University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
THE EVENING STAR.

The mails in the State of North Carolina, like the prudential
arrangements in the slave states generally, were very
little to be depended upon; and therefore a week had
elapsed after the mailing of Nina's first letter, describing the
danger of her condition, before it was received by Clayton.
During that time the fury of the shock which had struck the
plantation appeared to have abated; and, while on some
estates in the vicinity it was yet on the increase, the inhabitants
of Canema began to hope that the awful cloud was
departing from them. It was true that many were still ailing;
but there were no new cases, and the disease in the
case of those who were ill appeared to be yielding to nursing
and remedies.

Nina had risen in the morning early, as her custom had
been since the sickness, and gone the rounds, to inquire for
the health of her people. Returned, a little fatigued, she
was sitting in the veranda, under the shadow of one of the
pillar-roses, enjoying the cool freshness of the morning.
Suddenly the tramp of horse's feet was heard, and, looking,
she saw Clayton coming up the avenue. There seemed but
a dizzy, confused moment, before his horse's bridle was
thrown to the winds, and he was up the steps, holding her
in his arms.

“O, you are here yet, my rose, my bride, my lamb!
God is merciful! This is too much! O, I thought you
were gone!”

“No, dear, not yet,” said Nina. “God has been with

us. We have lost a great many; but God has spared me
to you.”

“Are you really well?” said Clayton, holding her off,
and looking at her. “You look pale, my little rose!”

“That 's not wonderful,” said Nina; “I 've had a great
deal to make me look pale; but I am very well. I have
been well through it all — never in better health — and, it
seems strange to say it, but never happier. I have felt so
peaceful, so sure of God's love!”

“Do you know,” said Clayton, “that that peace alarms
me — that strange, unearthly happiness? It seems so like
what is given to dying people.”

“No,” said Nina, “I think that when we have no one
but our Father to lean on, he comes nearer than he does any
other time; and that is the secret of this happiness. But,
come, — you look wofully tired; have you been riding all
night?”

“Yes, ever since yesterday morning at nine o'clock. I
have ridden down four horses to get to you. Only think,
I did n't get your letter till a week after it was dated!”

“Well, perhaps that was the best,” said Nina; “because
I have heard them say that anybody coming suddenly and
unprepared in the epidemic, when it is in full force, is
almost sure to be taken by it immediately. But you must
let me take care of you. Don't you know that I 'm mistress
of the fortress here — commander-in-chief and head-physician?
I shall order you to your room immediately, and
Milly shall bring you up some coffee, and then you must
have some sleep. You can see with your eyes, now, that
we are all safe, and there 's nothing to hinder your resting.
Come, let me lead you off, like a captive.”

Released from the pressure of overwhelming fear, Clayton
began now to feel the reäction of the bodily and mental
straining which he had been enduring for the last twenty-four
hours, and therefore he willingly yielded himself to
the directions of his little sovereign. Retired to his room,
after taking his coffee, which was served by Milly, he fell

into a deep and tranquil sleep, which lasted till some time
in the afternoon. At first, overcome by fatigue, he slept
without dreaming; but, when the first weariness was past,
the excitement of the nervous system, under which he had
been laboring, began to color his dreams with vague and
tumultuous images. He thought that he was again with
Nina at Magnolia Grove, and that the servants were passing
around in procession, throwing flowers at their feet;
but the wreath of orange-blossoms which fell in Nina's lap
was tied with black crape. But she took it up, laughing,
threw the crape away, and put the wreath on her head, and
he heard the chorus singing,
And then the sound seemed to change to one of lamentation,
and the floral procession seemed to be a funeral, and a
deep, melancholy voice, like the one he had heard in the
woods in the morning, sang,

He struggled heavily in his sleep, and, at last waking,
sat up and looked about him. The rays of the evening sun
were shining on the tree-tops of the distant avenue, and
Nina was singing on the veranda below. He listened, and
the sound floated up like a rose-leaf carried on a breeze:

The tune was a favorite melody, which has found much

favor with the popular ear, and bore the title of “The Hindoo
Dancing-Girl's Song;” and is, perhaps, a fragment of
one of those mystical songs in which oriental literature
abounds, in which the joy and reünion of earthly love are
told in shadowy, symbolic resemblance to the everlasting
union of the blessed above. It had a wild, dreamy, soothing
power, as verse after verse came floating in, like white
doves from paradise, as if they had borne healing on their
wings:

A low tap at his door at last roused him. The door was
partly opened, and a little hand threw in a half-opened spray
of monthly-rosebuds.

“There 's something to remind you that you are yet in
the body!” said a voice in the entry. “If you are rested,
I 'll let you come down, now.”

And Clayton heard the light footsteps tripping down the
stairs. He roused himself, and, after some little attention
to his toilet, appeared on the veranda.

“Tea has been waiting for some time,” said Nina. “I
thought I 'd give you a hint.”

“I was lying very happy, hearing you sing,” said Clayton.
“You may sing me that song again.”

“Was I singing?” said Nina; “why, I did n't know it!
I believe that 's my way of thinking, sometimes. I 'll sing
to you again, after tea. I like to sing.”

After tea they were sitting again in the veranda, and the
whole heavens were one rosy flush of filmy clouds.

“How beautiful!” said Nina. “It seems to me I 've
enjoyed these things, this summer, as I never have before.

It seemed as if I felt an influence from them going
through me, and filling me, as the light does those clouds.”

And, as she stood looking up into the sky, she began
singing again the words that Clayton had heard before:

She stopped her singing suddenly, left the veranda, and
went into the house.

“Do you want anything?” said Clayton.

“Nothing,” said she, hurriedly. “I 'll be back in a moment.”

Clayton watched, and saw her go to a closet in which
the medicines and cordials were kept, and take something
from a glass. He gave a start of alarm.

“You are not ill, are you?” he said, fearfully, as she
returned.

“O, no; only a little faint. We have become so prudent,
you know, that if we feel the least beginning of any disagreeable
sensation, we take something at once. I have felt
this faintness quite often. It is n't much.”

Clayton put his arm around her, and looked at her with a
vague yearning of fear and admiration.

“You look so like a spirit,” he said, “that I must hold
you.”

“Do you think I 've got a pair of hidden wings?” she
said, smiling, and looking gayly in his face.

“I am afraid so!” he said. “Do you feel quite well,
now?”

“Yes, I believe so. Only, perhaps, we had better sit down.
I think, perhaps, it is the reäction of so much excitement,
makes me feel rather tired.”

Clayton seated her on the settee by the door, still keeping
his arm anxiously around her. In a few moments she
drooped her head wearily on his shoulder.

“You are ill!” he said, in tones of alarm.

“No, no! I feel very well — only a little faint and tired.
It seems to me it is getting a little cold here, is n't it?”
she said, with a slight shiver.

Clayton took her up in his arms, without speaking, carried
her in and laid her on the sofa, then rang for Harry and
Milly.

“Get a horse, instantly,” he said to Harry, as soon as
he appeared, “and go for a doctor!”

“There 's no use in sending,” said Nina; “he is driven
to death, and can't come. Besides, there 's nothing the
matter with me, only I am a little tired and cold. Shut the
doors and windows, and cover me up. No, no, don't take
me up stairs! I like to lie here; just put a shawl over me,
that 's all. I am thirsty, — give me some water!”

The fearful and mysterious disease, which was then in the
ascendant, has many forms of approach and development.
One, and the most deadly, is that which takes place when a
person has so long and gradually imbibed the fatal poison of
an infected atmosphere, that the resisting powers of nature
have been insidiously and quietly subdued, so that the subject
sinks under it, without any violent outward symptom,
by a quiet and certain yielding of the vital powers, such
as has been likened to the bleeding to death by an internal
wound. In this case, before an hour had passed, though
none of the violent and distressing symptoms of the disease
appeared, it became evident that the seal of death was set
on that fair young brow. A messenger had been despatched,
riding with the desperate speed which love and
fear can give, but Harry remained in attendance.

“Nothing is the matter with me — nothing is the matter,”

she said, “except fatigue, and this change in the weather.
If I only had more over me! and, perhaps, you had better
give me a little brandy, or some such thing. This is water,
is n't it, that you have been giving me?”

Alas! it was the strongest brandy; but there was no taste,
and the hartshorn that they were holding had no smell.
And there was no change in the weather; it was only the
creeping deadness, affecting the whole outer and inner
membrane of the system. Yet still her voice remained
clear, though her mind occasionally wandered.

There is a strange impulse, which sometimes comes in the
restlessness and distress of dissolving nature, to sing; and,
as she lay with her eyes closed, apparently in a sort of trance,
she would sing, over and over again, the verse of the song
which she was singing when the blow of the unseen destroyer
first struck her.

At last she opened her eyes, and, seeing the agony of all
around, the truth seemed to come to her.

“I think I 'm called!” she said. “O, I 'm so sorry for
you all! Don't grieve so; my Father loves me so well, — he
cannot spare me any longer. He wants me to come to him.
That 's all — don't grieve so. It 's home I 'm going to —
home! 'T will be only a little while, and you 'll come too,
all of you. You are satisfied, are you not, Edward?”

And again she relapsed into the dreamy trance, and sang,
in that strange, sweet voice, so low, so weak,

Clayton, — what did he? What could he do? What have
any of us done, who have sat holding in our arms a dear
form, from which the soul was passing — the soul for which

gladly we would have given our own in exchange! When
we have felt it going with inconceivable rapidity from us;
and we, ignorant and blind, vainly striving, with this and
that, to arrest the inevitable doom, feeling every moment
that some other thing might be done to save, which is
not done, and that that which we are doing may be only
hastening the course of the destroyer! O, those awful,
agonized moments, when we watch the clock, and no physician
comes, and every stroke of the pendulum is like the
approaching step of death! O, is there anything in heaven
or earth for the despair of such hours?

Not a moment was lost by the three around that dying
bed, chafing those cold limbs, administering the stimulants
which the dead, exhausted system no longer felt.

“She does n't suffer! Thank God, at any rate, for that!”
said Clayton, as he knelt over her in anguish.

A beautiful smile passed over her face, as she opened her
eyes and looked on them all, and said,

“No, my poor friends, I don't suffer. I 'm come to the
land where they never suffer. I 'm only so sorry for you!
Edward,” she said to him, “do you remember what you
said to me once? — It has come now. You must bear it
like a man. God calls you to some work — don't shrink
from it. You are baptized with fire. It all lasts only a little
while. It will be over soon, very soon! Edward, take
care of my poor people. Tell Tom to be kind to them.
My poor, faithful, good Harry! O! I 'm going so fast!”

The voice sunk into a whispering sigh. Life now seemed
to have retreated to the citadel of the brain. She lay
apparently in the last sleep, when the footsteps of the
doctor were heard on the veranda. There was a general
spring to the door, and Dr. Butler entered, pale, haggard,
and worn, from constant exertion and loss of rest.

He did not say in words that there was no hope, but
his first dejected look said it but too plainly.

She moved her head a little, like one who is asleep, uneasily
upon her pillow, opened her eyes once more, and said,

“Good-by! I will arise and go to my Father!”

The gentle breath gradually became fainter and fainter, —
all hope was over! The night walked on with silent and
solemn footsteps — soft showers fell without, murmuring
upon the leaves — within, all was still as death!