The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  beautiful and more adorable than any he had seen before, he soon

  became reconciled to his lot .

  And instead of committing the folly of loving one woman in par-

  ticular, he learned to love all women in general .

  A LEGEND, by Lafcadio Hearn | 1270

  And during fifty years he lived such a life as even the angels

  might envy .

  And before he died he had 15,273 children, and 91,638 grand-

  children .

  And the children were brought up by the nation, and permitted to

  do nothing except to perfect their minds and bodies .

  And in the third generation the descendants of the man had in-

  creased even to two millions of males, not including females, who

  were indeed few, so great was the universal desire for males .

  And in the tenth generation there were even as many males as

  females .

  And the world was regenerated .

  A LEGEND, by Lafcadio Hearn | 1271

  THE DUST OF DEATH,

  by Fred M. White

  Originally published in 1903.

  The front door bell tinkled impatiently; evidently somebody

  was in a hurry . Alan Hubert answered the call, a thing that even a

  distinguished physician might do, seeing that it was on the stroke

  of midnight. The tall, graceful figure of a woman in evening dress

  stumbled into the hall . The diamonds in her hair shimmered and

  trembled, her face was full of terror .

  “You are Dr . Hubert,” she gasped . “I am Mrs . Fillingham, the

  artist’s wife, you know . Will you come with me at once… My hus-

  band… I had been dining out . In the studio… Oh, please come!”

  Hubert asked no unnecessary questions . He knew Fillingham,

  the great portrait painter, well enough by repute and by sight also,

  for Fillingham’s house and studio were close by . There were many

  artists in the Devonshire Park district—that pretty suburb which

  was one of the triumphs of the builder’s and landscape gardener’s

  art . Ten years ago it had been no more than a swamp; today people

  spoke complacently of the fact that they lived in Devonshire Park .

  Hubert walked up the drive and past the trim lawns with Mrs . Fill-

  ingham hanging on his arm, and in at the front door . Mrs . Fillingham

  pointed to a door on the right . She as too exhausted to speak . There

  were shaded lights gleaming everywhere, on old oak and armour

  and on a large portrait of a military-looking man propped up on an

  easel. On a lay figure was a magnificent foreign military uniform.

  Hubert caught all this in a quick mental flash. But the vital inter-

  est to him was a human figure lying on his back before the fireplace.

  THE DUST OF DEATH, by Fred M. White | 1272

  The clean-shaven, sensitive face of the artist had a ghastly, purple-

  black tinge, there was a large swelling in the throat .

  “He—he is not dead?” Mrs . Fillingham asked in a frozen whisper .

  Hubert was able to satisfy the distracted wife on that head . Fill-

  ingham was still breathing . Hubert stripped the shade from a reading

  lamp and held the electric bulb at the end of its long flex above

  the sufferer’s mouth, contriving to throw the flood of light upon the

  back of the throat .

  “Diphtheria!” he exclaimed . “Label’s type unless I am greatly

  mistaken . Some authorities are disposed to scoff at Dr . Label’s dis-

  covery . I was an assistant of his for four years and I know better .

  Fortunately I happen to know what the treatment—successful in two

  cases—was .”

  He hurried from the house and returned a few minutes later

  breathlessly . He had some strange-looking, needle-like instruments

  in his hands . He took an electric lamp from its socket and substituted

  a plug on a flex instead. Then he cleared a table without ceremony

  and managed to hoist his patient upon it .

  “Now please hold that lamp steadily thus,” he said . “Bravo, you

  are a born nurse! I am going to apply these electric needles to the

  throat .”

  Hubert talked on more for the sake of his companion’s nerves

  than anything else. The still figure on the table quivered under his

  touch, his lungs expanded in a long, shuddering sigh . The heart was

  beating more or less regularly now . Fillingham opened his eyes and

  muttered something .

  “Ice,” Hubert snapped, “have you got any ice in the house?”

  It was a well-regulated establishment and there was plenty of ice

  in the refrigerator . Not until the patient was safe in bed did Hubert’s

  features relax .

  “We’ll pull him through yet,” he said . “I’ll send you a competent

  nurse round in half-an-hour. I’ll call first thing in the morning and

  bring Dr . Label with me . He must not miss this on any account .”

  Half-an-hour later Hubert was spinning along in a hansom to-

  wards Harley Street . It was past one when he reached the house of

  THE DUST OF DEATH, by Fred M. White | 1273

  the great German savant . A dim light was burning in the hall . A big

  man with an enormous shaggy head and a huge frame attired in the

  seediest of dress coats welcomed Hubert with a smile .

  “So, my young friend,” Label said, “your face promises excite-

  ment .”

  “Case of Label’s diphtheria,” Hubert said crisply . “Fillingham,

  the artist, who lives close by me . Fortunately they called me in . I

  have arranged for you to see my patient the first thing in the morn-

  ing .”

  The big German’s jocular manner vanished . He led Hubert

  gravely to a chair in his consulting-room and curtly demanded de-

  tails . He smiled approvingly as Hubert enlarged upon his treatment

  of the case .

  “Undoubtedly your diagnosis was correct,” he said, puffing furi-

  ously at a long china pipe . “You have not forgotten what I told you

  of it . The swelling—which is caused by violent blood poisoning—

  yielded to the electric treatment . I took the virus from the cases in

  the north and I tried them on scores of animals . And they all died .

  “I find it is the virus of what is practically a new disease, one of

  the worst in the wide world . I say it recurs again, and it does . So

  I practise, and practise to find a cure. And electricity is the cure.

  I inoculate five dogs with the virus and I save two by the electric

  current. You follow my plans and you go the first stage of the way to

  cure Fillingham . Did you bring any of that mucous here?”

  Hubert produced it in a tiny glass tube . For a little time Label

  examined it under his microscope . He wanted to make assurance

  doubly sure .

  “It is the same thing,” he said presently . “I knew that it was bound

  to recur again . Why, it is planted all over our big cities . And electric-

  ity is the only way to get rid of it . It was the best method of dealing

  with sewage, only corporations found it too expensive . Wires in the

  earth charged to say 10,000 volts . Apply this and you destroy the

  virus that lies buried under hundreds of houses in London . They

  laughed at me when I suggested it years ago .”

  “
Underground,” Hubert asked vaguely .

  THE DUST OF DEATH, by Fred M. White | 1274

  “Ach, underground, yes . Don’t you recollect that in certain parts

  of England cancer is more common than in other places? The germs

  have been turned up in fields. I, myself, have proved their existence.

  In a little time, perhaps . I shall open the eyes of your complacent

  Londoners . You live in a paradise, ach Gott! And what was that

  paradise like ten years ago? Dreary pools and deserted brickfields.

  And how do you fill it up and level it to build houses upon?”

  “By the carting of hundreds of thousands of loads of refuse, of

  course .”

  “Ach, I will presently show you what that refuse was and is . Now

  go home to bed .”

  * * * *

  Mrs . Fillingham remained in the studio with Hubert whilst Label

  was making his examination overhead . The patient had had a bad

  night; his symptoms were very grave indeed . Hubert listened more

  or less vaguely; his mind had gone beyond the solitary case . He was

  dreading what might happen in the future .

  “Your husband has a fine constitution,” he said soothingly.

  “He has overtried it lately,” Mrs . Fillingham replied . “At present

  he is painting a portrait of the Emperor of Asturia . His Majesty was

  to have sat today; he spent the morning here yesterday .”

  But Hubert was paying no attention .

  The heavy tread of Label was heard as he floundered down the

  stairs . His big voice was booming . What mattered all the portraits in

  the world so long as the verdict hung on the German doctor’s lips!

  “Oh, there is a chance,” Label exclaimed . “Just a chance . Every-

  thing possible is being done . This is not so much diphtheria as a new

  disease . Diphtheria family, no doubt, but the blood poisoning makes

  a difficult thing of it.”

  Label presently dragged Hubert away after parting with Mrs .

  Fillingham. He wanted to find a spot where building or draining was

  going on .

  They found some men presently engaged in connecting a new

  house with the main drainage—a deep cutting some forty yards long

  THE DUST OF DEATH, by Fred M. White | 1275

  by seven or eight feet deep . There was the usual crust of asphalt on

  the road, followed by broken bricks and the like, and a more or less

  regular stratum of blue-black rubbish, soft, wet, and clinging, and

  emitting an odour that caused Hubert to throw up his head .

  “You must have broken into a drain somewhere here,” he said .

  “We ain’t, sir,” the foreman of the gang replied . “It’s nout but

  rubbidge as they made up the road with here ten years ago . Lord

  knows where it came from, but it do smell fearful in weather like

  this .”

  The odour indeed was stifling. All imaginable kinds of rubbish

  and refuse lay under the external beauties of Devonshire Park in

  strata ranging from five to forty feet deep. It was little wonder that

  trees and flowers flourished here. And here—wet, and dark, and fes-

  tering—was a veritable hotbed of disease . Contaminated rags, torn

  paper, road siftings, decayed vegetable matter, diseased food, fish

  and bones all were represented here .

  “Every ounce of this ought to have gone through the destructor,”

  Label snorted . “But no, it is used for the foundations of a suburban

  paradise . My word, we shall see what your paradise will be like

  presently . Come along .”

  Label picked up a square slab of the blue stratum, put it in a tin,

  and the tin in his pocket. He was snorting and puffing with contempt.

  “Now come to Harley Street with me and I will show you things,”

  he said .

  He was as good as his word . Placed under a microscope, a minute

  portion of the subsoil from Devonshire Park proved to be a mass

  of living matter . There were at least four kinds of bacillus here that

  Hubert had never seen before . With his superior knowledge Label

  pointed out the fact that they all existed in the mucous taken from

  Fillingham on the previous evening .

  “There you are!” He cried excitedly . “You get all that wet sodden

  refuse of London and you dump it down here in a heap . You mix

  with it a heap of vegetable matter so that fermentation shall have

  every chance . Then you cover it over with some soil, and you let it

  boil, boil, boil . Then, when millions upon millions of death-dealing

  THE DUST OF DEATH, by Fred M. White | 1276

  microbes are bred and bred till their virility is beyond the scope of

  science, you build good houses on the top of it . For years I have

  been prophesying an outbreak of some new disease—or some awful

  form of an old one—and here it comes . They called me a crank be-

  cause I asked for high electric voltage to kill the plague—to destroy

  it by lightning . A couple of high tension wires run into the earth and

  there you are . See here .”

  He took his cube of the reeking earth and applied the battery to

  it . The mass showed no outward change . But once under the micro-

  scope a fragment of it demonstrated that there was not the slightest

  trace of organic life .

  “There!” Label cried . “Behold the remedy . I don’t claim that it

  will cure in every case, because we hardly touch the diphtheretic

  side of the trouble . When there has been a large loss of life we shall

  learn the perfect remedy by experience . But this thing is coming,

  and your London is going to get a pretty bad scare . You have laid it

  down like port wine, and now that the thing is ripe you are going to

  suffer from the consequence . I have written articles in the Lancet, I

  have warned people, but they take not the slightest heed .”

  Hubert went back home thoughtfully . He found the nurse who

  had Fillingham’s case in hand waiting for him in his consulting-

  room .

  “I am just back from my walk,” she said . “I wish you would call

  at Dr . Walker’s at Elm Crescent . He has two cases exactly like Mr .

  Fillingham’s, and he is utterly puzzled .”

  Hubert snatched his hat and his electric needles, and hurried away

  at once . He found his colleague impatiently waiting for him There

  were two children this time in one of the best appointed houses in

  Devonshire Park, suffering precisely as Fillingham had done . In

  each instance the electric treatment gave the desired result . Hubert

  hastily explained the whole matter to Walker .

  “It’s an awful business,” the latter said, “Personally, I have

  a great respect for Label, and I feel convinced that he is right . If

  this thing spreads, property in Devonshire Park won’t be worth the

  price of slum lodgings .” By mid-day nineteen cases of the so-called

  THE DUST OF DEATH, by Fred M. White | 1277

  diphtheria had been notified within the three miles area known as

  Devonshire Park . Evidently some recent excavations had liberated

  the deadly microbe . But there was no scare as yet . Label came down

  again hotfoot with as many assistants as he could get, and took up

  his quarters with Hubert . They were goin
g to have a busy time .

  It was after two before Hubert managed to run across to Filling-

  ham’s again . He stood in the studio waiting for Mrs . Fillingham . His

  mind was preoccupied and uneasy, yet he seemed to miss something

  from the studio . It was strange, considering that he had only been in

  the room twice before .

  “Are you looking for anything?” Mrs . Fillingham asked .

  “I don’t know,” Hubert exclaimed . “I seem to miss something .

  I’ve got it—the absence of the uniform .”

  “They sent for it,” Mrs . Fillingham said vaguely . She was dazed

  for want of sleep . “The Emperor had to go to some function, and that

  was the only uniform of the kind he happened to have . He was to

  have gone away in it after his sitting today . My husband persuaded

  him to leave it when it was here yesterday, and—”

  Hubert had cried out suddenly as if in pain .

  “He was here yesterday—here, with your husband, and your hus-

  band with the diphtheria on him?”

  Then the weary wife understood .

  “Good heavens—”

  But Hubert was already out of the room . He blundered on until he

  came to a hansom cab creeping along in the sunshine .

  “Buckingham Palace,” he gasped. “Drive like mad. A five-pound

  note for you if you get me there by three o’clock!”

  * * * *

  Already Devonshire Park was beginning to be talked about . It

  was wonderful how the daily press got to the root of things . Hubert

  caught sight of more than one contents bill as he drove home that

  alluded to the strange epidemic .

  THE DUST OF DEATH, by Fred M. White | 1278

  Dr . Label joined Hubert presently in Mrs . Fillingham’s home,

  rubbing his huge hands together . He knew nothing of the new dra-

  matic developments . He asked where Hubert had been spending his

  time .

  “Trying to save the life of your friend, the Emperor of Asturia,”

  Hubert said . “He was here yesterday with Fillingham, and, though

  he seems well enough at present, he may have the disease on him

  now . What do you think of that?”

  Hubert waited to see the great man stagger before the blow . Label

  smiled and nodded as he proceeded to light a cigarette .

  “Good job too,” he said . “I am honorary physician to the court of

  Asturia. I go back, there, as you know, when I finish my great work