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.

[Illustration: The telephone bell rang 088]

"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.

"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 mayor. 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 dirigibles, 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.

[Illustration: Fled from the city by millions 092]

"The man who sent this news, the wireless operator, was alone with his
instrument on the top of a lofty building. The people remaining in the
city--he estimated them at several hundred thousand--had gone mad from
fear and drink, and on all sides