The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  know the cause of it, and he wandered away a mile or two from the

  camp . He said that when these panics take them they are jealous of

  the presence of strangers . He had a loaded revolver with him .

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 573

  “There was no sun and he began to think he might lose his way,

  and so he made up his mind to return to the blacks’ camp . Just then

  he heard a sort of rustle in the air above him, and presently a man,

  so he said, jumped out of the clouds and caught him by the collar

  of his coat . He said that this man never touched the ground himself,

  but tried to lift him off the ground. He drew his revolver and fired.

  “Then he said—‘Look here, doctor, I’m blest if the fellow didn’t

  turn into bilin’ water and then into steam and then into nothin’ at

  all, and while I was wonderin’ what in the mischief was the matter

  with me back he comes again, fust steam, and then bilin’ water, and

  then an ugly tawny-looking beggar, neither black nor white man,

  and makes another grab at me . So I said, Man or devil, have at you

  again, and I gave him the contents of another barrel, and I’m blest

  if he didn’t go of in a bile again and I took to my heels and ran as

  I never ran before until I got back to the darkles’ camp .’ That was

  his story,” said the physician, “and it appears that he was picked up

  some months later on the headwaters of the Oakover River by some

  explorers, and so he got round to Adelaide, and thence to Sydney,

  and so found his way to the asylum .”

  In answer to further questions the physician said, “I told the su-

  perintendent of the asylum that the man was quite sane, or at least

  sane enough for the purposes of life; that he was no doubt under

  some strange delusion, but that I had observed that people who had

  been much among the blacks were liable to such delusions, and that

  in my opinion he was quite harmless and that it was cruel to keep

  him shut up in an asylum, and I made a memorandum in the visitors’

  book to that effect .”

  I told this story to Jack that night and we went off the very next

  day to Turban Creek to look for the man . He had been discharged

  and was now working as a clerk on a station on the Murrumbidgee .

  So the superintendent of the asylum told us .

  We hurried off to the Murrumbidgee and found the station where

  he had been employed . It was somewhere near Balranald . But he

  had gone away to America about six months before, and we could

  find no means of tracing him. This affair unsettled us again and was

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 574

  indirectly the cause of our letting the negotiation in which we were

  engaged drift away from us .

  But it is now quite a year since we have made a clean breast of

  it and committed our story to paper, although we have not at the

  moment of writing made up our minds about its publication . And

  the effect upon us both has been decidedly good . Jack says we have

  done better than the Ancient Mariner, for he had to tell his tale over

  and over again whenever he met a man whose doom it was to hear

  him; but we have just told our tale once for all and let the doomed

  ones read it . And now we have actually settled down to business and

  have become part owners of a station in Queensland and have our

  homes within ten miles of each other; that is to say we are quite next

  door neighbours, and I may as well finish by giving you the details

  of a conversation which passed between myself and Jack only a few

  months ago .

  We were both staying with some friends at a pleasant little place

  very near a station on the Southern Railway, about thirty miles from

  Sydney . I say a little place, for it looked so; but when you came to

  know it well it turned out to be a very big place . There were as many

  bedrooms as its hospitable owner could fill with guests; and not to

  speak of dining and drawing-rooms, which were large and airy and

  very pretty, there were bath-rooms, billiard-rooms, and smoking-

  rooms without stint .

  It was a quiet, unpretending place to look at, but it was really

  a most luxurious place . There were pictures and books and musi-

  cal instruments everywhere; and most delightful contrivances, part

  couch, part hammock, part swing; and hothouse fruits and flowers;

  and horses of easiest pace if you wanted them, but somehow you

  seldom did want them . And whenever there were guests there, and

  that was three parts of the year, there was the best company in all

  Australia, and as good as there is anywhere in the world .

  Just now the broad verandah, which ran along the main front, was

  covered with banksia roses, jessamine, and woodbine, and between

  this and the neat wicket-gate, which was the main entrance to this

  little paradise, were all sorts of spring and early summer flowers.

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 575

  At the gate Jack and I were standing; he had come up from Syd-

  ney about an hour before . And this was what we said:—

  Wilbraham . Well, Bob, can you tell me when you are going to be

  married?

  Eatsterley . I cannot quite say, but it will be soon . Bessie and I

  have talked it over and she has listened to reason . She promised

  me that her friend, Violet Fanshawe, shall fix the day, and Violet is

  coming here to-morrow .

  Wilbraham . And you can trust Violet?

  Easterley . I think I can .

  Wilbraham . Do you know, Bob, I saw Miss Fanshawe yesterday,

  and we were talking about you . But she didn’t seem to know that she

  was to decide so momentous a question .

  Easterley . Perhaps she didn’t know .

  Wilbraham . Perhaps not; but, Bob, I think I should like, if it could

  be so arranged, to be married on the same day as you and Bessie .

  Easterley . Jack, I am very glad indeed, but I never guessed it,

  though I did wonder what was taking you to Sydney so often .

  Wilbraham. It was not that; it was, in the first place, to leave you

  and Bessie together; but sure enough it led to that .

  Easterley . But who is she? Oh, Jack, I hope we shall not be worse

  friends after we are married .

  Wilbraham (with a knowing smile) . Somehow, Bob, I don’t think

  we will .

  Easterley . Surely it is not Violet?

  Wilbraham . Yes, it’s Violet; so she and Bessie may as well settle

  both days in one .

  Easterley . Well, I am very glad; but how is it that Bessie never

  told me, for surely Violet must have told her .

  Wilbraham . No, she didn’t . It was only settled yesterday . But

  there is Bessie on the verandah, and she has just got a letter .

  We both went up to her; indeed we had parted from her scarce

  half an hour ago . I saw that the letter was Violet’s writing . “I’ll tell

  you,” I said, “what’s in that letter, Bessie . Violet is going to marry

  Jack .”

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 576

  It was very sudden, and she turned pale and red and then opened

  the letter . Then, after a few seconds, she cried, “Oh, Bob, I’m so


  glad!” and she kissed me, and I think she was very near kissing Jack .

  So Violet came the next day and the conclave was held and the

  day was fixed, and just four weeks later Jack and Violet, Bessie and

  I, were married at All Saints, St . Kilda, for Bessie and Violet were

  Victorian girls and lived near Melbourne .

  And now, as I have already told you, we are living in Queensland,

  in homes only ten miles apart .

  I thought you might like just a little bit of human interest after so

  much of the other thing .

  So now—Farewell!

  THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 577

  THE ANIMALS SICK OF THE

  PLAGUE, by Jean de La Fontaine

  translated by F. C. Tilney

  From The Original Fables of La Fontaine.

  One of those dread evils which spread terror far and wide, and

  which Heaven, in its anger, ordains for the punishment of wicked-

  ness upon earth—a plague in fact; and so dire a one as to make rich

  in one day that grim ferryman who takes a coin from all who cross

  the river Acheron to the land of the dead—such a plague was once

  waging war against the animals . All were attacked, although all did

  not die . So hopeless was the case that not one of them attempted to

  sustain their sinking lives . Even the sight of food did not rouse them .

  Wolves and foxes no longer turned eager and calculating eyes upon

  their gentle and guileless prey . The turtle-doves went no more in

  cooing pairs, but were content to avoid each other . Love and the joy

  that comes of love were both at an end .

  At length the lion called a council of all the beasts and addressed

  them in these words: “My dear friends, it seems to me that it is for

  our sins that Heaven has permitted this misfortune to fall upon us .

  Would it not be well if the most blameworthy among us allowed

  himself to be offered as a sacrifice to appease the celestial wrath?

  By so doing he might secure our recovery . History tells us that this

  course is usually pursued in such cases as ours . Let us look into our

  consciences without self-deception or condoning . For my own part,

  I freely admit that in order to satisfy my gluttony I have devoured

  an appalling number of sheep; and yet what had they done to me to

  THE ANIMALS SICK OF THE PLAGUE, by Jean de La Fontaine | 578

  deserve such a fate? Nothing that could be called an offence . Some-

  times, indeed, I have gone so far as to eat the shepherd too! On the

  whole, I think I had better render myself for this act of sacrifice; that

  is, if we agree that it is a thing necessary to the general good . And

  yet I think it would be only fair that every one should declare his

  sins as well as I; for I could wish that, in justice, it were the most

  culpable that should perish .”

  “Sire,” said the fox, “you are really too yielding for a king, and

  your scruples show too much delicacy of feeling . Eating sheep in-

  deed! What of that?—a foolish and rascally tribe! Is that a crime?

  No! a hundred times no! On the contrary your noble jaws did but

  do them great honour . As for the shepherd, it may be fairly said that

  all the harm he got he merited, since he was one of those who fancy

  they have dominion over the animal kingdom .’ Thus spake the fox

  and every other flatterer in the assembly applauded him. Nor did

  any seek to inquire deeply into the least pardonable offences of the

  tiger, the bear, and the other mighty ones . All those of an aggressive

  nature, right down to the simple watch-dog, were something like

  saints in their own opinions . When the ass stood forth in his turn

  he struck a different note: nothing of fangs and talons and blood,

  “I remember,” he said, “that once in passing a field belonging to a

  monastery I was urged by hunger, by opportunity, by the tenderness

  of the grass, and perhaps by the evil one egging me on, to enter and

  crop just a taste, about as much as the length of my tongue . I know

  that I did wrong, having really no right there .”

  At these words all the assembly turned upon him . The wolf took

  upon himself to make a speech proving without doubt that the ass

  was an accursed wretch, a mangy brute, who certainly ought to be

  told off for sacrifice, since through his wickedness all their misfor-

  tunes had come about . His peccadillo was judged to be a hanging

  matter . “What! eat the grass belonging to another? How abominable

  a crime! Nothing but death could expiate such an outrage!” And

  forthwith they proved as much to the poor ass .

  * * * *

  THE ANIMALS SICK OF THE PLAGUE, by Jean de La Fontaine | 579

  Accordingly as your power is great or small, the judgments of a

  court will whiten or blacken your reputation.

  THE ANIMALS SICK OF THE PLAGUE, by Jean de La Fontaine | 580

  THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson

  Originally published in 1888.

  PROLOGUE

  BY THE CELEBRATED PHILOSOPHER

  AND PHYSICIAN XENOPHILOS

  Nothing is more difficult than to separate the true from the false

  in a narrative in which it is necessary for the most part to rely on

  the testimony of one person only, and that person a woman whose

  mind had been shaken by extraordinary perils and vicissitudes . A

  task so laborious I shall not attempt, but shall simply set forth in

  order what Daphne, the daughter of Philetos, told me in fragments

  at various times, although, I confess that some things seem in their

  nature impossible .

  This much, however, I will say for the benefit of posterity, and

  that it may not be imagined this writing is from beginning to end

  the figment of a poet’s fancy: Daphne was, without question, by

  far the most beautiful woman of her time, and excited a most vio-

  lent and extreme passion in some of the wisest and most celebrated

  Athenians, before the events occurred which I am about to record .

  And I do not think it at all incredible that a man, driven by the mad-

  ness of his love for her, should be induced to sacrifice everything he

  held most dear . Nor do I think it wonderful, considering the haughty

  ambition of many of no great worth or power, that a man who had

  a marvellous genius in making discoveries of the hidden nature of

  things, should try to emulate the might of far-darting Apollo, who

  THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 581

  in his anger slays people in multitudes by the shafts of his plagues

  and pestilences . And if any one should think the conduct of this

  Egyptian and his ancestors, as manifested in their deeds, altogether

  contrary to human nature (as if one should say that doves chased

  hawks, or any other creature acted in a way quite different from its

  kind), I would not only remind him of the horrible and perverse sins

  even of Greeks in former times, but would also ask him to remember

  that for ages the Egyptians had been soured by a gloomy and cruel

  superstition .

  Then, again, as to all the matters which are said to have occurred

  in Athens, I have made the most careful inquiries, and, even in the

  most minute particulars, I find t
hat the testimony of Daphne is con-

  firmed.

  But to him who will be admonished, this narrative, whether true

  or false, certainly declares that no human skill or strength of purpose

  can altogether conquer nature and chance, and may thus serve, like

  the tragedies of our poets, as a notable warning against pride and

  presumption .

  CHAPTER I

  THE PLAGUE AND THE MERCHANTS

  In the time of Pericles, as every one knows, Athens attained her

  greatest glory. Magnificent buildings were erected, and in them were

  placed statues and other ornaments of most exquisite workmanship .

  Whilst the work was in progress, great encouragement was given

  to foreign merchants, who brought materials of various kinds, and

  especially ivory and metals . The laws against strangers were in a

  great measure relaxed, and they were enabled to prosecute their

  business with as much freedom as the citizens themselves . Even

  after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, and when fear of spies

  and treachery was natural, there was still a great concourse of for-

  eign merchants in the port and the city .

  THOTH, by Joseph Shield Nicholson | 582

  But an event occurred which soon put to flight all strangers,

  and made Athens an object of the utmost dread . This was the great

  plague, of which Thucydides, the son of Oloros, has given a memo-

  rable account in his history .

  A most remarkable incident, however, which is the key-stone of

  this narrative, he has omitted to notice, probably because, being in-

  credible in its nature, he ascribed it to the invention of those whose

  minds had been affected by the horrors of the scene, and considered

  it to be unworthy of the dignity of his style and his careful adherence

  to truth .

  A few days before the outbreak of the plague, a company of mer-

  chants, about a score in number, arrived at Athens . They gave out

  that their native land was Egypt, but they had been trading with

  many Grecian cities at peace with Athens . They seemed to be ex-

  tremely wealthy, and their merchandise consisted mainly of ivory

  and gems . They had also abundance of gold and silver . They acted

  as if they did not speak or understand the Greek tongue, and always

  transacted their affairs by means of interpreters . They appeared to be