anguage to express a mystery that was specific and
yet incomprehensible, and I found that by the common consent of
ignorance men were referring to the phenomenon as IT. I looked at the
strained, anxious faces of the mob, and a great fear fell upon me. With
it came an awful reproach. I would go instantly and redeem my word to
Kate by securing passages to Europe. I had to fight my way by inches out
of the stolid and frightened crowd to the steamship office on lower
Broadway, and there I found another jam. The street was full of private
carriages, and it was impossible to get anywhere near the entrance to
the office. I saw a policeman who was on the outside of the press, and
who was walking up and down in a restless and unofficial manner. "What
is the matter here?" I asked him. He looked me all over, as if he
suspected that I had fallen out of the clouds. Then he said: "Tryin' to
get tickets for Europe! Where d' you come frum?" and then, after a
restless turn or two he added as he passed me, "But it ain't no use,
'cause there ain't steamships enough in the world!"

Then it was, I think, that the whole terrible truth first lit my
consciousness like the sudden upflaring of a bale fire. The inhabitants
were fleeing from the country. They were all affected as had been the
Brisbanes. I was the only dolt and idiot and liar who had no instincts
of danger, and who had failed to rescue the woman I loved when she had
appealed to me.

Then I plunged wildly out into the street with a feeling of desperation
and that sinking of the spirits that comes only in the worst crises and
when one begins to comprehend how helpless man is. I saw that in the
brief time that had elapsed a change had taken place in the aspect of
the crowds. When I got to Broadway again it was with the utmost
difficulty that I could make my way at all against the surging mass of
people that seemed momentarily to swell. It was utterly unlike any crowd
in numbers and disposition that I had ever encountered. It was made up
of all classes. It had lost that American characteristic of good-humor,
which had been swallowed up in a dire personal and selfish instinct of
self-preservation. It was animated by a vague terror, and disregarded
every consideration but that of personal safety. A horrible conviction
seized me that the ordinary restraints of society were breaking down,
and that speedily panic would mount to chaos. I saw that this dread was
adding to the terror of every