the animal held back with an unwillingness such as
he had never shown before; so that when the young man saw the girl
flying toward him he leapt from the saddle, leaving the horse to follow
or not as he would, and ran to meet her. As soon as she could speak, she
told him that she was not afraid now that he had come, saying it over
and over; yet she nevertheless clung to him as if she would never let
him go.

"And you will take care of the others, too," she said. "Uncle Robert
doesn't know what to do, nor William. Oh! Look! The poor black people!
There they come running up from the quarters. See how they are crowding
round the door, wild with terror! But you will know what to say to them
as well as the others. I am not afraid, with you," quietly looking up in
his grave face. "Is it the end of the world, dear heart?"

He said that he knew no more than herself what it could be, unless some
terrific tempest might be near. They moved hurriedly on toward the
house, and as they went he told her that he was going to the boat where
he had been called to see a man ill of the plague. The call had come
during the night, but he could not leave another patient to answer it
more quickly. And now he would not leave her, for all the rest of the
world, till they knew what this awful thing was which seemed about to
happen. The white people had come out of the house and stood speechless
and motionless, looking up at the heavens and down at the earth, seeing
both but dimly through that ghastly twilight so awfully lit by that
lurid ball of fire.

"Here comes Father Orin!" cried the doctor. "Look at Toby and my horse;
see how they are walking!"

The horses could be indistinctly seen advancing slowly and reluctantly
through the yellowish gloom with a curious, sliding motion, as if
stepping on ice. Paul started toward them, but paused, struck
motionless, and held by a sight still more strange. The same breathless
stillness brooded over everything; the windless air now weighed like
lead, and yet at this moment the greatest trees and smallest bushes
suddenly began to quiver from bottom to top. As far as the horror-struck
eyes could reach through that unnatural twilight, the mightiest
cottonwoods were now bending and nodding like the frailest reeds. And
then there arose in the far northeast a faint rumbling which rushed
swiftly onward toward the southeast, growing, louder as it came, and
breaking over Cedar House in a thunderous roar. At the