The ensuing week was one of anxious apprehension to all within the
city. Harriet's words seemed prophetic; there was every intimation
of a sickly season. Yellow fever had made its appearance in several
sections of the town in its most malignant type. The board of health
devised various schemes for arresting the advancing evil. The
streets were powdered with lime and huge fires of tar kept
constantly burning, yet daily, hourly, the fatality increased; and,
as colossal ruin strode on, the terrified citizens fled in all
directions. In ten days the epidemic began to make fearful havoc;
all classes and ages were assailed indiscriminately. Whole families
were stricken down in a day, and not one member spared to aid the
others. The exodus was only limited by impossibility; all who could
abandoned their homes and sought safety in flight. These were the
fortunate minority; and, as if resolved to wreak its fury on the
remainder, the contagion spread into every quarter of the city. Not
even physicians were spared; and those who escaped trembled in
anticipation of the fell stroke. Many doubted that it was yellow
fever, and conjectured that the veritable plague had crossed the
ocean. Of all Mrs. Hoyt's boarders, but half a dozen determined to
hazard remaining in the infected region. These were Beulah, Clara,
and four gentlemen. Gladly would Clara have fled to a place of
safety, had it been in her power; but there was no one to accompany
or watch over her, and as she was forced to witness the horrors of
the season a sort of despair seemed to nerve her trembling frame.
Mrs. Watson had been among the first to leave the city. Madam St.
Cymon had disbanded her school; and, as only her three daughters
continued to take music lessons, Beulah had ample leisure to
contemplate the distressing scenes which surrounded her. At noon,
one September day, she stood at the open window of her room. The air
was intensely hot; the drooping leaves of the China trees were
motionless; there was not a breath of wind stirring; and the sable
plumes of the hearses were still as their burdens. The brazen,
glittering sky seemed a huge glowing furnace, breathing out only
scorching heat. Beulah leaned out of the window, and, wiping away
the heavy drops that stood on her brow, looked down the almost
deserted street. Many of the stores were closed; whilom busy haunts
were silent; and very few persons were visible, save the drivers of
two hearses and of a cart filled with coffins. The church bells
tolled unceasingly, and the desolation, the horror, were
indescribable, as the sable wings of the Destroyer hung over the
doomed city. Out of her ten fellow-graduates, four slept in the
cemetery. The night before she had watched beside another, and at
dawn saw the limbs stiffen and the eyes grow sightless. Among her
former schoolmates the contagion had been particularly fatal, and,
fearless of danger, she had nursed two of them. As she stood fanning
herself, Clara entered hurriedly, and, sinking into a chair,
exclaimed, in accents of terror: "It has come! as I knew it would! Two of Mrs. Hoyt's children have
been taken, and, I believe, one of the waiters also! Merciful God!
what will become of me?" Her teeth chattered, and she trembled from
head to foot.