the rapidity with which disasters were piling themselves upon him,
cried out now for pardon and peace; the deputy would not answer his
letter, and nothing was talked of but his extirpation by war only.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Froude, p.413.]

The war, however, was interrupted by a singular calamity that befel
the Derry garrison. By the death of their commander left 'a headless
people,' they suffered from want of food and clothing. They also
became the prey of a mysterious disease, against which no precautions
could guard, which no medicine could cure, and by which strong men
were suddenly struck dead. By the middle of November 'the flux was
reigning among them wonderfully;' many of the best men went away
because there was none to stay them. The secret of the dreadful
malady--something like the cholera--was discovered in the fact that
the soldiers had built their sleeping quarters over the burial-ground
of the abbey, 'and the clammy vapour had stolen into their lungs and
poisoned them.' The officer who succeeded to the command applied the
most effectual remedy. He led the men at once into the pure air of the
enemies' country, and they returned after a few days driving before
them 700 horses and 1,000 cattle. He assured Sidney, that with 300
additional men, he could so hunt the rebel, that ere May was passed,
he should not show his face in Ulster. But the 'Black Death' returned
after a brief respite; and, says Mr. Froude, in the reeking vapour of
the charnel-house, it was indifferent whether its victims returned in
triumph from a stricken field, or were cooped within their walls by
hordes of savage enemies. By the middle of March there were left out
of 1,100 but 300 available to fight. Reinforcements had been raised at
Liverpool, but they were countermanded when on the point of sailing.
The English council was discussing the propriety of removing the
colony to the Bann, when accident finished the work which the plague
had begun, and spared them the trouble of deliberation. The huts
and sheds round the monastery had been huddled together for the
convenience of fortification. At the end of April, probably after
a drying east wind, a fire broke out in a blacksmith's forge, which
spread irresistibly through the entire range of buildings. The flames
at last reached the powder magazine: thirty men were blown to pieces
by the explosion, and the rest, paralysed by this last addition
to their misfortunes, made no more effort to exting