Black Spectre coming towards him; he hid himself in fear, and the horse and

his rider slowly past, while the moonbeams fell on the face of the latter,

displaying its unearthly hue. Sometimes at dead of night, as we watched the

sick, we heard one galloping through the town; it was the Black Spectre

come in token of inevitable death. He grew giant tall to vulgar eyes; an

icy atmosphere, they said, surrounded him; when he was heard, all animals

shuddered, and the dying knew that their last hour was come. It was Death

himself, they declared, come visibly to seize on subject earth, and quell

at once our decreasing numbers, sole rebels to his law. One day at noon, we

saw a dark mass on the road before us, and, coming up, beheld the Black

Spectre fallen from his horse, lying in the agonies of disease upon the

ground. He did not survive many hours; and his last words disclosed the

secret of his mysterious conduct. He was a French noble of distinction,

who, from the effects of plague, had been left alone in his district;

during many months, he had wandered from town to town, from province to

province, seeking some survivor for a companion, and abhorring the

loneliness to which he was condemned. When he discovered our troop, fear of

contagion conquered his love of society. He dared not join us, yet he could

not resolve to lose sight of us, sole human beings who besides himself

existed in wide and fertile France; so he accompanied us in the spectral

guise I have described, till pestilence gathered him to a larger

congregation, even that of Dead Mankind.

It had been well, if such vain terrors could have distracted our thoughts

from more tangible evils. But these were too dreadful and too many not to

force themselves into every thought, every moment, of our lives. We were

539

The Last Man