Servants of Sin: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

Forth from the smitten, pestiferous city lying at their feet--that city which now flared with a hundred fires lit to purify it, if possible--there came those who could escape while still life remained, and while the poisonous venom of the scourge had not reduced them to helplessness. They came dragging themselves feebly if already struck by the disease; swiftly if, as yet, the fever had not penetrated their systems nor death set its mark upon them. Walking rapidly in some cases, crawling in others; running, almost leaping, if able to do so. Doing anything, thereby to flee away in the open; out into the woods and plains and mountains--anything to leave behind the accursed city in which the houses were empty or only filled with corpses; the accursed streets in which the dead bodies of men and women, of dogs and crows, lay in huddled masses.

A band of nuns passed first--their heads bound in cloths that had been steeped in vinegar into which gunpowder had been soaked; their holy garments trailing on the ground, their rosaries clattering as they went along, their faces white with terror though not with disease. These were good, pious women, many of them young, who, until now, when the panic of dread had seized upon them, had nursed the sick and dying under the orders of their saintly bishop, Henri de Belsunce de Castlemoron, but who, at last, had yielded to the fear that was upon all within Marseilles, and had fled. They had fled from their cloisters out into the open, rushing away from the city of death, shrieking to those who were stricken to keep off from them in the name of God and all his Saints; even arming themselves with what were called the "Sticks of St. Roch," namely, canes from eight to ten feet long, wherewith to ward off and push aside the passers-by and, especially, the dogs which were supposed to be thoroughly infected from the dead bodies at which they sniffed and sometimes tore. Nay, not supposed only, since the creatures had already perished by hundreds from having done so.

Running by their side, endeavouring to keep up with those over whom, but a little while ago, she had ruled with a stern, unbending power, went the mother superior, a fat, waddling woman, whose face may have been comely once, but was now drawn with fright and terror. Yet--with perhaps some recollections left in her mind, even now, of the sanctity and charity that should be the accompaniment of her holy calling--she paused on seeing the group of worn, sunburnt, and emaciated women sitting there under the charge of their frightened warders, and asked who and what they were?

"Galley slaves," one of these warders answered; "at least, emigrants. They go to New France. Can we pass through the city, think you, holy mother, or reach the ships without danger? Can we go on to safety and pure breezes?"

"Alas!" the woman answered, gathering up her skirts even as she spoke, so as to flee as swiftly as might be after her flock, which had gone on without pausing when she herself did so. "Alas, there are no ships. The galleys are moored outside 'tis true, but all else have put to sea to escape. Turn back if you are wise. Ah!" she cried with a scream, a shriek, as some other fugitives from the city passed near her, their eyes chalky white, their faces yellow and blotched with great livid carbuncles. "Oh, keep off! keep off!" And she waved her long stick around her and then rushed precipitously after her band of nuns.

But still the refugees came forth, singly, in pairs, in families. Some staggered under burdens which they bore, such as bags containing food or jars holding water. Numbers of women carried not only babes in their arms and folded to their breasts, but others strapped on to their backs. Some men wheeled hand barrows before them with their choicest household goods flung pell-mell into them; some, even, had got rough vehicles drawn by horses or cows--in one or two instances by dogs, and in another by a pig--by the side of which they walked while their stricken relatives lay gasping within. Yet, even as these latter passed along, that which was most distinctive in their manner was the horror which those who still remained unstruck testified for those who were stricken, yet whom the ties of blood still prompted them to save. A son passed along with his aged mother dying on the truck he pushed before him, yet he had bound his mouth up with vinegar-steeped cloths so that her infected breath should not be inhaled by him; a husband, whose wife was at the point of death, bore, fastened on his chest, a small iron tray on which smoked burning sulphur, so that he should inhale those fumes. Others, too, carried flasks and bottles of spirituous liquors, from which they drank momentarily; some smoked incessantly enormous pipes full of rank, coarse tobacco, and drew into their lungs as much of the fumes as they could bear.

There, too, passed flying domestics and servitors, upon whose coarse hands sparkled rich and sumptuous rings never made to be worn by such as they, and carrying in those hands strong boxes and jewel boxes. None need have asked how they became possessed of such treasures as these! Imagination would have told at once of dead or dying employers, of dark houses rifled, and of robbery successful.

Yet these fugitives were such as, up to now, had escaped the deadly breath of the pest, and were not so horrible as those stricken by that breath. These latter were too awful to behold as they staggered along moaning, "I burn! I burn!" and then flung themselves down to lick the rain-water off the grass beneath them, or to thrust their parched tongues into rivulets formed by the recent downpour. They flung themselves down, never, in many cases, to stagger to their feet again. Exhausted they lay where they fell, and so they died.

The stream of refugees ceased not. Under the rays of the now risen moon they poured forth continuously from the flaming city beneath them, their faces lit also by the crimson-illuminated sky above. They came on in numbers, running or walking, breathlessly if strong, staggering, falling, moaning, shrieking sometimes, if already attacked by the pest.

And Marion Lascelles sitting up upon the sodden hill slope, her hands holding back her matted hair so that the soft wind now blowing from above should not cause it to obscure her eyes, saw all these passers-by, and felt a horror in her soul that she had never before known in her tempestuous life. While, also, she saw something else, and whispered in the ears of the half inanimate Laure what it was that she perceived. "Observe, dear one," she muttered, "observe. The guards, all of them, the gaolers and gendarmes move. They mix with that rushing crowd; see, they disappear; almost, it seems, they dissolve into the night. One understands what they have determined to do. They flee, too; they dare not face this thing. They depart, leaving us here. The cowards!" And if eyes as well as lips could hurl contemptuous curses at others, the woman of the South hurled them now at the departing captors.