ferers, all past hope -- they
reached the streets of the town itself; and the first sight which
greeted their eyes was the figure of a man stripped naked to the waist,
his back bleeding from the blows he kept on inflicting upon himself with
the thick, knotted cord he held in his hands, a heavy and rough piece of
iron being affixed to the end to make the blows more severe. From the
waist downwards he was clothed with sackcloth, and as he rushed about
the streets shrieking and castigating himself, he called aloud on the
people to repent of their sins, and to flee from the wrath of God that
was falling upon the whole nation.

Yet, though many dead and dying were lying in the streets about him, and
though cries and groans from many houses told that the destroyer was at
work there, this Flagellant (as these maniacs, of which at that time
there were only too many abroad, were called) never attempted to touch
one of them, though he ran almost over their prostrate bodies, and had
apparently no fear of the contagion. There were very few people abroad
in the streets, and such as were sound kept their faces covered with
cloths steeped in vinegar or some other pungent mixture, and walked
gingerly in the middle of the road, as if afraid to approach either the
houses on each side or the other persons walking in the streets.

A cart was going about, with two evil-looking men in it, who lifted in
such of the dead as they found lying by the roadside, and coolly
divested them of anything of any value which they chanced to have upon
them before conveying them to the great pit just outside which had been
dug to receive the victims of the plague.

A wild panic had seized upon the place. Most of the influential
inhabitants had fled. There was no rule or order or oversight observed,
and the priest of the church, who until this day had kept a certain
watch over his flock, and had gone about encouraging and cheering the
people, had himself been stricken down with the fell malady, and no one
knew whether he were now living or dead.

As the Father passed by, people rushed out from many doors to implore
him to come to this house or the other, to administer the last rites to
some one dying within. There were other houses marked with a red cross
on the doors, which had been for many days closed by the town
authorities, until these had themselves fled, being assured that no
person could live in that polluted air. What had become of the wretched
b