abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows,
containing the germs of all diseases--those of private life as well as
those which envenom the wounded soldier on the battlefield.

The second horseman on the red steed was waving the enormous, two-edged
sword over his hair bristling with the swiftness of his course. He was
young, but the fierce scowl and the scornful mouth gave him a look of
implacable ferocity. His garments, blown open by the motion of his wild
race, disclosed the form of a muscular athlete.

Bald, old and horribly skinny was the third horseman bouncing up and
down on the rawboned back of his black steed. His shrunken legs clanked
against the thin flanks of the lean beast. In one withered hand he was
holding the scales, symbol of the scarcity of food that was going to
become as valuable as gold.

The knees of the fourth horseman, sharp as spurs, were pricking the
ribs of the pale horse. His parchment-like skin betrayed the lines and
hollows of his skeleton. The front of his skull-like face was twisted
with the sardonic laugh of destruction. His cane-like arms were whirling
aloft a gigantic sickle. From his angular shoulders was hanging a
ragged, filthy shroud.

And the furious cavalcade was passing like a hurricane over the immense
assemblage of human beings. The heavens showed above their heads, a
livid, dark-edged cloud from the west. Horrible monsters and deformities
were swarming in spirals above the furious horde, like a repulsive
escort. Poor Humanity, crazed with fear, was fleeing in all directions
on hearing the thundering pace of the Plague, War, Hunger and Death. Men
and women, young and old, were knocking each other down and falling to