The Last Man
Or from the east, or mountains hoar)
The struck and tott’ring sand-bank lave.[21]
It required more than human energy to bear up against the menaces of
destruction that every where surrounded us.
After the lapse of three days, the gale died away, the sea-gull sailed
upon the calm bosom of the windless atmosphere, and the last yellow
leaf on the topmost branch of the oak hung without motion. The sea no
longer broke with fury; but a swell setting in steadily for shore, with
long sweep and sullen burst replaced the roar of the breakers. Yet we
derived hope from the change, and we did not doubt that after the
interval of a few days the sea would resume its tranquillity. The
sunset of the fourth day favoured this idea; it was clear and golden.
As we gazed on the purple sea, radiant beneath, we were attracted by a
novel spectacle; a dark speck—as it neared, visibly a boat—rode on the
top of the waves, every now and then lost in the steep vallies between.
We marked its course with eager questionings; and, when we saw that it
evidently made for shore, we descended to the only practicable landing
place, and hoisted a signal to direct them. By the help of glasses we
distinguished her crew; it consisted of nine men, Englishmen, belonging
in truth to the two divisions of our people, who had preceded us, and
had been for several weeks at Paris. As countryman was wont to meet
countryman in distant lands, did we greet our visitors on their
landing, with outstretched hands and gladsome welcome. They were slow
to reciprocate our gratulations. They looked angry and resentful; not
less than the chafed sea which they had traversed with imminent peril,
though apparently more displeased with each other than with us. It was
strange to see these human beings, who appeared to be given forth by
the earth like rare and inestimable plants, full of towering passion,
and the spirit of angry contest. Their first demand was to be conducted
to the Lord Protector of England, so they called Adrian, though he had
long discarded the empty title, as a bitter mockery of the shadow to
which the Protectorship was now reduced. They were speedily led to
Dover Castle, from whose keep Adrian had watched the movements of the
boat. He received them with the interest and wonder so strange a
visitation created. In the confusion occasioned by their angry demands
for precedence, it was long before we could discover the secret meaning
of this strange scene. By degrees, from the furious declamations of
one, the fierce interruptions of another, and the bitter scoffs of a
third, we found that they were deputies from our colony at Paris, from
three parties there formed, who, each with angry rivalry, tried to
attain a superiority over the other two. These deputies had been
dispatched by them to Adrian, who had been selected arbiter; and they
had journied from Paris to Calais, through the vacant towns and
desolate country, indulging the while violent hatred against each
other; and now they pleaded their several causes with unmitigated
party-spirit.
By examining the deputies apart, and after much investigation, we
learnt the true state of things at Paris. Since parliament had elected
him Ryland’s deputy, all the surviving English had submitted to Adrian.
He was our captain to lead us from our native soil to unknown lands,
our lawgiver and our preserver. On the first arrangement of our scheme
of emigration, no continued separation of our members was contemplated,
and the command of the whole body in gradual ascent of power had its
apex in the Earl of Windsor. But unforeseen circumstances changed our
plans for us, and occasioned the greater part of our numbers to be
divided for the space of nearly two months, from the supreme chief.
They had gone over in two distinct bodies; and on their arrival at
Paris dissension arose between them.
They had found Paris a desert. When first the plague had appeared, the
return of travellers and merchants, and communications by letter,
informed us regularly of the ravages made by disease on the continent.
But with the encreased mortality this intercourse declined and ceased.
Even in England itself communication from one part of the island to the
other became slow and rare. No vessel stemmed the flood that divided
Calais from Dover; or if some melancholy voyager, wishing to assure
himself of the life or death of his relatives, put from the French
shore to return among us, often the greedy ocean swallowed his little
craft, or after a day or two he was infected by the disorder, and died
before he could tell the tale of the desolation of France. We were
therefore to a great degree ignorant of the state of things on the
continent, and were not without some vague hope of finding numerous
companions in its wide track. But the same causes that had so fearfully
diminished the English nation had had even greater scope for mischief
in the sister land. France was a blank; during the long line of road
from Calais to Paris not one human being was found. In Paris there were
a few, perhaps a hundred, who, resigned to their coming fate, flitted
about the streets of the capital and assembled to converse of past
times, with that vivacity and even gaiety that seldom deserts the
individuals of this nation.
The English took uncontested possession of Paris. Its high houses and
narrow streets were lifeless. A few pale figures were to be
distinguished at the accustomed resort at the Tuileries; they wondered
wherefore the islanders should approach their ill-fated city—for in the
excess of wretchedness, the sufferers always imagine, that their part
of the calamity is the bitterest, as, when enduring intense pain, we
would exchange the particular torture we writhe under, for any other
which should visit a different part of the frame. They listened to the
account the emigrants gave of their motives for leaving their native
land, with a shrug almost of disdain—“Return,” they said, “return to
your island, whose sea breezes, and division from the continent gives
some promise of health; if Pestilence among you has slain its hundreds,
with us it has slain its thousands. Are you not even now more numerous
than we are?—A year ago you would have found only the sick burying the
dead; now we are happier; for the pang of struggle has passed away, and
the few you find here are patiently waiting the final blow. But you,
who are not content to die, breathe no longer the air of France, or
soon you will only be a part of her soil.”
Thus, by menaces of the sword, they would have driven back those who
had escaped from fire. But the peril left behind was deemed imminent by
my countrymen; that before them doubtful and distant; and soon other
feelings arose to obliterate fear, or to replace it by passions, that
ought to have had no place among a brotherhood of unhappy survivors of
the expiring world.
The more numerous division of emigrants, which arrived first at Paris,
assumed a superiority of rank and power; the second party asserted
their independence. A third was formed by a sectarian, a self-erected
prophet, who, while he attributed all power and rule to God, strove to
get the real command of his comrades into his own hands. This third
division consisted of fewest individuals, but their purpose was more
one, their obedience to their leader more entire, their fortitude and
courage more unyielding and active.
During the whole progress of the plague, the teachers of religion were
in possession of great power; a power of good, if rightly directed, or
of incalculable mischief, if fanaticism or intolerance guided their
efforts. In the present instance, a worse feeling than either of these
actuated the leader. He was an impostor in the most determined sense of
the term. A man who had in early life lost, through the indulgence of
vicious propensities, all sense of rectitude or self-esteem; and who,
when ambition was awakened in him, gave himself up to its influence
unbridled by any scruple. His father had been a methodist preacher, an
enthusiastic man with simple intentions; but whose pernicious doctrines
of election and special grace had contributed to destroy all
conscientious feeling in his son. During the progress of the pestilence
he had entered upon various schemes, by which to acquire adherents and
power. Adrian had discovered and defeated these attempts; but Adrian
was absent; the wolf assumed the shepherd’s garb, and the flock
admitted the deception: he had formed a party during the few weeks he
had been in Paris, who zealously propagated the creed of his divine
mission, and believed that safety and salvation were to be afforded
only to those who put their trust in him.
When once the spirit of dissension had arisen, the most frivolous
causes gave it activity. The first party, on arriving at Paris, had
taken possession of the Tuileries; chance and friendly feeling had
induced the second to lodge near to them. A contest arose concerning
the distribution of the pillage; the chiefs of the first division
demanded that the whole should be placed at their disposal; with this
assumption the opposite party refused to comply. When next the latter
went to forage, the gates of Paris were shut on them. After overcoming
this difficulty, they marched in a body to the Tuileries. They found
that their enemies had been already expelled thence by the Elect, as
the fanatical party designated themselves, who refused to admit any
into the palace who did not first abjure obedience to all except God,
and his delegate on earth, their chief. Such was the beginning of the
strife, which at length proceeded so far, that the three divisions,
armed, met in the Place Vendome, each resolved to subdue by force the
resistance of its adversaries. They assembled, their muskets were
loaded, and even pointed at the breasts of their so called enemies. One
word had been sufficient; and there the last of mankind would have
burthened their souls with the crime of murder, and dipt their hands in
each other’s blood. A sense of shame, a recollection that not only
their cause, but the existence of the whole human race was at stake,
entered the breast of the leader of the more numerous party. He was
aware, that if the ranks were thinned, no other recruits could fill
them up; that each man was as a priceless gem in a kingly crown, which
if destroyed, the earth’s deep entrails could yield no paragon. He was
a young man, and had been hurried on by presumption, and the notion of
his high rank and superiority to all other pretenders; now he repented
his work, he felt that all the blood about to be shed would be on his
head; with sudden impulse therefore he spurred his horse between the
bands, and, having fixed a white handkerchief on the point of his
uplifted sword, thus demanded parley; the opposite leaders obeyed the
signal. He spoke with warmth; he reminded them of the oath all the
chiefs had taken to submit to the Lord Protector; he declared their
present meeting to be an act of treason and mutiny; he allowed that he
had been hurried away by passion, but that a cooler moment had arrived;
and he proposed that each party should send deputies to the Earl of
Windsor, inviting his interference and offering submission to his
decision. His offer was accepted so far, that each leader consented to
command a retreat, and moreover agreed, that after the approbation of
their several parties had been consulted, they should meet that night
on some neutral spot to ratify the truce. At the meeting of the chiefs,
this plan was finally concluded upon. The leader of the fanatics indeed
refused to admit the arbitration of Adrian; he sent ambassadors, rather
than deputies, to assert his claim, not plead his cause.
The truce was to continue until the first of February, when the bands