e campus and drifted against
our doors. We warned them back, but they cursed us and discharged a
fusillade from their pistols. Professor Merryweather, at one of the
windows, was instantly killed, the bullet striking him squarely between
the eyes. We opened fire in turn, and all the prowlers fled away with
the exception of three. One was a woman. The plague was on them and they
were reckless. Like foul fiends, there in the red glare from the skies,
with faces blazing, they continued to curse us and fire at us. One of
the men I shot with my own hand. After that the other man and the woman,
still cursing us, lay down under our windows, where we were compelled to
watch them die of the plague.

"The situation was critical. The explosions of the powder magazines
had broken all the windows of the Chemistry Building, so that we were
exposed to the germs from the corpses. The sanitary committee was called
upon to act, and it responded nobly. Two men were required to go out and
remove the corpses, and this meant the probable sacrifice of their own
lives, for, having performed the task, they were not to be permitted to
reenter the building. One of the professors, who was a bachelor, and
one of the undergraduates volunteered. They bade good-bye to us and
went forth. They were heroes. They gave up their lives that four hundred
others might live. After they had performed their work, they stood for
a moment, at a distance, looking at us wistfully. Then they waved their
hands in farewell and went away slowly across the campus toward the
burning city.

"And yet it was all useless. The next morning the first one of us was
smitten with the plague--a little nurse-girl in the family of Professor
Stout. It was no time for weak-kneed, sentimental policies. On the
chance that she might be the only one, we thrust her forth from the
building and commanded her to be gone.

[Illustration: We thrust her forth from the building 121]

"She went away slowly across the campus, wringing her hands and crying
pitifully. We felt like brutes, but what were we to do? There were four
hundred of us, and individuals had to be sacrificed.

"In one of the laboratories three families had domiciled themselves, and
that afternoon we found among them no less than four corpses and seven
cases of the plague in all its different stages.

"Then it was that the horror began. Leaving the dead lie, we forced the
living ones to segregate themselves in another room. The