Day by day fresh victims were carried to the grave. The plague was probably simply a malignant form of typhus, nourished in some human hotbed to the highest perfection. The _bacillus_ or germ is, we trust, extinct, but otherwise enough might be bred in a bottle to poison a county, as we have heard stated.
All at once the heaviest blow fell upon them.
Father Ambrose was walking in the grounds, taking rest of mind after intense mental and bodily exertion, when he felt a sudden throb of violent heat, followed by an intense chill and a sickening sensation accompanied by faintness. He took off his cassock--he saw the fatal swelling.
"My summons is come," he said. "Oh, my Father, I thank Thee for calling me home; but these poor sheep whom Thou hast committed to my care, what shall they do?"
Then he walked quietly to his cell and lay down on his bed. He had watched the disease in others; he entertained no hope of recovery. "In a few hours I shall see Him face to face Whom I have loved," said he.
They came and found him. Never was man more patient; but that mediæval idea of intense self-denial was with him to the last. He refused water: they thought him delirious.
They saw his thoughts were on the Cross, and that he was treading the pathway opened by the Crucified One, and they said no more.
He had received the Holy Communion that morning--his last Communion; the usual rites could not be attempted now. Before he relapsed into the last stage, they heard the words in his native tongue--
They were his last. The door was open and he had entered. Ah, who shall follow even in imagination, and trace his progress to the gates of day?
"Go wing thy flight from star to star, From world to luminous world, as far As the universe spreads its flaming hall: Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless years, One moment of Heaven is worth them all."
But those left behind in the lazar-house--ah me! deprived of the only man who had gained an empire over their hearts, and could control them--what of them?
They lost _all_ control, and broke through all discipline; they overpowered their keepers, who indeed scarcely tried their best to restrain them, sharing the common fear; they broke the gates open; they poured forth and dispersed all through the country, carrying the infection wherever they went.