The Scarlet Plague Page #3

"The Scarlet Plague" by Jack London, published in 1912, is a post-apocalyptic novel set in the year 2073, sixty years after a deadly pandemic—called the Scarlet Plague—wiped out most of humanity in 2013.

• Novel

								

demanded that for the minimum. There was a chap, a Frenchman, I forget
his name, who succeeded in making three hundred; but the thing was
risky, too risky for conservative persons. But he was on the right clew,
and he would have managed it if it hadn't been for the Great Plague.
When I was a boy, there were men alive who remembered the coming of the
first aeroplanes, and now I have lived to see the last of them, and that
sixty years ago.”

The old man babbled on, unheeded by the boys, who were long accustomed
to his garrulousness, and whose vocabularies, besides, lacked the
greater portion of the words he used. It was noticeable that in these
rambling soliloquies his English seemed to recrudesce into better
construction and phraseology. But when he talked directly with the boys
it lapsed, largely, into their own uncouth and simpler forms.

“But there weren't many crabs in those days,” the old man wandered on.
“They were fished out, and they were great delicacies. The open season
was only a month long, too. And now crabs are accessible the whole year
around. Think of it--catching all the crabs you want, any time you want,
in the surf of the Cliff House beach!”

A sudden commotion among the goats brought the boys to their feet. The
dogs about the fire rushed to join their snarling fellow who guarded the
goats, while the goats themselves stampeded in the direction of their
human protectors. A half dozen forms, lean and gray, glided about on the
sand hillocks and faced the bristling dogs. Edwin arched an arrow that
fell short. But Hare-Lip, with a sling such as David carried into battle
against Goliath, hurled a stone through the air that whistled from the
speed of its flight. It fell squarely among the wolves and caused them
to slink away toward the dark depths of the eucalyptus forest.

[Illustration: With a sling such as David carried 036]

The boys laughed and lay down again in the sand, while Granser sighed
ponderously. He had eaten too much, and, with hands clasped on his
paunch, the fingers interlaced, he resumed his maunderings.

“'The fleeting systems lapse like foam,'” he mumbled what was evidently
a quotation. “That's it--foam, and fleeting. All man's toil upon the
planet was just so much foam. He domesticated the serviceable animals,
destroyed the hostile ones, and cleared the land of its wild vegetation.
And then he passed, and the flood of primordial life rolled back again,
sweeping his handiwork away--the weeds and the forest inundated his
fields, the beasts of prey swept over his flocks, and now there are
wolves on the Cliff House beach.” He was appalled by the thought. “Where
four million people disported themselves, the wild wolves roam to-day,
and the savage progeny of our loins, with prehistoric weapons, defend
themselves against the fanged despoilers. Think of it! And all because
of the Scarlet Death--”

The adjective had caught Hare-Lip's ear.

“He's always saying that,” he said to Edwin. “What is scarlet?”

“'The scarlet of the maples can shake me like the cry of bugles going
by,'” the old man quoted.

“It's red,” Edwin answered the question. “And you don't know it because
you come from the Chauffeur Tribe. They never did know nothing, none of
them. Scarlet is red--I know that.”

“Red is red, ain't it?” Hare-Lip grumbled. “Then what's the good of
gettin' cocky and calling it scarlet?”

“Granser, what for do you always say so much what nobody knows?” he
asked. “Scarlet ain't anything, but red is red. Why don't you say red,
then?”

“Red is not the right word,” was the reply. “The plague was scarlet.
The whole face and body turned scarlet in an hour's time. Don't I
know? Didn't I see enough of it? And I am telling you it was scarlet
because--well, because it was scarlet. There is no other word for it.”

“Red is good enough for me,” Hare-Lip muttered obstinately. “My dad
calls red red, and he ought to know. He says everybody died of the Red
Death.”

“Your dad is a common fellow, descended from a common fellow,” Granser
retorted heatedly. “Don't I know the beginnings of the Chauffeurs? Your
grandsire was a chauffeur, a servant, and without education. He worked
for other persons. But your grandmother was of good stock, only the
children did not take after her. Don't I remember when I first met them,
catching fish at Lake Temescal?”

“What is education?” Edwin asked.

“Calling red scarlet,” Hare-Lip sneered, then returned to the attack on
Granser. “My dad told me, an' he got it from his dad afore he croaked,
that your wife was a Santa Rosan, an' that she was sure no account. He
said she was a hash-slinger before the Red Death, though I don't know
what a hash-slinger is. You can tell me, Edwin.”

But Edwin shook his head in token of ignorance.

“It is true, she was a waitress,” Granser acknowledged. “But she was a
good woman, and your mother was her daughter. Women were very scarce in
the days after the Plague. She was the only wife I could find, even if
she was a hash-slinger, as your father calls it. But it is not nice to
talk about our progenitors that way.”

“Dad says that the wife of the first Chauffeur was a lady--”

“What's a lady?” Hoo-Hoo demanded.

“A lady 's a Chauffeur squaw,” was the quick reply of Hare-Lip.

“The first Chauffeur was Bill, a common fellow, as I said before,” the
old man expounded; “but his wife was a lady, a great lady. Before the
Scarlet Death she was the wife of Van Worden. He was President of the
Board of Industrial Magnates, and was one of the dozen men who
ruled America. He was worth one billion, eight hundred millions of
dollars--coins like you have there in your pouch, Edwin. And then came
the Scarlet Death, and his wife became the wife of Bill, the first
Chauffeur. He used to beat her, too. I have seen it myself.”

Hoo-Hoo, lying on his stomach and idly digging his toes in the sand,
cried out and investigated, first, his toe-nail, and next, the small
hole he had dug. The other two boys joined him, excavating the sand
rapidly with their hands till there lay three skeletons exposed. Two
were of adults, the third being that of a part-grown child. The old man
trudged along on the ground and peered at the find.

“Plague victims,” he announced. “That's the way they died everywhere
in the last days. This must have been a family, running away from the
contagion and perishing here on the Cliff House beach. They--what are
you doing, Edwin?”

This question was asked in sudden dismay, as Edwin, using the back of
his hunting knife, began to knock out the teeth from the jaws of one of
the skulls.

“Going to string 'em,” was the response.

The three boys were now hard at it; and quite a knocking and hammering
arose, in which Granser babbled on unnoticed.

“You are true savages. Already has begun the custom of wearing human
teeth. In another generation you will be perforating your noses and

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