In the days that followed this, Charles fitted back into his old habits and ways. He was cheerful and easy; he ceased walking the floor; he sat in the corner of his sofa and dreamed; he talked with confidence of the great gull of a ship, pushing eastward around the world. He loved the idea of her return. That day was to be one of amazements; strange lights were to be in the sky; the ship, as though manned by genii and sailing out of enchanted seas, was to appear suddenly, magnificently laden. What was to result was like the providence of a young and generous god; wharves and warehouses were to be showered with extraordinary stuffs. Charles touched this picture with a new color each day; and every touch seemed to fit him more snugly into his old groove. Each sad corpse, of which he had spoken to Anthony, had been buried deep, and its dull woe had been buried with it. He took his old, careless hold upon the business; he gave unusual orders in a casual way; he chuckled over the pages of "Tom Jones"; he voyaged with his robust old mariners; he laughed with the dramatists of the Restoration. Fear fell from him. July, hot, wearing, lowering, drew its length through the port; and out of the steam and stink of it a terror grew and took shape. Among the islands, the Barbados distemper lifted its head. But it had done this in every hot season in the memory of living men, and so no attention was paid to it. A ship brought its poisonous essence into the port; several persons died of it along the waterfront; but still no heed was given. Many people whom it touched had died at various times; it was a thing to be expected. And so, ghostly and furtive and purposeful, the thing crept on its million feet, and took hold with its million hands. August came in, even hotter than July. Dock Creek, ill favored, filled with market sloops, threw up a steam; at low tide the accumulated filth in the city docks poured poison into the air; carcasses of animals rotted in the streets. "Nine dead this week," said Christopher Dent. "Inflamed eyes, rough tongues, aching heads, hot skins, at first; then the whites of the eyes turned yellow, free bleeding at the nose, black vomit, and death in eight days with the body turned purple. 'Tis the Barbados monster come freshly among us." A stout old man in a wig, and with a walking-staff and varnished boots, who stood at the counter in the apothecary's shop, smiled at this. "Let him grimace as he will," said he. "He'll frighten none but the old women. We know him, and have measured the lengths he can go." "Nine dead in a week," said Christopher Dent. "That's a deal, Dr. Blue."