They proceeded on--so many deserted houses frowning dark with their closed doors and windows upon the life around--so many signs of panic and terror, from wild apprehensions of God’s wondrous vengeance, like that of the maniac who had passed them, to the helpless, tremulous anxiety of those serving maids and laboring men who crowded about the apothecary’s door--combined to throw a cold blight of despondency upon the strangers. Up in the clear sky before them, Edith’s eye had been caught by the glorious golden hue of a singular cloud. The heavens were flooded with the light of the setting sun; in beautiful relief against the blue sky, the cloud turned forth its mellow roundness to the gentle summer breeze, gliding onward stately and slow, as you may see a full sail sometimes on the verge of the far horizon, with the sunshine in its bosom. As Edith observed it, they came up to a knot of people gathered in the middle of the street. “Lo!” exclaimed a female voice, “how he stretches forth his sword, and his eyes like fire gazing over the city--and his face terrible, and yet so fair--and his garments like a wondrous mist, with the sunshine below! Ah! sirs, do ye not see him? Lo! now he bends to the east and to the west, with his sword gleaming like a diamond stone, awful to see! Can ye not see him?--can ye not see him? or hath his glory blinded your eyes?” She was gazing up with passionate earnestness at the cloud as it floated above. “Yea, yea, yonder is the flashing of his sword over St. Paul’s!” cried a man beside her. “I see him! I see him!” said another; “what a glorious creature he is!” A thin, mild, contemplative man, on whose lip a habitual smile of gentle pensiveness seemed to hover, stood on the outskirts of the crowd, looking up with serene blue eyes, toward this wondrous object in the heavens. “Dost see him, sir?” exclaimed the first speaker, jealous, as it seemed, of the gentle smile. “Dost see the angel?” “Nay, truly, good neighbor,” said the meditative man, “I see but a singular fair cloud.” “Out, thou profane mocker!” cried another; “Dost not see how the Lord sends forth his signs and wonders upon us? Woe’s me for us--a doomed people! Woe’s me! woe’s me!” and the speaker wrung his hands. “Master Defoe,”[A] said Caleb Field, addressing this bystander, who seemed in some danger of suffering from his gentle and mild expression of skepticism, “may I beg a word with you? You remember Caleb Field?” [Note A: There are certain ugly dates which thrust themselves in the way of this encounter; but without doubt so good and honest a citizen as he who wrote the “History of the Plague,” may be permitted to give evidence as to his own state and dwelling-place in a time so remarkable, as well as those troublesome chronologists with whom the parish register is supreme authority.]