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He looked round for the things she had worn, hoping she had taken them off and retired to rest, but they were not to be seen; and with a cold sinking of the heart, he went noiselessly across the room, and to the bed. It was empty, and showed no trace of having been otherwise since he and the pest-cart driver had borne from it the apparently lifeless form of Leoline.
The plague raged in the city of London. The destroying angel had gone forth, and kindled with its fiery breath the awful pestilence, until all London became one mighty lazar-house. Thousands were swept away daily; grass grew in the streets, and the living were scarce able to bury the dead. Business of all kinds was at an end, except that of the coffin-makers and drivers of the pest-cart.
"Well," cried the stranger starting violently, "and was it not true?" "Only partly. She was carried away in the pest-cart sure enough, but she was not thrown into the plague-pit!" "And why?" "Because, when on reaching that horrible spot, she was found to be alive!" "Good Heaven! And what then?"
I shall only be able to offer your majesty and your fair partner a sorry supper." On being made acquainted by Leonard, who helped him out of the pest-cart, with the danger he had run, the piper uttered a cry of terror, and swooned away.
I forgot all about him till a short time ago, when hearing the pest-cart pass, I went forth, and learnt that the drivers having found him dead, as they supposed, of the pestilence, had placed their forks under his belt, and thrown him upon the other dead bodies." "And where is the dog?" cried Leonard.
These, for a short time, were of rather a dismal character; for, hearing the noise of a horse's hoofs in the silent streets at that hour of the night, the people opened their doors as he passed by, thinking it the pest-cart, and brought forth many a miserable victim of the pestilence.
As he was meditating whether or not to call the surly watchman to help him carry the body, a pest-cart came, providentially, along, and the driver-seeing a young man bending over a prostrate form-guessed at once what was the matter, and came to a halt. "Another one!" he said, coming leisurely up, and glancing at the lifeless form with a very professional eye.
He was, however, stopped by an unexpected and fearful impediment. When within a short distance of Holborn Bridge, he observed on the further side of it a large black vehicle, and, unable to make out what it was, though a fearful suspicion crossed him, slackened his pace. A nearer approach showed him that it was the pest-cart, filled with its charnel load.
Just as he spoke, the well-known rattle of wheels, the loud ringing of the bell, and the monotonous cry of the driver, "Bring out your dead! bring out your dead!" echoed on the pale night's silence; and the pest-cart came rumbling and jolting along with its load of death.
"Alas, no!" replied the apothecary, with a groan, that came wailing up like a whistle; "he was so excessively dead, that there was no use keeping him; and as the room was wanted for other purposes, I pray, my dear sir, don't look so violent I put him in the pest-cart and had him buried."
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