Mile after mile the streets lay silent, along the river-front, up to the
hilltop, and beyond into the level; no sound nor motion nor sign of life
throughout their length. And when they had run their length, and the
outlying fields were reached, there, too, was the same brooding spell as
the land stretched away in the hush and haze. The yellow grain,
heavy-headed with richness, lay beaten down and rotting, for there were
no reapers. The city, it seemed, had died calmly, painlessly, drowsily,
as if overcome by sleep.

From a skiff in mid-river, a young man rowing toward the dead city
rested on his oars and looked over his shoulder to the temple on the
hilltop. There was something very boyish in the reverent eagerness with
which his dark eyes rested upon the pile, tracing the splendid lines
from its broad, gray base to its lofty spire, radiant with white and
gold. As he looked long and intently, the colour of new life flushed
into a face that was pinched and drawn. With fresh resolution, he bent
again to his oars, noting with a quick eye that the current had carried
him far down-stream while he stopped to look upon the holy edifice.

Landing presently at the wharf, he was stunned by the hush of the
streets. This was not like the city of twenty thousand people he had
left three months before. In blank bewilderment he stood, turning to
each quarter for some solution of the mystery. Perceiving at length that
there was really no life either way along the river, he started
wonderingly up a street that led from the waterside,--a street which,
when he had last walked it, was quickening with the rush of a mighty
commerce.

Soon his expression of wonder was darkened by a shade of anxiety. There
was an unnerving quality in the trance-like stillness; and the mystery