End of the world -- Fiction; Epidemics -- Fiction; Science fiction; Twenty-first century -- Fiction
After a short repose I prepared to leave her, that I might endeavour to
accomplish her wish. In the mean time we were joined by Clara, whose
pallid cheek and scared look shewed the deep impression grief had made
on her young mind. She seemed to be full of something to which she
could not give words; but, seizing an opportunity afforded by Perdita’s
absence, she preferred to me an earnest prayer, that I would take her
within view of the gate at which her father had entered Constantinople.
She promised to commit no extravagance, to be docile, and immediately
to return. I could not refuse; for Clara was not an ordinary child; her
sensibility and intelligence seemed already to have endowed her with
the rights of womanhood. With her therefore, before me on my horse,
attended only by the servant who was to re-conduct her, we rode to the
Top Kapou. We found a party of soldiers gathered round it. They were
listening. “They are human cries,” said one: “More like the howling of
a dog,” replied another; and again they bent to catch the sound of
regular distant moans, which issued from the precincts of the ruined
city. “That, Clara,” I said, “is the gate, that the street which
yestermorn your father rode up.” Whatever Clara’s intention had been in
asking to be brought hither, it was balked by the presence of the
soldiers. With earnest gaze she looked on the labyrinth of smoking
piles which had been a city, and then expressed her readiness to return
home. At this moment a melancholy howl struck on our ears; it was
repeated; “Hark!” cried Clara, “he is there; that is Florio, my
father’s dog.” It seemed to me impossible that she could recognise the
sound, but she persisted in her assertion till she gained credit with
the crowd about. At least it would be a benevolent action to rescue the
sufferer, whether human or brute, from the desolation of the town; so,
sending Clara back to her home, I again entered Constantinople.
Encouraged by the impunity attendant on my former visit, several
soldiers who had made a part of Raymond’s body guard, who had loved
him, and sincerely mourned his loss, accompanied me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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