ether as if by a common instinct at the Fifth
Avenue Hotel. The Mayor, the Police and Fire Commissioners, several
wealthy bankers, and a number of prominent clergymen were holding some
kind of council and sending out appeals for co-operation and addresses
to the public, which latter were entirely unheeded. As I forced myself
into the room I saw and heard a venerable and majestic gentleman,
evidently a clergyman, addressing those present in an impassioned
manner. There were tears in his eyes and an awful sadness in his voice.
"Men and brethren," he said, "it is appointed unto all men once to die.
If it be appointed unto us who remain to die together, let us die like
Christians who still retain our faith in eternal justice and eternal
mercy, and not like wild beasts that devour each other."

A report came that the fatal east wind was blowing. And at this there
was a general movement of those present, as if the time were too short
to waste in longer listening. I came up Lafayette Place to Astor Place
with the intention of reaching Fourth Avenue. Both spaces were choked
with people, and on Eighth Street I saw a woman on the steps of a
private residence, wildly calling on the mob, which paid no attention to
her, to repent, for the day of judgment was at hand. Her white hair was
blown over her face and her arms were frantically gesticulating. Into
the great hall of the Cooper Union a mass of religious people had
flocked, and a number of speakers were making addresses and offering up
prayers. When I passed the woman who was exhorting the crowd I had
noticed the manner in which her hair, which was of soft, flossy white,
streamed out straight in front of her, but it did not occur to me until
I reached the square in front of the Cooper Union that this was caused
by the peculiar and ominous draft of wind from the east of which I had
heard so much, for it was there that I saw a crowd pointing up to the
roof of the vast building known as the Bible House, which appeared to be
covered with people. Some of them were holding flags and drapery, and
the material floated out westward without any of the undulating motion
which always marks a flag in a disturbed current. These extemporized
pennants stood out as if they were starched. I could see that this sign
produced a dumb sort of terror in the crowd. It seemed to me then that
all emotion of which I was capable was centered in the one desire to get
to the woman I loved and die with her. A