot comprehend."
She did not answer. She was listening, with her head averted, and sheheld up her hand for me to listen also, as if that were her answer. Thenthere came through the open window the hoarse cry of a distant newsboywho was bellowing an "extra."
There was something weird in her attitude and action, connecting, asthey did, her motives with that discordant, ominous cry.
"It's an extra," I said, as unconcernedly as possible. "I'll get a copy.There may be some good news for you," and I made a move toward thewindow.
"Don't," she said, quietly. "We were talking about going to Europe. Pais not familiar with the business of securing passages, and you are. Youcould relieve him of a great deal of worry, and if you would go withus----"
"Kate," I said, "do you want me to go?"
"Yes, I do," she replied. "I do not want to leave you here."
"Then," I said, "I will go. I will see your father in the morning andtell him that I will attend to the whole business of securing passages.I will set about arranging my affairs at once."
She then let me plague her a little about her timidity, and after a halfhour of playful badinage on my part I came away, with a parting promiseon my lips to lose no delay in making the arrangements for ourdeparture.
Such, however, was not my intention. I felt sure that the Judge and hisdaughter would change their minds if I could only manage to delaymatters a few days. To go running off to Europe at a moment's noticewould be utter folly for me.
As I left the house I heard the voices of the newsboys in various keysstill calling the extras. I bought a paper and read it under thegaslight of the church on Twentieth Street. "Display" headlinesannounced, "As Silent as the Grave; Nothing Heard from the Pacific.Great Excitement in Chicago and St. Louis." I must have stood there tenminutes poring over the strange news. An expedition in a special trainhad been sent west from Yuma that day, with railroad men and doctors. Ithad left at 3 P. M. The train reached Mesquite in less than an hour, andword was sent back from that station, "All right here; track clear; willreach the springs at 9 P. M." A dispatch from Yuma sent at 10 o'clockand received at St. Louis said, "Nothing further heard from thespecial." News from Chicago, where the excitement appeared to bemomentarily growing, reflected intelligence from Denver, St. Paul, andKansas City, and it was vain to ignore the fact that the entire West wasin an alarming condition of anxiety. A special train was fitting out atCheyenne under Government orders to start in the morning with a corps ofSignal Service men, army officers, and electricians. It was to goprovided with every scientific appliance, and to carry an insulatedcable to be paid out from the car. The accounts said that the peoplewere all on the streets in Cheyenne, and an enormous mob surrounded thestation where the preparations were making.
For the first time I felt, as I threw the paper away, what I can onlycall a sense of misgiving. As I walked up the deserted avenue thisfeeling grew upon me, and when I reached Twenty-third Street, on my wayto the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a sudden and entirely new reflection made mestop unconsciously as I turned it over in my mind. "If this strange newshas affected Judge Brisbane and his daughter so seriously, why may itnot be affecting millions of other people similarly? If there is at thismoment a panic in the West, how long will it take the reflex wave toreach New York?"
The next morning events, or at least the publication of them, hadreached that condition which arrests public attention everywhere. Thenews from the West swamped all else in the morning journals. Theeditors, by their work, now acknowledged that the mysterious silence onthe Pacific Slope was by far the most important subject forconsideration before the world. The moment I glanced at the sheets I sawthat there was but one theme in the journalistic mind.
Two days had passed, and the silence was unbroken. Never before in thehistory of the world had the absence of news become such important news.Public attention was now mainly centered on the attempt to get a trainof observation through from Cheyenne.
There was a hopeful spirit to most of the accounts, as if it wasbelieved that science would unravel the mystery. But there was nothingfrom any quarter of the globe that as yet afforded the feeblest gleam ofcomfort. The Government train was to start early on this, the morning ofthe 28th, and the papers were only able to furnish details of thepreparation and reports of the public excitement in Cheyenne and Denver.The officers on the train were to send dispatches from every stationwest of Pocatello. They were sagacious, experienced men, and theexpedition was under the direction of the well-known engineer, GeneralAlbert Carrall.
I felt as I read the accounts that these men would probably clear up themystery, and I resolved to delay engaging the passages on the oceansteamer until the next day. So I wrote a carefully worded note to JudgeBrisbane, informing him that I would attend to the matter immediately.Had I then had the slightest knowledge of the cumulative rapidity withwhich a panic moves I would not have taken this risk. But my wholeobject was to gain time, with the hope that something would occur tochange the minds of my two timid friends.
On the night of the 28th I avoided the Brisbane establishment, althoughmy desire drew me in that direction. I resolved to wait until themorrow, and if nothing happened to change the determination of the Judgeto go to Europe, to then make my arrangements to go with him and Kate.That night there was a visible change in the metropolis. The theaterswere deserted, men and women were congregated at the corners and werewalking in the roadways--a sure indication in a great city of somepopular disturbance. The bulletins and news centers were crowded, andthe mystery of the great silence was being discussed by everybody. Onething struck everybody with a vague terror, and it was the accounts ofthe strange wind that was now blowing at Cheyenne and Denver. Onespecial correspondent at Cheyenne said "that it seemed to him that theatmosphere of the earth, influenced by some incomprehensible suction,was all rushing to an unseen vortex. It was not in any sense adisturbance of the atmosphere that we usually call a wind, but a steady,silent draught. And the spectacle of trees bent over and held all day bythe pressure, but unfluttered and unrelieved by fluctuant variations,filled them with wonder and dread."
I got up early on the morning of the 29th, for I had slept lightly andfitfully. To my surprise I found that almost everybody else was up. Itmade me realize, as I had not done before, the feverish tension ofpublic expectation. The news, if news it can be called, was startling.Let me try and re
peat it to you just as it was presented to my sense.The special train, upon which the eyes of the whole country were fixed,had been heard from. It had gone west from Cheyenne and passed throughPocatello without interruption. Then followed the dispatches receivedfrom it at Cheyenne as it passed the stations beyond Pocatello. Theywere in this order and to this effect:
MICHANO, 10 A. M.--All right. Instruments working well. Track clear. Inhabitants appear to be moving east. No intelligence of a definite character obtained. Shoshone 108 miles west. Expect to make it in four hours.
BANNOCK, 2:30 P. M.--Conditions unchanged. Passed moving settlers all the way. They are going east with chattels. Wind from the east has the pressure without the violence of a gale. Party in good spirits.
SUNSHINE, 3:15.--Vast herds of wild cattle now impeding progress. Wind increasing. Road otherwise clear.
AMERICAN FALLS, 4:40.--Signs of the exodus decreasing. Country strewn with household goods. Reports here that all the teams that went out on the roads west have not returned. Expect to hear something definite from Minidoka.
MINIDOKA, 6:10.--Electrical and barometrical indications unchanged. Signs of life disappearing. Party in excellent spirits, and eager to reach the facts.
The next dispatch was from Cheyenne, and was sent at eight o'clock. Itsimply said, "Nothing further heard from Government party. Wire in goodorder."
Then followed two telegrams of gruesome brevity and significance:
POCATELLO, 9 P. M.--Nothing here.
CHEYENNE, 10 P. M.--Nothing has come over the special wire up to this hour. Microphonic tests at Pocatello indicate that the train is still moving. Electrical tests indicate that the current is unbroken.
Finally there was a special message from the New York _Star's_correspondent at Cheyenne, dated 11 P. M. It was about to this effect:
The current on the Government wire was broken at 10:40. Delicate tests show that the wire is now grounded. The dire conclusion of experts here is that the train ran from some point west of Minidoka from about 6:15 to 10:40 without human control, and then met with an accident. At the rate at which it was moving the train must have reached Shoshone. Terrible excitement here.
My keen sense detected in the newspaper itself certain infallible littlesigns that the news had disturbed the precision and routine of theoffice. Lines of type were in the wrong place, and typographical errorsmade it difficult to get the exact sense. Dispatch after dispatch, allbearing the same import of panic, was huddled into the column. From St.Louis the announcement was:
An unprecedented excitement here over the news from Cheyenne. The authorities appear to have lost their heads, and are unable to preserve order. Eastward-bound trains are carrying away people at a mob rate. We are in the midst of chaos.
From Chicago the intelligence was similarly appalling. "A panic prevailshere," said the dispatch. "Impelled by a senseless apprehension ofdisaster, people have lost their reason. The Mayor has just issued acall upon the best citizens to assist him in preserving order."
It required no news expert to see that all the issues of life weretemporarily suspended by the tremendous and growing interest in thisstupendous mystery. Channels of news worn smooth by the placid streamsof everyday platitudes began to show the roll of this new freshet. Adispatch from Washington was unintentionally significant. It read likethis: "The only explanation forwarded by Colonel Sandford of theabandonment of the Pike's Peak signal station by himself and party isthat of a coward. He says the wind pressure indicated that the placewould speedily become untenable."
I turned over the sheet in which these disheartening facts werepresented and looked at the editorial page. There was a double-leadedleader, evidently written late at night, and its conclusions were moregruesome than the facts, for while the facts could be interpreted invarious ways according to the reader's condition of mind, there was nomistaking the official tone of the editor whose business it was to weighand estimate the public value of news. It seemed to me that this umpireto whom we instinctively looked for opinions had thrown up the sponge,so to speak. Let me recall his words as they were impressed upon me thatmorning:
That a grave crisis has arrived in the conditions of life on this planet, it would be folly and is impossible any longer to deny. It is not our province nor is it within our power to offer any solution of the stupendous mystery that is now enveloping a part of our continent. It is only imperative upon us, as brave agents in the dispensing of truth, to say, with all the candor that we can summon, that the effort of the Government to open communication with the vast region west of what must now be known as the Meridian of Silence has dismally failed, and it is the conviction of the maturest judgment, based upon all the facts of the attempt that are obtainable, that it failed because the explorers themselves ceased to exist when they had passed a certain pretty well-defined line which we now know extends north and south from Helena in Montana to Yuma on the borders of Mexico.
I found myself standing by my breakfast table reading this. I had risenunconsciously. My breakfast was unheeded. An ungovernable impulse to goanywhere seized me. To sit still with this crushing uncertainty wasimpossible. I found myself in a coupe. Where I got it I do notdistinctly remember. But I do remember that it was by means of anextraordinary offer to the driver, who, like all his fellows, wasdashing through the streets at a headlong pace. And I also have a veryclear recollection of the strange nervous effect produced upon me byseeing the people along the curbs on Broadway watching the flyingvehicles with a mute terror, as if the very recklessness of the driversafforded them a palpable distraction from the unintelligible weight oftheir own fears. I speedily noticed that the stream of humanity on thestreets was tending down town, and almost immediately I understood thatit was heading, like myself, for the news centers. I could get nofarther than Chambers Street, owing to the block of people and vehicles,and the driver rudely refused to take the risk of a jam. I looked at theCity Hall clock. It was only eight. My heart was beating rapidly, and Iknew enough of the effect of emotion on the cardiac system to understandthat it was caused by suspense. A thousand new terrors were in the airof which the experience and the sagacity of man were ignorant. I forcedmy way with the greatest difficulty across the park, which was full ofrestless but strangely mute people, and got near enough to the newspaperbulletins to read the painted lines. They were feverishly indicative ofthe cross currents of excitement in the country, and were in short,decisive sentences like this: "The President asked to appoint a day ofhumiliation and prayer immediately. The Governor of Colorado, crazed bythe excitement, commits suicide. Mob rule in Chicago. Rioting in Denver.Breakdown of the Alton & Chicago road. Unparalleled scenes at El Paso.Fanaticism in New Orleans. The Christian pastors of this city will meetat Cooper Union at ten o'clock, irrespective of sect. Panic inMilwaukee."
Held by a numbing sort of fascination, I read these sentences over andover. Across Printing House Square, on another bulletin, in big blackletters I saw the line, "It baffles the world. Has annihilation set in!"There was something weird in the use of the pronoun IT. It seemed to beman's last effort in language to express a mystery that was specific andyet incomprehensible, and I found that by the common consent ofignorance men were referring to the phenomenon as IT. I looked at thestrained, anxious faces of the mob, and a great fear fell upon me. Withit came an awful reproach. I would go instantly and redeem my word toKate by securing passages to Europe. I had to fight my way by inches outof the stolid and frightened crowd to the steamship office on lowerBroadway, and there I found another jam. The street was full of privatecarriages, and it was impossible to get anywhere near the entrance tothe office. I saw a policeman who was on the outside of the press, andwho was walking up and down in a restless and unofficial manner. "Whatis the matter here?" I asked him. He looked me all over, as if hesuspected that I had fallen out
of the clouds. Then he said: "Tryin' toget tickets for Europe! Where d' you come frum?" and then, after arestless turn or two he added as he passed me, "But it ain't no use,'cause there ain't steamships enough in the world!"
Then it was, I think, that the whole terrible truth first lit myconsciousness like the sudden upflaring of a bale fire. The inhabitantswere fleeing from the country. They were all affected as had been theBrisbanes. I was the only dolt and idiot and liar who had no instinctsof danger, and who had failed to rescue the woman I loved when she hadappealed to me.
Then I plunged wildly out into the street with a feeling of desperationand that sinking of the spirits that comes only in the worst crises andwhen one begins to comprehend how helpless man is. I saw that in thebrief time that had elapsed a change had taken place in the aspect ofthe crowds. When I got to Broadway again it was with the utmostdifficulty that I could make my way at all against the surging mass ofpeople that seemed momentarily to swell. It was utterly unlike any crowdin numbers and disposition that I had ever encountered. It was made upof all classes. It had lost that American characteristic of good-humor,which had been swallowed up in a dire personal and selfish instinct ofself-preservation. It was animated by a vague terror, and disregardedevery consideration but that of personal safety. A horrible convictionseized me that the ordinary restraints of society were breaking down,and that speedily panic would mount to chaos. I saw that this dread wasadding to the terror of everybody, aside from the fear of IT. Like anassemblage in a burning building, the fear of each other was moresubtile and operative than the fear of the elements. By indefatigablelabor I got off the main thoroughfare and reached Hudson Street, andhere in the crowd I learned the latest news and discovered the cause ofthe rapidly increasing excitement. I had run against an intimate friendand associate, by accident. His first words were, as he wiped theperspiration out of his eyes, "Well, this is awful, eh?"
"What's the news?" I asked.
"The latest is that The Death Line has moved. The Thurbers have aprivate wire, and I just heard that Denver is cut off now! It looks asif it was every man for himself."
So terrible was this announcement, and so engrossed was I with thedespairing thoughts that it gave rise to, that I took little heed ofwhat was going on about me until I reached Canal Street. The one dullconviction that it was useless to fight against now was thatannihilation had set in; that some destroying wave had started out toencircle the globe and that the race was doomed. Something, God aloneknew what, had happened to our planet, and humanity was to be swept awayin one of those cataclysms with which soulless Nature prepares for a neworder of existence.
I was rudely awakened from this reverie of wretchedness by the crowdwhich surged against me with a blind, unvindictive violence. My onedesire was to get uptown to the woman I loved and had neglected, and Isaw that every minute was adding to the difficulty.
How I reached the Brevoort House I do not know. But there I found anumber of citizens who had not utterly lost their heads, and who hadcome together for counsel. There was a private wire in the house, andthey were receiving intelligence from several central points in thecity. The looks of these men, who were huddled into the parlor, wereenough to dismay the most resolute observer. Their pale faces andpainfully set mouths indicated the sense of an awful crisis which wisdomdid not know how to meet or avoid. A well-known citizen read thedispatches to them as they were received, and torn as I was byimpatience, my curiosity held me there to hear. It was now abouthalf-past eleven in the morning. The rapidity with which events hadmoved since I got up was made startlingly apparent by the informationhere furnished. The authorities, together with a number of influentialcitizens, had come together as if by a common instinct at the FifthAvenue Hotel. The Mayor, the Police and Fire Commissioners, severalwealthy bankers, and a number of prominent clergymen were holding somekind of council and sending out appeals for co-operation and addressesto the public, which latter were entirely unheeded. As I forced myselfinto the room I saw and heard a venerable and majestic gentleman,evidently a clergyman, addressing those present in an impassionedmanner. There were tears in his eyes and an awful sadness in his voice."Men and brethren," he said, "it is appointed unto all men once to die.If it be appointed unto us who remain to die together, let us die likeChristians who still retain our faith in eternal justice and eternalmercy, and not like wild beasts that devour each other."
A report came that the fatal east wind was blowing. And at this therewas a general movement of those present, as if the time were too shortto waste in longer listening. I came up Lafayette Place to Astor Placewith the intention of reaching Fourth Avenue. Both spaces were chokedwith people, and on Eighth Street I saw a woman on the steps of aprivate residence, wildly calling on the mob, which paid no attention toher, to repent, for the day of judgment was at hand. Her white hair wasblown over her face and her arms were frantically gesticulating. Intothe great hall of the Cooper Union a mass of religious people hadflocked, and a number of speakers were making addresses and offering upprayers. When I passed the woman who was exhorting the crowd I hadnoticed the manner in which her hair, which was of soft, flossy white,streamed out straight in front of her, but it did not occur to me untilI reached the square in front of the Cooper Union that this was causedby the peculiar and ominous draft of wind from the east of which I hadheard so much, for it was there that I saw a crowd pointing up to theroof of the vast building known as the Bible House, which appeared to becovered with people. Some of them were holding flags and drapery, andthe material floated out westward without any of the undulating motionwhich always marks a flag in a disturbed current. These extemporizedpennants stood out as if they were starched. I could see that this signproduced a dumb sort of terror in the crowd. It seemed to me then thatall emotion of which I was capable was centered in the one desire to getto the woman I loved and die with her. A crushing and at the same timean animating remorse, as if somehow I had been responsible for her deathat least, in disregarding her warnings, and somehow doubly guilty inmistrusting her motives, unmanned me and inflamed me. It was withsomething of the same disregard of everybody but oneself that I had seenin others that I fought my way to Twenty-first Street. What brutalitiesI committed need not be recounted. That hour remains with me an acuteand jangled memory of frenzy. I reached the steps of Judge Brisbane'shouse torn and bleeding. The terrible scenes were in my eyes, and thedreadful, monotonous tumult of human desperation--that vast sigh ofdoomed humanity, pierced here and there by the wails and shrieks ofdespair and the cries of innocence for help, was in my ears. Thecelerity with which it had all come on left no chance for cool reason.An invisible phantom was at the heels of the community and we were partof a mighty stampede. After fumbling for an instant at the bell andpushing back several ghastly creatures who were on the steps, I musthave applied my shoulder to the door and pushed it in. Some one appearedto be resisting on the other side, but it gave way and I half fell intoJudge Brisbane's vestibule. An instant later we were looking into eachother's faces, I, bloody and soiled and ragged and wild with the frenzyof fear and impatience; he, pale as death, but resolute, and holding anenormous bar over me.
"Quick!" he said. "Help me fasten this door!"
That sudden call of duty struck something habitual in me, and, withoutknowing exactly what I was doing, I found myself assisting him inbarricading the door. The endeavor somewhat changed the current of mythoughts from the danger that was unseen to the danger that was stormingunder our windows. I must have muttered some kind of excuse for myconduct to the Judge, for he said: "No time for apologies orrecriminations now. The house is full of my neighbors, who have comehere for protection. Go upstairs and look after the women. The best andonly thing we can do is to preserve a quiet place to die in, and not betrampled to pieces. Are you armed?"
I dashed up the broad staircase, and found the upper rooms occupied bywomen, some of whom, in morning attire hastily thrown on, were sittingaround with their heads in their hands, while others were huddled at thewindows, stari
ng with strained looks of terror at the crowds on thestreet. Walking up and down the room, wringing his hands, a middle-agedman was giving expression to the most terrible irony and cowardice,without reference to his listeners.
I ran my eye over the huddled groups of frightened women. The one Isought was not there. I flew through the groaning figures on thestairway up to her chamber. I knocked loudly, and called her by namepassionately. Then I listened. I heard nothing but the dull sounds ofthe human tumult that came through the open casement, and the sighingtones of the telegraph wires as the steady draft from the east sweptthrough them. I shook the door, and abjured her to come to me. Then inmy madness I burst it in. She was on her knees at the bed, with herhands on her ears, and her head buried in the bedclothes. I fell down onmy knees beside her, and put my arm around her. "Kate," I said, "we willdie together. Look up. Love at least is eternal." She was cold. I caughther head between my hands, and turned her beautiful face toward me. MyGod, she was dead! Dead, with her staring eyes full of terror, and herbeautiful mouth set in hard and ghastly lines. Then it was that I feltrise up within me for the first time the rebellious bitterness of thenatural man. Need I tell you that at such moments man is little betterthan an animal, save in his free agency that enables him to defy? Ipassed hours there--moaning, cursing, bewailing. When at last the forceof the paroxysm had expended itself, I shook my fist in the face ofheaven, with the obduracy of Pagan Greek, and said: "Come on now, youenvious Fates, and do your worst speedily, or I will be too quick foryou!"
Judge Brisbane found me there, raving.
"Do you know?" I asked.
"Yes," he answered, "and I am grateful. She is spared much that we mustendure."
"And so," I said, "life, love, and the vaunted future of the race end inmockery."
"It seems so," he replied. "But we cannot be sure. Come with me."
We ascended to the roof. The spectacle that greeted us wasindescribable. The tops of all the houses were black with people, whowere staring mutely and with childish terror into the West. The steady,subdued organ tone of the rushing atmosphere could now be heard aboveall else. We stood there in silence a few moments, and then I said,"It's terrible. What do you suppose is taking place?"
"I suppose," replied the Judge, "that we are losing our atmosphere.Reeling it off, so to speak, slowly, as we revolve. Our planet hasentered some portion of the ethereal space where the conditions aresucking us dry of oxygen. As it recedes from the earth the waterdisappears, and we shall be left to revolve like the moon, without airand without liquid, and consequently without life."
He said this meditatively, less as if he were answering my question thanif he were formulating his own fears.
"Then," I remarked, "if this takes place gradually, the millions havegot to struggle and writhe and fight together in suffocation. We can atleast blow our brains out and cheat such a fate."
"I should hate," said the Judge, "to think that the man who was to marryKate had not the bravery to face his destiny."
That was all that was said. We came down, and some ripples ofintelligence reached us during the afternoon from one or two persons whomade their way into the house. We learned that in the frenzy of fear thepopulace were committing the most extraordinary excesses. The shore lineof the Atlantic was crowded with people, many of whom plunged into theocean in the vain attempt to get away. The scenes in the city were toorevolting to narrate, for a large class of the community, released fromall restraint of moral and civil law, were bent on securing all thelawless pleasures that force could command, during the few hours thatwas left to them. And the line was steadily coming East. Chicago was cutoff at twelve o'clock. And at four intelligence had ceased coming fromBuffalo. At this time the sound of the winds was like the roar of thesea. I had torn myself away from the window where I had been staring atthe now packed and struggling masses of people, and had locked myself inthe room with the dead body of Kate. There was a vial of opium on hertable that had been used for neuralgia; I swallowed it, and sat down bythe bedside. I know not how long I remained there. But a loud report, asof a discharged cannon, roused me. I remember staggering and panting inthe dark, with a semi-consciousness that the end had come, and I nowknow that report was occasioned by the bursting of the drums of my ears.
I remember nothing more. I have given you a plain statement of myexperiences in that crisis, and I dare say they are uneventful enough bythe side of the experiences of millions.
SHALL HE MARRY HER?
BY ANNA KATHERINE GREEN.
Eleven Possible Cases Page 23
