 Volume 3 Chapter 5 of The Last Man. Reading by Robin Cotter. November 2007. The Last Man. by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly. Volume 3 Chapter 5 After the repose of a few days we held a council to decide on our future movements. Our first plan had been to quit our wintry native latitude and seek for our diminished numbers, the luxuries and delights of a southern climate. We had not fixed on any precise spot as the termination of our wanderings, but a vague picture of perpetual spring, fragrant groves and sparkling streams floated in our imagination to entice us on. A variety of causes had detained us in England, and we had now arrived at the middle of February. If we pursued our original project, we should find ourselves in a worse situation than before, having exchanged our temperate climate for the intolerable heats of a summer in Egypt or Persia. We were therefore obliged to modify our plan, as the season continued to be inclement, and it was determined that we should await the arrival of spring in our present abode, and so order our future movements as to pass the hot months in the icy valleys of Switzerland, deferring our southern progress until the ensuing autumn if such a season was ever again to be beheld by us. The castle and town of Versailles afforded our numbers ample accommodation, and foraging parties took it by turns to supply our wants. There was a strange and appalling motley in the situation of these the last of the race. At first I likened it to a colony which, born over the far seas, struck root for the first time in a new country. But where was the bustle and industry characteristic of such an assemblage? The rudely constructed dwelling which was to suffice till a more commodious mansion could be built, the making out of fields, the attempt at cultivation, the eager curiosity to discover unknown animals and herbs, the excursions for the sake of exploring the country, our habitations were palaces, our food was ready stored in granaries, there was no need of labour, no inquisitiveness, no restless desire to get on. If we had been assured that we should secure the lives of our present numbers, there would have been more vivacity and hope in our councils. We should have discussed as to the period when the existing produce for the man's sustenance would no longer suffice for us, and what mode of life we should then adopt. We should have considered more carefully our future plans, and debated concerning the spot where we should in future dwell. But summer and the plague were near, and we dared not look forward. Every heart sickened at the thought of amusement. If the younger part of our community were ever impelled by youthful and untamed hilarity to enter on any dance or song, to cheer the melancholy time they would suddenly break off, checked by a mournful look or agonizing sigh from any one among them who was prevented by sorrows and losses from mingling in the festivity. If laughter echoed under our roof, yet the heart was vacant of joy. And whenever it chanced that I witnessed such attempts at pastime, they increased instead of diminishing my sense of woe. In the midst of the pleasure-hunting throng I would close my eyes and see before me the obscure cavern where was garnered the mortality of Idris, and the dead lay around, moldering in hushed repose. When I again became aware of the present hour, softest melody of Lydian flute or harmonious maze of graceful dance, was but as the demonic chorus in the wolf's glen, and the caperings of the reptiles that surrounded the magic circle. My dearest interval of peace occurred when, released from the obligation of associating with the crowd, I could repose in the dear home where my children lived. Children, I say, for the tenderest emotions of paternity bound me to Clara. She was now fourteen, sorrow and deep insight into the scenes around her, calmed the restless spirit of girlhood, while the remembrance of her father whom she idolized, and respect for me and Adrien implanted a high sense of duty in her young heart. So serious she was not sad. The eager desire that makes us all, when young, plume our wings and stretch our necks, that we may more swiftly alight tiptoe on the height of maturity, was subdued in her by early experience. All that she could spare of overflowing love from her parents' memory, and attention to her living relatives, was spent upon religion. This was the hidden law of her heart, which she concealed with childish reserve, and cherished the more, because it was secret. What faith so entire, what charity so pure, what hope so fervent, as that of early youth? And she, all love, all tenderness and trust, who from infancy had been tossed on the wide sea of passion and misfortune, saw the finger of apparent divinity in all, and her best hope was to make herself acceptable to the power she worshipped. Evelyn was only five years old, his joyous heart was incapable of sorrow, and he enlivened our house with the innocent mirth incident to his ears. The aged countess of Windsor had fallen from her dream of power, rank, and grandeur. She had been suddenly seized with the conviction that love was the only good of life, virtue the only ennobling distinction, and enriching wealth. Such a lesson had been taught her by the dead lips of her neglected daughter, and she devoted herself, with all the fiery violence of her character, to the obtaining the affection of the remnants of her family. In early years the heart of Adrienne had been chilled towards her, and, though he observed to due respect, her coldness mixed with the recollection of disappointment and madness, caused him to feel even pain in her society. She saw this and yet determined to win his love. The obstacle served the rather to excite her ambition. As Henry, Emperor of Germany, lay in the snow before Pope Leo's Gate for three winter days and nights, so did she in humility wait before the icy barriers of his closed heart, till he, the servant of love and Prince of Tender Courtesy, opening it wide for her admittance, bestowing with fervency and gratitude the tribute of filial affection she merited. Her understanding, courage, and presence of mind became powerful auxiliaries to him in the difficult task of ruling the tumultuous crowd, which were subjected to his control, in truth, by a single hair. The principal circumstances that disturbed our tranquility during this interval originated in the vicinity of the imposter prophet and his followers. They continued to reside at Paris, but missionaries from among them often visited Versailles, and such was the power of assertions, however false, yet vehemently iterated over the ready credulity of their ignorant and fearful, that they seldom failed in drawing over to their party some from among our numbers. An instance of this nature coming immediately under our notice, we were led to consider the miserable state in which we should leave our countrymen. When we should at the approach of summer move on towards Switzerland and leave a deluded crew behind us in the hands of their miscreant leader. The sense of the smallness of our numbers and expectation of decrees pressed upon us, and while it would be a subject of congratulation to ourselves to add one to our party, it would be doubly gratifying to rescue from the pernicious influence of superstition and unrelenting tyranny the victims that now, though voluntarily enchained, groaned beneath it. If we had considered the preacher as sincere in a belief of his own denunciations, or only moderately actuated by kind feeling in the exercise of his assumed powers, we should have immediately addressed ourselves to him and endeavored with our best arguments to soften and humanize his views. But he was instigated by ambition. He desired to rule over these last stragglers from that fold of death. His projects went so far as to cause him to calculate that, if from these crushed remains a few survived, so that a new race should spring up, he, by holding tight the reins of belief, might be remembered by the post-pestilential race as a patriarch, a prophet, nay a deity, such as of old among the post-deluvians were Jupiter the conqueror, Serapis the lawgiver, and Vishnu the preserver. These ideas made him inflexible in his rule, and violent in his hate of any who presumed to share with him his usurped empire. It is a strange fact, but incontestable, that the philanthropist, who ardent in his desire to do good, who patient, reasonable, and gentle, yet disdains to use other argument than truth, has less influence over men's minds than he who, grasping and selfish, refuses not to adopt any means, nor awaken any passion, nor diffuse any falsehood for the advancement of his cause. If this, from time immemorial, has been the case, the contrast was infinitely greater, now that the one could bring harrowing fears and transcendent hopes into play, while the other had few hopes to hold forth, nor could influence the imagination to diminish the fears which he himself was the first to entertain. The preacher had persuaded his followers that their escape from the plague, the salvation of their children, and the rise of a new race of men from their seed depended on their faith in and their submission to him. They greedily imbibed this belief, and their overweening credulity even rendered them eager to make converts to the same faith. How to seduce any individuals from such an alliance of fraud was a frequent subject of Adrienne's meditations and discourse. He formed many plans for the purpose, but his own troop kept him in full occupation to ensure their fidelity and safety, beside which the preacher was as cautious and prudent as he was cruel. His victims lived under the strictest rules and laws which either entirely imprisoned them within the tullaries, or let them out in such numbers and under such leaders as precluded the possibility of controversy. There was one among them, however, whom I resolved to save. She had been known to us in happier days. Idris had loved her, and her excellent nature made it peculiarly lamentable that she should be sacrificed by this merciless cannibal of souls. This man had between two and three hundred persons enlisted under his banners. More than half of them were women. There were about fifty children of all ages, and not more than eighty men. They were mostly drawn from that, which when the distinctions existed, was denominated the lower rank of society. The exceptions consisted of a few high-born females, who panic struck and tamed by sorrow had joined them. Among these was one young, lovely, and enthusiastic, whose very goodness made her a more easy victim. I have mentioned her before. Juliet, the youngest daughter, and now sole relic of the ducal house of El. There are some beings whom fate seems to select on whom to pour, in unmeasured portion, the vials of her wrath, and whom she bathes even to the lips in misery. Such a one was the ill-starred Juliet. She had lost her indulgent parents, her brother and sisters, companions of her youth, in one fell swoop that had been carried off from her. Yet she had again dared to call herself happy, united to her admirer, to him who possessed and filled her whole heart. She yielded to the lithian powers of love, and knew and felt only his life and presence. At the very time when, with keen delight, she welcomed the tokens of maternity, this sole prop of her life failed. Her husband died of the plague. For a time she had been lulled in insanity. The birth of her child restored her to the cruel reality of things, but gave her at the same time an object for whom to preserve at once life and reason. Every friend and relative had died off, and she was reduced to solitude and penury. Deep melancholy and angry impatience distorted her judgment, so that she could not persuade herself to disclose her distress to us. When she heard of the plan of universal emigration, she resolved to remain behind with her child, and alone in wide England to live or die, as fate might decree, beside the grave of her beloved. She had hidden herself in one of the many habitations of London. It was she who rescued my Idris on the fatal 20th of November, though my immediate danger and the subsequent illness of Idris caused us to forget our hapless friend. This circumstance had, however, brought her again in contact with her fellow-creatures. A slight illness of her infant proved to her that she was still bound to humanity by an indestructible tie, to preserve this little creature's life became the object of her being, and she joined the first division of migrants who went over to Paris. She became an easy prey to the Methodist. Her sensibility and acute fears rendered her accessible to every impulse. Her love for her child made her eager to cling to the nearest straw held out to save him. Her mind once unstrung and now tuned by roughest in harmonious hands made her credulous, beautiful as fabled goddess, with voice of unrivaled sweetness, burning with new lighted enthusiasm, she became a steadfast proselyte and powerful auxiliary to the leader of the elect. I had remarked her in the crowd on the day we met on the Place Vendôme, and recollecting suddenly her providential rescue of my lost one. On the night of the 20th of November I reproached myself for the neglect and ingratitude, and felt impelled to leave no means that I could adopt untried, to recall her to her better self, and rescue her from the fangs of the hypocrite destroyer. I will not, at this period of my story, record the artifices I used to penetrate the asylum of the Tuileries, or give what would be a tedious account of my stratagems, disappointments, and perseverance. I at last succeeded in entering these walls, and roamed its halls and corridors in eager hope to find my selected convert. In the evening I contrived to mingle unobserved with the congregation, which assembled in the chapel to listen to the crafty and eloquent harangue of their prophet. I saw Juliet near him, her dark eyes fearfully impressed with the restless glare of madness, were fixed on him. She held her infant not yet a year old in her arms, and care of it alone could distract her attention from the words to which she eagerly listened. After the sermon was over, the congregation dispersed. All quitted the chapel, except she whom I sought. Her babe had fallen asleep, so she placed it on a cushion, and sat on the floor beside, watching its tranquil slumber. I presented myself to her, for a moment natural feeling produced a sentiment of gladness, which disappeared again, when, with ardent and affectionate exhortation, I besought her to accompany me in flight, from this den of superstition and misery. In a moment she relapsed into the delirium of fanaticism, and but that her gentle nature forbade would have loaded me with execrations. She conjured me, she commanded me to leave her. Beware, oh beware! she cried, fly while yet your escape is practicable. Now you are safe, but strange sounds and inspirations come on me at times, and if the eternal should in awful whisper reveal to me his will, that to save my child you must be sacrificed. I would call in the satellites of him you call the tyrant. They would tear you limb from limb, nor would I hallow the death of him who Idris loved, by his single tear. She spoke hurriedly, with tuneless voice, and wild look. Her child awoke, and frightened began to cry. Each sob went to the ill-fated mother's heart, and she mingled the epithets of endearment she addressed to her infant, with angry commands that I should leave her. Had I had the means, I would have risked all, have torn her by force from the murderer's den, and trusted to the healing balm of reason and affection. But I had no choice, no power, even of longer struggle. Steps were heard along the gallery, and the voice of the preacher drew near. Juliet, straining her child in a close embrace, fled by another passage. Even then I would have followed her, but my foe and his satellites entered. I was surrounded and taken prisoner. I remembered the menace of the unhappy Juliet, and expected the full tempest of the man's vengeance, and the awakened wrath of his followers, to fall instantly upon me. I was questioned. My answers were simple, and sincere. His own mouth condemns him, exclaimed the imposter. He confesses that his intention was to seduce from the way of salvation our well-beloved sister in God. Away with him to the dungeon. Tomorrow he dies the death. We are manifestly called upon to make an example, tremendous and appalling, to scare the children of sin from our asylum of the saved. My heart revolted from his hypocritical jargon. But it was unworthy of me to combat in words with the Ruffian. And my answer was cool, while far from being possessed with fear, me thought. Even at the worst, a man to himself, courageous and determined, could fight his way, even from the boards of the scaffold, through the herd of these misguided maniacs. Remember, I said, who I am, and be well assured that I shall not die unevented. Your legal magistrate, the Lord Protector, knew of my design, and is aware that I am here. The cry of blood will reach him, and you and your miserable victims will long lament the tragedy you are about to act. My antagonist did not deign to reply, even by a look. You know your duty, he said to his comrades, Obey! In a moment I was thrown on the earth, bound, blindfolded, and hurried away. Liberty of limb and sight was only restored to me, when, surrounded by dungeon walls, dark and impervious, I found myself a prisoner, and alone. Such was the result of my attempt to gain over the prosolite of this man of crime. I could not conceive that he would dare put me to death. Yet I was in his hands, the path of his ambition had ever been dark and cruel. His power was founded upon fear. The one word which might cause me to die, unheard, unseen, in the obscurity of my dungeon, might be easier to speak than the deed of mercy, to act. He would not risk probably a public execution, but a private assassination would at once terrify any of my companions, from attempting a like feat, at the same time that a cautious line of conduct might enable him to avoid the inquiries and the vengeance of Adrian. Two months ago, in a vault more obscure than the one I now inhabited, I had revolved the design of quietly laying me down to die. Now I shuddered at the approach of my fate. My imagination was busied in shaping forth the kind of death he would inflict. Would he allow me to wear out life with famine? Or was the food administered to me to be medicineed with death? Would he steal on me in my sleep, or should I contend to the last, with my murderers knowing, even while I struggled, that I must be overcome? I lived upon an earth whose diminished population a child's arithmetic might number. I had lived through long months with death stalking close at my side, while at intervals the shadow of his skeleton shape darkened my path. I had believed that I despised the grim phantom, and laughed his power to scorn. Any other fate I should have met with courage. Nay have gone out gallantly to encounter, but to be murdered thus at the midnight hour by cold-blooded assassins, no friendly hand to close my eyes, or receive my parting blessing, to die in combat, hate, and execration. Ah, why my angel love, didst thou restore me to life, when already I had stepped within the portals of the tomb? Now that so soon again I was to be flung back a mangled corpse. Hours past, centuries, could I give words to the many thoughts which occupied me in endless succession during this interval? I should fill volumes. The air was dank, the dungeon floor mildewed, and icy cold. Hunger came upon me, too, and no sound reached me from without. Tomorrow the ruffian had declared that I should die. When would tomorrow come? Was it not already here? My door was about to be opened. I heard the key turn, and the bars and bolts slowly removed. The opening of intervening passages permitted sounds from the interior of the palace to reach me. And I heard the clock strike one. They come to murder me, I thought. This hour does not be fit a public execution. I drew myself up against the wall opposite the entrance. I collected my forces. I rallied my courage. I would not fall a tame prey. Slowly the door receded on its hinges. I was ready to spring forward to seize and grapple with the intruder. Till the sight of who it was changed at once the temper of my mind. It was Juliet herself. Pale and trembling she stood, a lamp in her hand, on the threshold of the dungeon, looking at me with wistful countenance. But in a moment she reassumed her self-possession, and her languid eyes recovered their brilliancy. She said, I am come to save you, Verney. And yourself also, I cried, dearest friend, can we indeed be saved? Not a word, she replied. Follow me. I obeyed instantly. We threaded, with light steps, many corridors, ascended several flights of stairs, and passed through long galleries. At the end of one she unlocked a low portal. A rush of wind extinguished our lamp. But in lieu of it we hid the blessed moon-beams and the open face of heaven. When first Juliet spoke, you were safe, she said. God bless you, farewell. I seized her reluctant hand. Dear friend, I cried, misguided victim, do you not intend to escape with me? Have you not risked all in facilitating my flight? And do you think that I will permit you to return, and suffer alone the effects of that miscreant's rage? Never. Do not fear for me, replied the lovely girl mournfully, and do not imagine that without the consent of our chief you could be without these walls. It is he that has saved you. He assigned to me the part of leading you hither, because I am best acquainted with your motives for coming here, and can best appreciate his mercy in permitting you to depart. And are you, I cried, the dupe of this man? He dreads me alive as an enemy, and dead he fears my avengers. By favouring this clandestine escape he preserves a shoe of constancy to his followers, but mercy is far from his heart. Do you forget his artifices, his cruelty and fraud? As I am free, so are you. Come, Juliet, the mother of our lost Idris will welcome you. The noble Adrien will rejoice to receive you. You will find peace and love, and better hopes than fanaticism can afford. Come, and fear not, long before day we shall be at Versailles. Close the door on the sabote of crime. Come, sweet Juliet, from hypocrisy and guilt to the society of the affectionate and good. I spoke hurriedly, but with fervour, and while with gentle violence I drew her from the portal, some thought, some recollection of past scenes of youth and happiness, made her listen and yield to me. Suddenly she broke away with the piercing shriek. My child! My child! He has my child! My darling girl is my hostage! She darted for me into the passage, the gate closed between us. She was left in the fangs of this man of crime, a prisoner, still to inhale the pestilential atmosphere which adhered to his demonic nature. The unimpeded breeze played on my cheek. The moon shone graciously upon me. My path was free. Glad to have escaped, yet melancholy in my very joy I retrod my steps to Versailles. Recording by Stephanie Dupal de Martin. The Last Man by Mary Wollstone-Craft Shelley. Volume 3 Chapter 6 Eventful winter past, winter, the respite of our ills. By degrees the sun, which with slant beams had before yielded the more extended rain to-night, lengthened his diurnal journey and mounted his highest throne, at once the fosterer of earth's new beauty and her lover. We who, like flies that congregate upon a dry rock at the ebbing of the tide, had played wantonly with time, allowing our passions, our hopes, and our mad desires to rule us, now heard the approaching roar of the ocean of destruction and would have fled to some sheltered crevice before the first wave broke over us. We resolved without delay to commence our journey to Switzerland. We became eager to leave France, under the icy vaults of the glaciers, beneath the shadow of the pines, the swinging of whose mighty branches was arrested by a load of snow. Beside the streams whose intense cold proclaimed their origin to be from the slow-melting piles of congelated waters, amidst frequent storms which might purify the air, we should find health, if in truth health were not herself diseased. We began our preparations at first with lackrity. We did not now bid adieu to our native country, to the graves of those we loved, to the flowers and streams and trees which had lived beside us from infancy. Small sorrow would be ours on leaving Paris, a scene of shame when we remembered our late contentions, and thought that we left behind a flock of miserable deluded victims, bending under the tyranny of a selfish imposter. Small pangs should we feel in leaving the gardens, woods and halls of the palaces of the Bourbons at Versailles, which we feared would soon be tainted by the dead, when we looked forward to valleys lovelier than any garden, to mighty forests and halls built not for mortal majesty, but palaces of nature's own, but the Alps of Marmorial Whiteness for their walls, the sky for their roof. It our spirits flagged as the day drew near which we had fixed for our departure. To our visions and evil auguries of such things were thickened around us, so that in vain might men say, These are their reasons, they are natural. We felt them to be ominous and dreaded the future event and chained to them, that the night owl should screech before the noonday sun, that the hard-winged bat should wheel around the bed of beauty, that muttering thunder should in early spring startle the cloudless air, that sudden and exterminating blight should fall in the tree and shrub, where unaccustomed but physical events less horrible than the mental creations of almighty fear. Some had sight of funeral processions, and faces all begrimmed with tears, which flitted through the long avenues of the gardens, and drew aside the curtains of the sleepers at dead of night. Some heard wailing and cries in the air, a mournful chant would stream through the dark atmosphere, as if spirits above sang the requiem of the human race. What was there in all this, but that fear created other senses within our frames, making a sea here and feel what was not? What was this but the action of diseased imaginations and childish credulity? So might it be, but what was most real was the existence of these very fears, the staring looks of horror, the faces pale even to gasliness, the voices struck dumb with harrowing of those among us who saw and heard these things. Of this number was Adrian, who knew the delusion yet could not cast off the clinging terror. Even ignorant infancy appeared with timorous shrieks and convulsions to acknowledge the presence of unseen powers. We must go, in change of scene and occupation, and such security as we still hope to find we should discover a cure for these gathering horrors. On mustering our company we found them to consist of fourteen hundred souls, men, women and children. Until now therefore we were undiminished in numbers, except by the desertion of those who had attached themselves to the imposter prophet and remained behind in Paris. About fifty French joined us. Our order of march was easily arranged. The ill-success which had attended our division determined Adrian to keep all in one body. I, with a hundred men, went forward first as purveyor, taking the road of the Côte d'Or, Troxer, Dijon, D'Orl over the Jure to Geneva. I was to make arrangements at every ten miles for the accommodation of such numbers as I found the town or village would receive, leaving behind a messenger with a written order, signifying how many were to be quartered there. The remainder of our tribe was then divided into bands of fifty each, every division containing eighteen men and the remainder consisting of women and children. Each of these was headed by an officer who carried the role of names by which they were each day to be mustard. If the numbers were divided at night, in the morning those in the van waited for those in the rear. At each of the large towns before mentioned we were all to assemble, and a conclave of the principal officers would hold counsel for the general wheel. I went first, as I said, Adrian last. His mother, with Clara and Evelyn under her protection, remained also with him. Thus her order, being determined, I departed. My plan was to go at first no further than Fontainebleau, where in a few days I should be joined by Adrian before I took flight again further eastward. My friend accompanied me a few miles from Versailles. He was sad, and in a tone of unaccustomed despondency uttered a prayer for our speedy arrival among the Alps, accompanied with an expression of vain regret that we were not already there. In that case I observed. We can quicken our march. Why, dear, to a plan whose delitory proceeding you already disapprove? Nay, replied he. It is too late now. A month ago, and we were masters of ourselves now. He turned his face from me, though gathering twilight had already veiled its expression. He turned it yet more away as he added. A man died of the plague last night. He spoke in a smothered voice, then suddenly clasping his hands, he exclaimed. Swiftly, most swiftly advances the last hour for Versailles. As the stars vanish before the sun, so will his near approach destroy us. I have done my best. With grasping hands and impotent strength I have hung on the wheel of the chariot of plague. But she drags me along with it, while, like juggernaut, she proceeds crushing out the being of all who strew the high road of life. What that it were over, what that her procession achieved. We had all entered the tomb together. Tears streamed from his eyes. Again and again he continued, will the tragedy be acted? Again I must hear the groans of the dying, the wailing of the survivors, again witness the pangs, which consummating all envelope and eternity in their evanescent existence. Why am I reserved for this? Why the tainted weather of the flock? Am I not struck to earth among the first? It is hard, very hard, for one of woman born to injure all that I injure her. Hitherto, with an undaunted spirit and a high feeling of duty and worth, Adrian had fulfilled his self and post task. I had contemplated with him reverence and a fruitless desire of imitation. I now offered a few words of encouragement and sympathy. He hid his face in his hands and while he strove to calm himself he ejaculated. For a few months, yet for a few months more let not, oh God, my heart fail or my courage be bowed down. Let not sights of intolerable misery madden this half-crazed brain or causes frail heart to beat against its prison bound so that it burst. I have believed it to be my destiny to guide and rule the last of the race of man till death extinguish my government and to this destiny I submit. Pardon me, Verne, I pain you but I will no longer complain. Now I am myself again or rather I am better than myself. You have known how from my childhood aspiring thoughts and high desires have warred with inherent disease and overstrained sensitiveness till the latter became victors. You know how I placed the swasted feeble hand on the abandoned helm of human government. I've been visited at times by intervals of fluctuation. Yet until now I have felt as if a superior and defatigable spirit had taken up its abode within me or rather incorporated itself with my weaker being. The holy visitant has for a time slept, perhaps to show me how powerless I am without its inspiration. Yet stay for a while, oh power of goodness and strength. Diss day not yet this rent shrine of fleshy mortality, oh immortal capability. While one fellow creature remains to who made can be afforded, stay by and prop your shattered falling engine. His vehemence and voice, broken by irrepressible size, sunk to my heart. His eyes gleamed in the gloom of night, like two earthly stars, and his form dilating, his countenance beaming, truly it almost seemed as if at his eloquent appeal a more than mortal spirit entered his frame, exalting him above humanity. He turned quickly towards me and held out his hand. Farewell, Verne, he cried. Brother of my love, farewell. No other weak expression must cross these lips. I am alive again. To our tasks, to our combats with our unvanquishable foe, for to the last I will struggle against her. He grasped my hand and bent a look on me, more fervent and animated than any smile, then turning his horse's head he touched the animal with a spur and was out of sight in a moment. A man last night had died of the plague. The quiver was not emptied, nor the bow and strung. We stood as marks like Parthian pestilence aimed and shot, insatiated by conquest, unobstructed by the heaps of slain. A sickness of the soul, contagious even to my physical mechanism, came over me. My knees knocked together, my teeth chattered, the current of my blood clotted by sudden cold painfully forced its sway from my heavy heart. I did not fear for myself, but it was misery to think that we could not even save this remnant. That those I loved might in a few days be as clay-cold as Idris in her antique tomb, nor could strength of body or energy of mind ward off the blow. A sense of degradation came over me. Did God create man merely in the end to become dead earth in the midst of helpful, vegetating nature? Was he of no more account to his maker than a field of corn blighted in the ear? Were our proud dreams thus to fade? Our name was written a little lower than the angels, and behold, we were no better than Ephemera. We had called ourselves the paragon of animals, and lo, we were a quint essence of dust. We were pined that the pyramids had outlasted the embalmed body of their builder. Alas, the mere shepherd's hut of straw we passed on the road contained in its structure the principle of greater longevity than the whole race of man. How reconciled is sad change to our past aspirations, to our parent powers. Sudden and internal voice, articulate and clear seemed to say, thus from eternity it was decreed, the steeds that bear time onwards had this hour, and this fulfillment in chain to them, since the void brought forth its burden. Would you read backwards the unchangeable laws of necessity? Mother of the world, servant of the omnipotent, eternal changeless necessity, who with busy fingers sittest ever weaving the indissoluble chain of events, I will not murmur at thy acts. If my human mind cannot acknowledge that all that is is right, yet since what is must be, I will sit amidst the runes and smile. Truly we were not born to enjoy but to submit, and to hope. Will not the reader tire if I shouldn't minutely describe her long-drawn journey from Paris to Geneva? If day by day I should record in the form of a journal the thronging miseries of her lot, could my hand write, or language afford words to express, the variety of her woe, the hustling and crowding of one deplorable event upon another? Patience, O reader, whoever thou art, wherever thou dwellest, whether of re-spiritual or sprung from some surviving pair, thy nature will be human, thy habitation the earth, thou wilt hear a reed of the acts of the extinct race, and will ask, wonderingly, if they who suffered that thou findest recorded, were a frail flesh and soft organization like thyself. Most true they were, weep therefore, for surely solitary being thou wilt be of gentle disposition, shed compassionate tears, but the while lend thy attention to the tale, and learn the deeds and sufferings of thy predecessors. Yet the last events that marked our progress through France were so full of strange horror and gloomy misery that I dare not pause too long in the narration. If I were to dissect each incident, every small fragment of a second would contain an harrowing tale, whose minutest word would curdle the blood in thy young veins. It is right that I should erect for thy instruction this monument of the foregone race, but not that I should drag thee through the wards of an hospital, nor the secret chambers of the charnel house. This tale, therefore, shall be rapidly unfolded. Images of a destruction, pictures of despair, the procession of the last triumph of the death, shall be drawn before thee, swift as the rack driven by the north wind along the blotted splendor of the sky. Weed-grown fields, desolate towns, the wild approach of riderless horses had now become habitual to my eyes. Nay cites far worse of the unburied dead and human forms which were strewn down the roadside, and on the steps of ones frequented to habitations where, through the flesh that wastes away beneath the parching sun, the whitening bones start forth and moulder in the sable dust. Cites like these had become awo the while so familiar that we had ceased to shudder our spore-stung horses to sudden speed as we passed them. France, in its best days, at least that part of France through which we travelled, had been a cultivated desert, and the absence of enclosures, of cottages, and even of peasantry, was saddening to a traveller from sunny Italy or busy England. Yet the towns were frequent and lively, and the cordial politeness and ready smile of the wooden-shoe'd peasant restored good humour to this planetic. Now the old woman sat no more at the door with her distaff, the lank-beggar no longer asked charity in the cordier-like phrase, nor on holidays did the peasantry thread with slow grace the mazes of the dance. Silence, melancholy bride of death, went in procession with him from town to town through the spacious region. We arrived at Fontainebleau, and speedily prepared for the reception of our friends. On mustering our numbers for the night, three were found missing. When I inquired for them, the man to whom I spoke uttered the word, plague, and fell at my feet in convulsions. He also was infected. There were hard-faces round me, for among my troop were sailors who had crossed the line times and numbered. Soldiers who, in Russia and far America, had suffered famine, cold and danger, and men still stern or featured, once nightly depredators in our overgrown metropolis, men bred from their cradle to see the whole machine of society at work for their destruction. I looked round and saw upon the faces of all horror and despair written, glaring characters. We passed four days at Fontainebleau. Several sickened and died, and in the meantime neither Adrian nor any of our friends appeared. My own troop was in commotion, to reach Switzerland, to plunge into rivers of snow and to dwell in caves of ice, became the mad desire of all. Yet we had promised to wait for the Earl, and he came not. My people demanded to be led forward. Rebellion, if so we might call, what was the mere casting way of straw-formed shackles, appeared manifestly among them. They would away on the word without a leader. The only chance of safety, the only hope of preservation from every form of indescribable suffering, was our keeping together. I told them this, while the most determined among them answered with sullenness, that they could take care of themselves and reply to my entreaties with scoffs and menaces. At length, on the fifth day, a messenger arrived from Adrian bearing letters which directed us to Prisci to Occea, and there await his arrival which would only be deferred for a few days. Such was the tenor of his public letters. Those privately delivered to me detailed at length the difficulties of his situation, and left the arrangement of my future plans to my own discretion. His account of the state of affairs at Versailles was brief, but the oral communications of his messenger filled up his omissions, ensued me that perils of the most frightful nature were gathering around him. At first the reawakening of the plague had been concealed, but the number of deaths increasing, the secret was divulged, and the destruction already achieved was exaggerated by the fears of the survivors. Some emissaries of the enemy of mankind, the accursed imposters, were among them instilling their doctrine. That safety in life could only be ensured by submission to their chief. And they succeeded so well that soon, instead of desiring to proceed to Switzerland, a major part of the multitude weak-minded women and dastardly men desired to return to Paris, and by ranging themselves under the banners of the so-called prophet, and by a cowardly worship of the principle of evil purchased respite as they hoped from impeding death. The discord and tumult induced by these conflicting fears and passions detained Adrian. It required all his ardour and pursuit of an object and his patience under difficulties to calm and animate such a number of his followers as might counterbalance the panic of the rest, and lead them back to the means from which a lone safety could be derived. He had hoped immediately to follow me, but being defeated in his intention he sent his messenger urging me to secure my own troop at such a distance from Versailles as to prevent the contagion of rebellion from reaching them, promising at the same time to join me the moment a favourable occasion should occur, by means of which he could withdraw the main body of the immigrants from the evil influence at present exercised over them. I was thrown into a most painful state of uncertainty by these communications. My first impulse was that we should all return to Versailles, there to assist in extricating our chief from his perils. I accordingly assembled my troop and proposed to them this retrograde movement instead of the continuation of our journey to Ouxar. With one voice they refused to comply. The notions circulated among them was that the ravages of the plague alone detained the protector. They posed as order to my request. They came to resolve to proceed without me, should I refuse to accompany them. Argument and adoration were lost on these dastards. The continual diminuation of their own numbers affected by pestilence added a sting to their dislike of delay, and my opposition only served to bring their resolution to a crisis. That same evening they departed towards Ouxar. Oaths, as from soldiers to their general, had been taken by them. These they broke. I also had engaged myself not to desert them. It appeared to me in human to ground any infraction of my word on theirs. The same spirit that caused them to rebel against me would impel them to desert each other, and the most dreadful sufferings would be the consequence of their journey in their present unordered and chiefless array. These feelings for a time were paramount, and in obedience to them I accompanied the rest towards Ouxar. We arrived the same night at Villeneuve-la-Guillard, a town at the distance of four posts from Fontainebleau. When my companions had retired to rest and I was left alone to revolve and ruminate upon their intelligence I received of Adrian's situation. Another view of the subject presented itself to me. What was I doing? And what was the object of my present movements? Apparently I was to lead this troop of selfish and lawless men towards Switzerland, leaving behind my family and my selected friend, which subject as they were hourly to the death that threatened to all I might never see again. Was it not my first duty to assist the protector, setting an example of attachment and duty? At a crisis such as the one I had reached, it is very difficult to balance nicely opposing interests, and that towards which our inclinations lead us, obstinately assumes the appearance of selfishness, even when we meditate a sacrifice. We are easily led at such times to make a compromise of the question, and this was my present resource. I resolved that very night to ride to Versailles. If I found affairs less desperate than I now deemed them, I would return without delay to my troop. I had a vague idea that my arrival at that town would occasion some sensation more or less strong, of which we might profit, for the purpose of leading for the vacillating multitude. At least no time was to be lost. I visited the stables, I saddled my favorite horse, and vaulting on his back without giving myself time for further reflection or hesitation, quitted Villeneuve Laguilla on my return to Versailles. I was glad to escape for my rebellious troop, and to lose sight for a time of the strife of evil with good, where the former forever remained triumphant. I was stung almost to madness by my uncertainty concerning the fate of Adrian, and grew reckless of any event, except what might lose or preserve my unequaled friend. With a heavy heart that sought relief in the rapidity of my course, I rode through the night to Versailles. I spurred my horse, who addressed his free limbs to speed, and tossed his gallant head in pride. The constellations reeled swiftly by, swiftly, each tree and stone and landmark fled past my onward career. I bared my head to the rushing wind, which bathed my brown delightful coolness. As I lost sight of Villeneuve Laguilla, I forgot the sad drama of human misery. Mith thought it was happiness enough to live, sensitive the while of the beauty of the verger clad earth, the star-besangled sky, and the tameless wind that lent animation to the whole. My horse grew tired, and I, forgetful of his fatigue, still as he lagged, cheered him with my voice, and urged him with a spur. He was a gallant animal, and I did not wish to exchange him for any chance-beast I might light on, leaving him never to be refined. All night we went forward, and the morning he became sensible that we approached Versailles to reach which, as his home, he mustered his flagging strength. The distance we had come was not less than fifty miles, yet he shot down the long boulevard swift as an arrow. Poor fellow, as I dismounted at the gate of the castle, he sunk on his knees as eyes were covered with a film. He fell on his side, a few gasps inflated his noble chest, and he died. I saw him expire with an anguish, unaccountable even to myself, the spasm that was as wrenching of some lemon-agonizing torture, but it was brief as it was intolerable. I forgot him as I swiftly darted through the open portal and up the majestic stairs of this castle of victories. Heard Adrian's voice, oh fool, oh woman nurtured, effeminate, and contemptible being. I heard his voice and answered it with convulsive shrieks. I rushed into the hall of Hercules, where he stood surrounded by a crowd whose eyes turned in wonder on me. Reminded me that on the stage of the world a man must repress such girlish ecstasies. I would have given worlds to have embraced him, I dared not. Half in exhaustion, half voluntarily, I threw myself at my length on the ground. Dare I disclose the truth to the gentle offspring of solitude? I did so that I might kiss the deer in sacred earth he trod. I found everything in a state of tumult. An emissary of the leader of the elect had been so worked up by his chief and by his own fanatical creed as to make an attempt on the life of the protector and preserver of lost mankind. His hand was arrested while in the act of poingarding the earl. The circumstance had caused the clamour I heard on my arrival at the castle, and the confused assembly of persons that I found assembled in the hall of Hercules. Although superstition and demonic fury had crept among the immigrants, yet several adhered with fidelity to their noble chieftain, and many whose faith and love had been unhinged by fear, felt all their latent affection rekindled by this detestable attempt. A phalanx of faithful breasts closed round him. The wretch who, although a prisoner and in bonds, vaunted his design and madly claimed the crown of martyrdom, would have been torn to pieces had not his intended victim interposed. Adrian, springing forward, shielded him with his own person, and commanded with energy the submission of his infuriate friends. At this moment I had entered. Discipline and peace were at length restored in the castle, and then Adrian went from house to house, from troop to troop to soothe the disturbed minds of his followers, and recall them to their ancient obedience. But the fear of immediate death was still rife amongst these survivors of a world's destruction. The horror occasioned by the attempted assassination passed away, each eye turned towards Paris. Men love a prop so well that they will lean on a pointed poison spear, and such was he the imposter who, with fear of hell for his squirge, most ravenous wolf, played the driver to a credulous flock. It was a moment of suspense that shook even the resolution of the unyielding friend of man. Adrian for one moment was about to give in, to cease the struggle and quit, with a few adherents to the deluded crowd leaving them a miserable prey to their passions, and to the worst tyrant who excited them. But again, after a brief fluctuation of purpose, he resumed his courage and resolves, sustained by the singleness of his purpose and the enthried spirit of benevolence which animated him. At this moment, as an omen of excellent import, his wretched enemy pulled destruction on his head, destroying with his own hands the dominion he had erected. His grandhold upon the minds of men took its rise from the doctoring inculcated by him, that those who believed in and followed him were the remnant to be saved, while all the rest of mankind were marked out for death. Now at the time of the flood the omnipotent repented him that he had created man. And as then with water, now with the arrows of pestilence, was about to anni- now at the time of the flood, the omnipotent repented him that he had created man. And as then with water, now with the arrows of pestilence, was about to annihilate all except those who obeyed his decrees promulgated by the ipsi jixit prophet. It is impossible to say on what foundations this man built his hopes of being able to carry on such an imposter. It is likely that he was fully aware of the lie which murderous nature might give to his assertions, and believed it to be the cast of a die, whether he should in future ages be reverenced as an inspired delegate from heaven, or be recognized as an imposter by the present dying generation. At any rate he resolved to keep up the drama to the last act. When on the first approach of summer the fatal disease again made its ravages among the followers of Adrian, the imposter exultingly proclaimed the exemption of his own congregation from the universal calamity. He was believed. His followers, hither too shut up in Paris, now came to Versailles. Mingling with the coward band there assembled, they reviled their admirable leader, and asserted their own superiority and exemption. At length the plague slow-footed, but sure in her noiseless advance, destroyed the illusion, invading the congregation of the elect, and showering promiscuous death among them. Their leader endeavored to conceal this event. He had a few followers who, admitted into the arcana of his wickedness, could help him in the execution of his nefarious designs. Those who sickened were immediately and quietly withdrawn. The cord and a midnight grave disposed of them forever, while some plausible excuse was given for their absence. At last a female whose maternal vigilance subdued even the effects of the narcotics administered to her, became a witness of their murderous designs on her only child. Mad with horror she would have burst among her deluded fellow victims, and wildly shrieking, have awaked the dull ear of night with the history of the fiend-like crime, when the imposter in his last act of rage and desperation plunged a poignard in her bosom. Thus wounded to death, her garments dripping with her own life-blood, bearing her strangled infant in her arms, beautiful and young as she was, Juliet, for it was she, denounced to the host of deceived believers the wickedness of their leader. He saw the aghast looks of her auditors, changing from horror to fury, the names of those already sacrificed were echoed by their relatives, now assured of their loss. The wretch with that energy of purpose which had borne him thus far in his guilty career, saw his danger, and resolved to evade the worst forms of it. He rushed on one of the foremost, seized a pistol from his girdle, and his loud laugh of derision mingled with the report of the weapon with which he destroyed himself. They left his miserable remains even where they lay. They placed the corpse of poor Juliet and her babe upon a beer, and all, with heart subdued to saddest regret, in long procession walked towards Versailles. They met troops of those who had quitted the kindly protection of Adrian, and were journeying to join the fanatics. The tale of horror was recounted, all turned back, and thus at last accompanied by the undiminished numbers of surviving humanity, and preceded by the mournful emblem of the recovered reason they appeared before Adrian, and again and forever vowed obedience to his commands, and fidelity to his cause. The day after my return to Versailles, six men from among those I had left at Villeneuve-le-Guiard arrived with intelligence that the rest of the troop had already proceeded towards Switzerland. We went forward in the same track. It is strange, after an interval of time, to look back on a period which, though short in itself, appeared when an actual progress to be drawn out interminably. By the end of July we entered Dijon. By the end of July those hours, days, and weeks had mingled with the ocean of forgotten time, which in their passage teamed with fatal events and agonizing sorrow. By the end of July little more than a month had gone by, if man's life were measured by the rising and setting of the sun. But alas, in that interval ardent youth had become grey-haired. Furrows deep and unerasable were trenched in the blooming cheek of the young mother. The elastic limbs of early manhood, paralyzed as by the burden of years, assumed the decrepitude of age. Nights passed during whose fatal darkness the sun grew old before it rose, and burning days to cool whose baleful heat the balmy eve, lingering foreign eastern climes, came lagging and ineffectual. Days in which the dial radiant in its noonday station moved not its shadow the space of a little hour, until a whole life of sorrow had brought the sufferer to an untimely grave. We departed from Versailles 1500 souls, we set out on the 18th of June. We made a long procession in which was contained every dear relationship or tie of love that existed in human society. Fathers and husbands with guardian care gathered their dear relatives around them. Wives and mothers looked for support to the manly form beside them, and then with tender anxiety bent their eyes on the infant troop around. They were sad, but not hopeless. Each thought that someone would be saved, each with that pertinacious optimism which to the last characterized or human nature trusted that their beloved family would be the one preserved. We passed through France and founded empty of inhabitants. Some one or two natives survived in the larger towns which they roamed through like ghosts. We received therefore small increase to our numbers, and such decrease through death that at last it became easier to count the scanty list of survivors. As we never deserted any of the sick until their death permitted us to commit their remains to the shelter of a grave, our journey was long while every day a frightful gap was made in our troop. They died by tens, by fifties, by hundreds. No mercy was shown by death. We ceased to expect it, and every day welcomed the sun with the feeling that we might never see it rise again. The nervous terrors and fearful visions which had scared us during the spring continued to visit our cowered troop during this sad journey. Every evening brought its fresh creation of specters. A ghost was depicted by every blighted tree, and appalling shapes were manufactured from each shaggy bush. By degrees these common marvels piled on us, and then other wonders were called into being. Once it was confidently asserted that the sun rose an hour later than its seasonable time, again it was discovered that he grew paler and paler. That shadows took an uncommon appearance. It was impossible to have imagined during the usual calm routine of life men had before experienced the terrible effects produced by these extravagant delusions. In truth, of such little worth are our senses, when unsupported by concurring testimony that it was with utmost difficulty I kept myself free from the belief in supernatural events to which the major part of our people readily gave credit. Being one sane amidst the crowd of the mad I hardly dared assert to my own mind that the vast luminary had undergone no change, that the shadows of night were unthickened by innumerable shapes of awe and terror, or that the wind as it sung in the trees or whistled around an empty building was not pregnant with sounds of wailing and despair. Sometimes realities took ghostly shapes and it was impossible for one's blood not to curdle at the perception of an evident mixture of what we knew to be true with the visionary semblance of all that we feared. Once at the dusk of the evening we saw a figure all in white apparently of more than human stature, flourishing about the road, now throwing up its arms, now leaping to an astonishing height in the air, then turning around several times successively, then raising itself to its full height and gesticulating violently. Our troop on the alert to discover and believe in the supernatural made a halt at some distance from the shape and as it became darker there was something appalling even to the incredulous and the lonely specter whose gambles if they hardly accorded the spiritual dignity were beyond human powers. Now it leapt right up in the air now sheer over a high edge and was again the moment after in the road before us. By the time I came up the fright experience by the spectators of this ghostly exhibition began to manifest itself in the flight of some and the close huddling together of the rest. Our goblin now perceived us he approached and as we drew reverentially back made a low bow. The sight was irresistibly ludicrous even to our hapless band and his politeness was hailed by a shout of laughter. Then again springing up as a last effort it sunk to the ground and became almost invisible through the dusky night. This circumstance again spread silence and fear through the troop. The more courageous at length advanced and rising the dying wretched discovered the tragic explanation of this wild scene. It was an opera dancer and had been one of the troop which deserted from Villeneuve la Guerre. Falling sick he had been deserted by his companions. In an axis of delirium he had fancied himself on the stage and poor fellow his dying sense eagerly accepted the last human applause that could ever be bestowed on his grace and agility. At another time we were haunted for several days by an apparition to which our people gave the appellation of the Black Spectre. We never saw it except that evening when his cold black steed, his morning dress and plume of black feathers had a majestic and awe-striking appearance. His face once said, who had seen it for a moment, was ashy pale. He had lingered far behind the rest of his troop and suddenly at a turn in the road saw the Black Spectre coming towards him. He hid himself in fear and the horse and his rider slowly passed while the moonbeams fell on the face of the latter displaying its unearthly you. Sometimes at dead of night as we watched the sick we heard one galloping through the town. It was the Black Spectre coming token of inevitable death. He grew giant tall to vulgar eyes, an icy atmosphere they said surrounded him when he was heard all animals shuttered and the dying knew that their last hour was come. It was death himself they declared come visibly to seize on subject earth and while at once are decreasing numbers soul rebels to his law. One day at noon we saw a dark mass on the road before us and coming up beheld the Black Spectre fallen from his horse lying in the agonies of disease upon the ground. He did not survive many hours and his last words disclosed the secret of his mysterious conduct. He was a French noble of distinction who from the effects plague had been left alone in his district. During many months he had wandered from town to town from province to province seeking some survivor for companion and abhorring the loneliness to which he was condemned. When he discovered her troop fear of contagion conquered his love of society he dared not join us yet he could not resolve to lose sight of us soul human beings who besides himself existed in wide and fertile friends so he accompanied us in the spectral guys I have described till pestilence gathered him to a larger congregation even that of dead mankind. It had been well if such vain terrors could have distracted our thoughts from more tangible evils but these were too dreadful and too many not to force themselves into every thought every moment of our lives. We were obliged to halt at different periods for days together till another and yet another was consigned as a clod to the vast clod which had been once our living mother. Thus we continued traveling during the hottest season and it was not till the first of August that we the emigrants reader there were just 80 of us in number entered the gates of Dijon. We had expected this moment with eagerness for now we had accomplished the worst of our drear journey and Switzerland was near at hand yet how could we congratulate ourselves on any event thus imperfectly fulfilled were these miserable beings who worn and wretched pass in sorrowful procession the sole remnants of the race of man which like flood had once spread over and possessed the whole earth it had come down clear and unimpeded from its primal mountain source an error at and grew from puny streamlet to a vast perennial river generation after generation flowing on ceaselessly the same but diversified it grew and swept onwards towards the absorbing ocean whose dim shores we now reached it had been the mere plating of nature when first it crept out of uncreated void into light but thought brought forth power and knowledge and glad with these the race of man assumed dignity and authority it was then no longer the mere gardener of earth or the shepherd of her flocks it carried with it and imposing a majestic aspect it had a pedigree in illustrious ancestors it had its gallery of portraits its monumental inscriptions its records and titles this was all over now that the ocean of death had sucked in the slackening tide and its source was dried up we first had been in adieu to the state of things which having existed many thousand years seemed eternal such a state of government obedience traffic and domestic intercourse has had molded our hearts and capacities as far back as memory could reach then to patriotic zeal to the arts to reputation to enduring fame to the name of country we had bitten for well we saw depart all hope of retrieving our ancient state all expectation except the feeble one of saving our individual lives from the wreck of the past to preserve these we had quitted england england no more for without her children what name could that barren island claim with tenacious grasp we clung to such rule and order as could best save us trusting that if a little colony could be preserved that would suffice at some remoder period to restore the lost community of mankind but the game is up we must all die nor leave survivor nor hair to the wide inheritance of earth we must all die the species of man must perish his frame of exquisite workmanship the wondrous mechanism of the senses the noble proportion of his godlike limbs his mind the throne king of these must perish will the earth still keep her place among the planets will she still journey with unmarked regularity around the sun will the seasons change the trees adorn themselves with leaves and flowers shed their fragrance in solitude will the mountains remain unmoved and streams still keep a downward course towards the vast abyss will the tides rise and fall and the winds fan universal nature will beasts pasture birds fly and fishes swim when man the lord possessor perceiver and recorder of all these things has passed away as though he had never been oh what mockery is this surely death not death and humanity is not extinct but merely passed into other shapes unsubjected to our perceptions death is a vast portal and higher road to life let us hasten to pass let us exist no more in this living death but die that we may live we had longed with inexpressible earnestness to reach Dijon since we had fixed on it as a kind of station in our progress but now we entered it with a torpor more painful than acute suffering we had come slowly but irrevocably to the opinion that our utmost efforts would not perverse one human being alive we took our hands therefore away from the long grass breader and the frail vessel on which we floated seemed the government over her suspended to rush pro foremost into the dark abyss of the billows a gush of grief a wanton profusion of tears and vain laments and overflowing tenderness and passionate but fruitless claiming to the priceless few that remained was followed by langer and recklessness during this disastrous journey we lost all those not of our own family to whom we had particularly attached ourselves among the survivors it were not well to fill these pages with the mere catalog of losses i cannot refrain from this last mention of those principally dear to us the little girl whom adrian had rescued from utter desertion during our ride through london on the 20th of november die at oxair the poor child had attached herself greatly to us and the suddenness of her death added to our sorrow in the morning we had seen her apparently in health in the evening lucy before we retired to rest visited our quarters to say that she was dead poor lucy herself only survived till we arrived at dijon she had devoted herself throughout to the nursing the sick and attending the friendless her excessive exertions brought on a slow fever which ended in the dread disease whose approach soon released her from her sufferings she had throughout been endeared to us by her good qualities by her ready and cheerful execution of every duty and mild acquiescence and every turn of adversity when we consigned her to the tomb we seemed at the same time to bid a final adieu to those peculiarly feminine virtues conspicuous in her uneducated and unpretending as she was she was distinguished for patience forbearance and sweetness these with all their train of qualities peculiarly english would never again be revived for us this type of all that was most worthy of admiration or class among my countrywoman was placed under the sod of desert france and it was as a second separation from our country to have lost sight of her forever the countess of Windsor died during her abode at dijon one morning i was informed that she wished to see me her message made me remember that several days had elapsed since i had last seen her such a circumstance had often occurred during our journey when i remained behind to watch to their clues the last moments of someone of our hapless comrades and the rest of the troop passed on before me but there was something in the matter of her messenger that made me suspect that all was not right a caprice of the imagination caused me to conjecture that some ill had occurred to Clara or Evelyn rather than to this aged lady our fears forever on the stretch demanded a nourishment of horror and it seemed too natural an occurrence two like past times for the old to die before the young i found the venerable mother of my Idris lying on a couch her tall and mass-eated figure stretched out her face fallen away from which the nose stood out in sharp profile and her large dark eyes hollow and deep gleaned with such light as may edge a thundercloud at sunset all was shriveled and dried up except these lights her voice too was fearfully changed and she spoke to me at indvel's i am afraid said she that it is selfish in me to have asked you to visit the old woman again before she dies yet perhaps it would have been a greater shock to hear suddenly that i was dead than to see me first thus i clasped her shriveled hand are you indeed so ill i asked do you not perceive death in my face or pled she it is strange i ought to have expected this and yet i confess it has taken me unaware i never clung to life or enjoyed it till these last months while among those i senselessly deserted and it is hard to be snatched immediately away i'm glad however that i am not a victim of the plague probably i should have died at this hour for the world continued as it was in my youth she spoke with difficulty and i perceived that she regretted the necessity of death even more than she cared to confess and she had not to complain of an undue shortening of existence her faded person showed that life had naturally spent itself we had been alone at first now clara entered the countess turned to her with a smile and took the hand of this lovely child her rosy at palm and snowy fingers contrasted with relaxed fibers and yellow hue of those of her aged friend she bent to kiss her touching her withered mouth with the warm full lips of youth verney said the countess i need not recommend this dear girl to you for your own sake you will preserve her where the world as it was i should have a thousand sage precautions to impress that one so sensitive good and beautyous might escape the dangers that used to lurk for the destruction of the fair and excellent this is all nothing now i commit you my kind nurse to your uncle's cure to yours i entrust the dearest relic of my better self be to adrian sweet one what you have been to me and liven his sadness with your sprightly sallies soothe his anguish by your sober and inspired converse when he is dying nursing as you have done me clara burst into tears kind girl said the countess do not wait for me many dear friends are left to you and yet cried clara you talk of their dying also this is indeed cruel how could i live if they were gone if it were possible for my beloved protector to die before me i could not nurse him i could only die too the venerable lady survived this scene only 24 hours she was the last high binding us to the ancient state of things it was impossible to look on her and not call to mind in their wanted guise events and persons as alien to our present situation as the disputes of thymisticleys and aristities or the wars of the two roses in our native land the crown of england had pressed her brow the memory of my father and his misfortunes the vain struggles of the late king the images of raiment, devatny and perdita who had lived in the world's prime were brought vividly before us we consigned her to the oblivious tomb with reluctance and when i turned from her grave Janus veiled his retrospective face that which gaze on future generations had long lost its faculty after remaining a week at Dijon until 30 of our number deserted the vacant ranks of life we continued our way towards Geneva at noon on the second day we arrived at the foot of Jura we halted here during the heat of the day here fifty human beings fifty the only human beings that survived of the food teeming earth assembled to read in the looks of each other ghastly plague or wasting sorrow desperation or worse carelessness of future or present evil here we assembled at the foot of this mighty wall of mountain under a spreading walnut tree a brawling stream refreshed the green sword by its sprinkling and the busy grasshopper chirped among the time we clustered together a group of wretch sufferers a mother cradle in written feebled arms the child last of many whose glazed eye was about to lose forever here beauty late glowing in youthful luster and consciousness now wan and neglected knelt fanning with uncertain motion the beloved who lay striving to paint his features distorted by illness with a thankful smile there in a hard featured weatherworn veteran having prepared his meal sat his head dropped on his breast the useless knife falling from his grasp his limbs utterly relaxed as thought of wife and child and dearest relative all lost passed across his recollection there sat a man who for forty years had basked in fortune's tranquil sunshine he held the hand of his last hope his beloved daughter who had just attained womanhood and he gazed on her with anxious eyes while she tried to rally her fainting spirit to comfort him here a servant faithful to the last though dying waited on one who though still erect with health gazed with gasping fear on the variety of woe round Adrian stood leaning against a tree he held a book in his hand but his eye wandered from the pages and sought mine they mingled a sympathetic glance his looks confessed that his thoughts had quitted the inanimate print for pages more pregnant with meaning more absorbing spread out before him by the margin of the stream apart from all in a tranquil nook where the pearling brook kissed the green sword gently Clara and Evelyn were at play sometimes beating the water with large bows sometimes watching the summer flies that supported upon it Evelyn now chased a butterfly now gathered a flower for his cousin and his laughing cherub face and clear brow told of the light heart that beat in his bosom Clara though she endeavored to give herself up to his amusement often forgot him as she turned to observe Adrian and me she was now fourteen and retained her childish appearance though in height a woman she acted the part of the tenderest mother to my little orphan boy to see her playing with him or attending silently and submissively on her wands you thought only of her admirable facility and patience but in her soft eyes and the vain curtains that veiled them in the clearness of her memorial brow and the tender expression of her lips there was an intelligence and beauty that at once excited admiration and love when the sun had sunk towards the precipitate west and the evening shadows grew long we prepared to ascend the mountain the attention that we were obliged to pay to the sick made our progress slow the winding road though steep presented a confined view of rocky fields and hills each hiding the other till our farther ascent disclosed them in succession we were seldom shaded from the declining sun whose slant beams were instinct with exhausting heat there are times when minor difficulties grow gigantic when as the Hebrew poet expressively terms it the grasshopper is a birthing so was it with her ill-fated party this evening Adrian usually the first to rally his spirits and dash foremost into fatigue and hardship with relaxed limbs and declined head the rains hanging loosely in his grasp left the choice of the path to the instinct of his horse now and then painfully rousing himself when the steepness of the ascent required that he should keep his seat with better care fear and horror encompassed me did his languid air attest that he also was struck with contagion how long when I look on his matchless specimen of mortality may I perceive that his thought answers mine how long will those limbs obey the kindly spirit within how long will light and life dwell in the eyes of this my soul remaining friend thus pacing slowly each hill surmounted only presented another to be ascended each jetting corner only discovered another sister to the last endlessly sometimes the pressure of sickness in one among us caused the whole cavalcade to halt the call for water the eagerly express wish to repose the cry of pain and suppressed sob of the mourner such were the sorrowful attendance of our passage of the jurah Adrien had gone first I saw him while I was attained by the loosening of a girth struggling with the upward path seemingly more difficult than any we had yet passed he reached the top and the dark outline of his figure stood in relief against the sky he seemed to behold something unexpected and wonderful for pausing his head stretched out his arms for a moment extended he seemed to give an all hail to some new vision urged by curiosity I heard to join him after battling for many tedious minutes with the precipice the same scene presented itself to me which had wrapped him in ecstatic wonder nature or nature's favorite the lovely earth presented her most unrivaled beauties in resplendent and sudden exhibition below far far below even as it were in the yawning abyss of the ponderous globe they the placid and azure expanse of lake laman vine-covered hills hedged it in and behind dark mountains in cone-like shape are irregular cyclopean walls served for further defense but beyond and high above all as if the spirits of the air had suddenly unveiled their bright abodes placed in scaleless altitude in the stainless sky heaven-kissing companions of the unattainable aether were the glorious alps clothed in dazzling robes of light by the setting sun and as if the world's wonders were never to be exhausted their vast immensities their jagged crags and rosy at painting appeared again in the lake below dipping their proud heights beneath the unruffled waves palaces for the niads of the placid waters towns and villages lay scattered at the foot of jura which with dark ravine and black promontories stretched its roots into the watery expanse beneath carried away by wonder I forgot the death of man and the living and beloved friend near me when I turned I saw tears streaming from his eyes his thin hands pressed one against the other his animated countenance beaming with admiration why cried he at last why oh heart whispers thou of grief to me drink in the beauty of that scene and possess delight beyond what a fabled paradise could afford by degrees our whole party surmounting the steep joined us not one among them but gave visible tokens of admiration surpassing any before experienced one cried god reveals his heaven to us we may die blessed another and another with broken exclamations and extravagant phrases endeavored to express the intoxicating effect of this wonder of nature so we remained a while lightened of the pressing burden of fate forgetful of death and to whose night we were about to plunge no longer reflecting that our eyes now and forever were and would be the only ones which might perceive the divine magnificence of this terrestrial exhibition an enthusiastic transport akin to happiness burst like a sudden ray from the sun on our darkened life precious attribute of war-worn humanity that can snatch ecstatic emotion even from under the very Sharon Harrow that ruthlessly plows up and lays waste every hope this evening was marked by another event passing through fornane our way to Geneva unaccustomed sounds of music rose from the rural church which stood embosomed in trees surrounded by smokeless vacant cottages the peel of an organ with rich swell awoke the mute air lingering along mingling with the intense beauty that clothed the rocks and woods and waves around music the language of the immortals disclosed to us as testimony of their existence music silver key of the fountain of tears child of love soother of grief inspire of heroism and radiant thoughts oh music in this our desolation we had forgotten thee nor pipe at eve cheered us nor harmony of voice nor linked thrill of string thou came upon us now like the revealing of other forms of being and transported as we been by the loveliness of nature fan-seeing that we beheld the abode of spirits now we might well imagine that we heard their melodious communings we paused in such awe as would seize on a pale voterist visiting some holy shrine at midnight if she beheld animated and smiling the image which she worshiped we all stood mute many knelt in a few minutes however we were called to human wonder and sympathy by a familiar strain the air was Hayden's new created world and old and drooping as humanity had become the world yet fresh as at creation's day might still be worthily celebrated by such an hymn of praise adrian and i enter the church the nave was empty though the smoke of incense rose from the altar bringing with it the recollection of vast congregations in one's throng cathedrals we went into the loft a blind old man sat at the bellows his whole soul was ear and as he sat in the attitude of attentive listening a bright glow of pleasure was diffused over his countenance for though his lackluster eye could not reflect the beam yet his parted lips and every line of his face and venerable brow spoke delight a young woman sat at the keys perhaps 20 years of age her auburn hair hung on her neck and her fair brow shown in its own beauty but her drooping eyes let fall fast flowing tears while the constraints she exercised to suppress her sobs and still her trembling flushed her alspill cheek she was thin langer and alas sickness bent her form we stood looking at the we stood looking at the pair forgetting what we heard in the absorbing site till the last chord struck the peel died away in lessening reverberations the mighty voice inorganic we might call it for we could in no way associated with mechanism of pipe or he stilled its sonorous tone and the girl turning to lend her assistance to her age companion at length perceived us it was her father and she since childhood had been the guide of his darkened steps they were Germans from Saxony and emigrating thither but a few years before had formed new ties with the surrounding villagers about the time that the pestilence had broken out a young German student had joined them their simple history was easily defined he a noble loved the fair daughter of the poor musician and followed them in their flight from the persecutions of his friends but soon the mighty leveler came with unblunted scythe to mow together with the grass the tall flowers of the field the youth was an early victim she preserved herself for her father's sake his blindness permitted her to continue a delusion at first the child of accident and now solitary being soul survivors in the land he remained unacquainted with the change nor was aware that when he listened to his child's music the mute mountains senseless lake and unconscious trees were himself accepted her soul auditors the very day that we arrived she had been attacked by symptomatic illness she was paralyzed with horror at the idea of leaving her age sightless father alone on the empty earth but she had not courage to disclose the truth and the very excess of her desperation animated her to surpassing exertions at the accustomed vest per hour she led him to the chapel and though trembling and weeping on his account she played without fault in time or error in note the hymn written to celebrate the creation of the adorned earth soon to be her tomb we came to her like visitors from heaven itself her high wrought courage her hardly stained firmness fled with the appearance of relief with a shriek she rushed towards us embraced the knees of adrian and uttering but the words oh save my father with sobs and historical prize opened the long shut floodgates of her whoa poor girl she and her father now lie side by side beneath the high walnut tree where her lover reposes in which in her dying moments she had pointed out to us her father at length aware of his daughter's danger unable to see the changes of her dear countenance obstinately held her hand till it was chilled and stiffened by death nor did he then move or speak till 12 hours after kindly death took him to his breakless repose they rest beneath the sod the tree their monument hallowed spot is distinct in my memory paled in by craggy jura and the far immeasurable alps the spire of the church they frequented still points from out the embosoming trees and though her hand be cold still me thinks the sounds of divine music which they loved wonder about solacing their gentle ghosts end of chapter seven