by Robert Reed
that’s what . Fighting things that ain’t with things that ain’t! They
must have been all fools in them days . That’s why they croaked . I
ain’t goin’ to believe in such rot, I tell you that .”
Granser promptly began to weep, while Edwin hotly took up his
defence .
“Look here, Hare-Lip, you believe in lots of things you can’t
see .”
Hare-Lip shook his head .
“You believe in dead men walking about . You never seen one
dead man walk about .”
“I tell you I seen ’em, last winter, when I was wolf-hunting with
dad .”
“Well, you always spit when you cross running water,” Edwin
challenged .
“That’s to keep off bad luck,” was Hare-Lip’s defence .
“You believe in bad luck?”
“Sure .”
“An’ you ain’t never seen bad luck,” Edwin concluded trium-
phantly . “You’re just as bad as Granser and his germs . You believe
in what you don’t see . Go on, Granser .”
Hare-Lip, crushed by this metaphysical defeat, remained silent,
and the old man went on . Often and often, though this narrative must
not be clogged by the details, was Granser’s tale interrupted while
the boys squabbled among themselves . Also, among themselves
they kept up a constant, low-voiced exchange of explanation and
conjecture, as they strove to follow the old man into his unknown
and vanished world .
“The Scarlet Death broke out in San Francisco. The first death
came on a Monday morning . By Thursday they were dying like
flies in Oakland and San Francisco. They died everywhere—in their
beds, at their work, walking along the street . It was on Tuesday that I
saw my first death—Miss Collbran, one of my students, sitting right
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 763
there before my eyes, in my lecture-room . I noticed her face while
I was talking . It had suddenly turned scarlet . I ceased speaking and
could only look at her, for the first fear of the plague was already on
all of us and we knew that it had come . The young women screamed
and ran out of the room . So did the young men run out, all but two .
Miss Collbran’s convulsions were very mild and lasted less than
a minute . One of the young men fetched her a glass of water . She
drank only a little of it, and cried out:
“‘My feet! All sensation has left them .’
“After a minute she said, ‘I have no feet . I am unaware that I
have any feet . And my knees are cold . I can scarcely feel that I have
knees .’
“She lay on the floor, a bundle of notebooks under her head. And
we could do nothing . The coldness and the numbness crept up past
her hips to her heart, and when it reached her heart she was dead .
In fifteen minutes, by the clock—I timed it—she was dead, there,
in my own classroom, dead . And she was a very beautiful, strong,
healthy young woman. And from the first sign of the plague to her
death only fifteen minutes elapsed. That will show you how swift
was the Scarlet Death .
“Yet in those few minutes I remained with the dying woman in
my classroom, the alarm had spread over the university; and the
students, by thousands, all of them, had deserted the lecture-room
and laboratories . When I emerged, on my way to make report to the
President of the Faculty, I found the university deserted . Across the
campus were several stragglers hurrying for their homes . Two of
them were running .
“President Hoag, I found in his office, all alone, looking very
old and very gray, with a multitude of wrinkles in his face that I had
never seen before . At the sight of me, he pulled himself to his feet
and tottered away to the inner office, banging the door after him and
locking it . You see, he knew I had been exposed, and he was afraid .
He shouted to me through the door to go away . I shall never forget
my feelings as I walked down the silent corridors and out across
that deserted campus . I was not afraid . I had been exposed, and I
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 764
looked upon myself as already dead . It was not that, but a feeling
of awful depression that impressed me . Everything had stopped . It
was like the end of the world to me—my world . I had been born
within sight and sound of the university . It had been my predestined
career . My father had been a professor there before me, and his fa-
ther before him . For a century and a half had this university, like a
splendid machine, been running steadily on . And now, in an instant,
it had stopped. It was like seeing the sacred flame die down on some
thrice-sacred altar . I was shocked, unutterably shocked .
“When I arrived home, my housekeeper screamed as I entered,
and fled away. And when I rang, I found the housemaid had likewise
fled. I investigated. In the kitchen I found the cook on the point of
departure . But she screamed, too, and in her haste dropped a suitcase
of her personal belongings and ran out of the house and across the
grounds, still screaming . I can hear her scream to this day . You see,
we did not act in this way when ordinary diseases smote us . We
were always calm over such things, and sent for the doctors and
nurses who knew just what to do . But this was different . It struck so
suddenly, and killed so swiftly, and never missed a stroke . When the
scarlet rash appeared on a person’s face, that person was marked by
death . There was never a known case of a recovery .
“I was alone in my big house . As I have told you often before,
in those days we could talk with one another over wires or through
the air . The telephone bell rang, and I found my brother talking to
me . He told me that he was not coming home for fear of catching
the plague from me, and that he had taken our two sisters to stop at
Professor Bacon’s home . He advised me to remain where I was, and
wait to find out whether or not I had caught the plague.
“To all of this I agreed, staying in my house and for the first
time in my life attempting to cook . And the plague did not come out
on me . By means of the telephone I could talk with whomsoever I
pleased and get the news . Also, there were the newspapers, and I
ordered all of them to be thrown up to my door so that I could know
what was happening with the rest of the world .
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 765
“New York City and Chicago were in chaos . And what happened
with them was happening in all the large cities . A third of the New
York police were dead . Their chief was also dead, likewise the may-
or . All law and order had ceased . The bodies were lying in the streets
un-buried . All railroads and vessels carrying food and such things
into the great city had ceased runnings and mobs of the hungry poor
were pillaging the stores and warehouses . Murder and robbery and
drunkenness were everywhere. Already the people had fled from the
city by millions—at first the rich, in their private motor-cars and di-
&
nbsp; rigibles, and then the great mass of the population, on foot, carrying
the plague with them, themselves starving and pillaging the farmers
and all the towns and villages on the way .
“The man who sent this news, the wireless operator, was alone
with his instrument on the top of a lofty building . The people re-
maining in the city—he estimated them at several hundred thou-
sand—had gone mad from fear and drink, and on all sides of him
great fires were raging. He was a hero, that man who staid by his
post—an obscure newspaperman, most likely .
“For twenty-four hours, he said, no transatlantic airships had ar-
rived, and no more messages were coming from England . He did
state, though, that a message from Berlin—that’s in Germany—
announced that Hoffmeyer, a bacteriologist of the Metchnikoff
School, had discovered the serum for the plague . That was the last
word, to this day, that we of America ever received from Europe . If
Hoffmeyer discovered the serum, it was too late, or otherwise, long
ere this, explorers from Europe would have come looking for us .
We can only conclude that what happened in America happened in
Europe, and that, at the best, some several score may have survived
the Scarlet Death on that whole continent .
“For one day longer the despatches continued to come from New
York . Then they, too, ceased . The man who had sent them, perched
in his lofty building, had either died of the plague or been consumed
in the great conflagrations he had described as raging around him.
And what had occurred in New York had been duplicated in all the
other cities . It was the same in San Francisco, and Oakland, and
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 766
Berkeley . By Thursday the people were dying so rapidly that their
corpses could not be handled, and dead bodies lay everywhere .
Thursday night the panic outrush for the country began . Imagine,
my grandsons, people, thicker than the salmon-run you have seen
on the Sacramento river, pouring out of the cities by millions, madly
over the country, in vain attempt to escape the ubiquitous death . You
see, they carried the germs with them . Even the airships of the rich,
fleeing for mountain and desert fastnesses, carried the germs.
“Hundreds of these airships escaped to Hawaii, and not only did
they bring the plague with them, but they found the plague already
there before them . This we learned, by the despatches, until all order
in San Francisco vanished, and there were no operators left at their
posts to receive or send . It was amazing, astounding, this loss of
communication with the world . It was exactly as if the world had
ceased, been blotted out . For sixty years that world has no longer ex-
isted for me . I know there must be such places as New York, Europe,
Asia, and Africa; but not one word has been heard of them—not
in sixty years . With the coming of the Scarlet Death the world fell
apart, absolutely, irretrievably . Ten thousand years of culture and
civilization passed in the twinkling of an eye, ‘lapsed like foam .’
“I was telling about the airships of the rich . They carried the
plague with them and no matter where they fled, they died. I never
encountered but one survivor of any of them—Mungerson . He was
afterwards a Santa Rosan, and he married my eldest daughter . He
came into the tribe eight years after the plague . He was then nine-
teen years old, and he was compelled to wait twelve years more
before he could marry . You see, there were no unmarried women,
and some of the older daughters of the Santa Rosans were already
bespoken . So he was forced to wait until my Mary had grown to
sixteen years . It was his son, Gimp-Leg, who was killed last year by
the mountain lion .
“Mungerson was eleven years old at the time of the plague . His
father was one of the Industrial Magnates, a very wealthy, powerful
man. It was on his airship, the Condor, that they were fleeing, with
all the family, for the wilds of British Columbia, which is far to the
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 767
north of here . But there was some accident, and they were wrecked
near Mount Shasta . You have heard of that mountain . It is far to the
north . The plague broke out amongst them, and this boy of eleven
was the only survivor . For eight years he was alone, wandering over
a deserted land and looking vainly for his own kind . And at last,
travelling south, he picked up with us, the Santa Rosans .
“But I am ahead of my story . When the great exodus from the cit-
ies around San Francisco Bay began, and while the telephones were
still working, I talked with my brother. I told him this flight from
the cities was insanity, that there were no symptoms of the plague in
me, and that the thing for us to do was to isolate ourselves and our
relatives in some safe place . We decided on the Chemistry Building,
at the university, and we planned to lay in a supply of provisions,
and by force of arms to prevent any other persons from forcing their
presence upon us after we had retired to our refuge .
“All this being arranged, my brother begged me to stay in my
own house for at least twenty-four hours more, on the chance of the
plague developing in me . To this I agreed, and he promised to come
for me next day . We talked on over the details of the provisioning
and the defending of the Chemistry Building until the telephone
died . It died in the midst of our conversation . That evening there
were no electric lights, and I was alone in my house in the darkness .
No more newspapers were being printed, so I had no knowledge of
what was taking place outside .
“I heard sounds of rioting and of pistol shots, and from my win-
dows I could see the glare of the sky of some conflagration in the
direction of Oakland . It was a night of terror . I did not sleep a wink .
A man—why and how I do not know—was killed on the sidewalk
in front of the house . I heard the rapid reports of an automatic pistol,
and a few minutes later the wounded wretch crawled up to my door,
moaning and crying out for help . Arming myself with two automat-
ics, I went to him . By the light of a match I ascertained that while he
was dying of the bullet wounds, at the same time the plague was on
him. I fled indoors, whence I heard him moan and cry out for half
an hour longer .
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 768
“In the morning, my brother came to me . I had gathered into a
handbag what things of value I purposed taking, but when I saw his
face I knew that he would never accompany me to the Chemistry
Building . The plague was on him . He intended shaking my hand, but
I went back hurriedly before him .
“‘Look at yourself in the mirror,’ I commanded .
“He did so, and at sight of his scarlet face, the color deepening as
he looked at it, he sank down nervelessly in a chair .
“‘My God!’ he said . ‘I’ve got it . Don’t come near me . I am a dead
man .’
> “Then the convulsions seized him . He was two hours in dying,
and he was conscious to the last, complaining about the coldness
and loss of sensation in his feet, his calves, his thighs, until at last it
was his heart and he was dead .
“That was the way the Scarlet Death slew . I caught up my hand-
bag and fled. The sights in the streets were terrible. One stumbled
on bodies everywhere . Some were not yet dead . And even as you
looked, you saw men sink down with the death fastened upon them .
There were numerous fires burning in Berkeley, while Oakland and
San Francisco were apparently being swept by vast conflagrations.
The smoke of the burning filled the heavens, so that the midday was
as a gloomy twilight, and, in the shifts of wind, sometimes the sun
shone through dimly, a dull red orb . Truly, my grandsons, it was like
the last days of the end of the world .
“There were numerous stalled motor cars, showing that the gaso-
line and the engine supplies of the garages had given out . I remem-
ber one such car . A man and a woman lay back dead in the seats, and
on the pavement near it were two more women and a child . Strange
and terrible sights there were on every hand . People slipped by si-
lently, furtively, like ghosts—white-faced women carrying infants
in their arms; fathers leading children by the hand; singly, and in
couples, and in families—all fleeing out of the city of death. Some
carried supplies of food, others blankets and valuables, and there
were many who carried nothing .
THE SCARLET PLAGUE, by Jack London | 769
“There was a grocery store—a place where food was sold . The
man to whom it belonged—I knew him well—a quiet, sober, but
stupid and obstinate fellow, was defending it . The windows and
doors had been broken in, but he, inside, hiding behind a counter,
was discharging his pistol at a number of men on the sidewalk who
were breaking in . In the entrance were several bodies—of men, I
decided, whom he had killed earlier in the day . Even as I looked on
from a distance, I saw one of the robbers break the windows of the
adjoining store, a place where shoes were sold, and deliberately set
fire to it. I did not go to the groceryman’s assistance. The time for
such acts had already passed . Civilization was crumbling, and it was