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King Pest By Edgar Allan Poe
PAGE: 1

KING PEST.

A Tale Containing an Allegory.

The gods do bear and will allow in kings
The things which they abhor in rascal routes.

         _Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex._

ABOUT twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, and during
the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging to the
crew of the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between Sluys
and the Thames, and then at anchor in that river, were much
astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house
in the parish of St. Andrews, London -- which ale-house bore for sign
the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar."

The room, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and
in every other respect agreeing with the general character of such
places at the period -- was, nevertheless, in the opinion of the
grotesque groups scattered here and there within it, sufficiently
well adapted to its purpose.

Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most interesting,
if not the most conspicuous.

The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion
addressed by the characteristic appellation of "Legs," was at the
same time much the taller of the two. He might have measured six feet
and a half, and an habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to have
been the necessary consequence of an altitude so enormous. --
Superfluities in height were, however, more than accounted for by
deficiencies in other respects. He was exceedingly thin; and might,
as his associates asserted, have answered, when drunk, for a pennant
at the mast-head, or, when sober, have served for a jib-boom. But
these jests, and others of a similar nature, had evidently produced,
at no time, any effect upon the cachinnatory muscles of the tar. With
high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose, retreating chin, fallen
under-jaw, and huge protruding white eyes, the expression of his
countenance, although tinged with a species of dogged indifference to
matters and things in general, was not the less utterly solemn and
serious beyond all attempts at imitation or description.

The younger seaman was, in all outward appearance, the converse of
his companion. His stature could not have exceeded four feet. A pair
of stumpy bow-legs supported his squat, unwieldy figure, while his
unusually short and thick arms, with no ordinary fists at their
extremities, swung off dangling from his sides like the fins of a
sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no particular color, twinkled far back in
his head. His nose remained buried in the mass of flesh which
enveloped his round, full, and purple face; and his thick upper-lip
rested upon the still thicker one beneath with an air of complacent
self-satisfaction, much heightened by the owner's habit of licking
them at intervals. He evidently regarded his tall shipmate with a
feeling half-wondrous, half-quizzical; and stared up occasionally in
his face as the red setting sun stares up at the crags of Ben Nevis.

Various and eventful, however, had been the peregrinations of the
worthy couple in and about the different tap-houses of the
neighbourhood during the earlier hours of the night. Funds even the
most ample, are not always everlasting: and it was with empty pockets
our friends had ventured upon the present hostelrie.

At the precise period, then, when this history properly commences,
Legs, and his fellow Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each with both elbows
resting upon the large oaken table in the middle of the floor, and
with a hand upon either cheek. They were eyeing, from behind a huge
flagon of unpaid-for "humming-stuff," the portentous words, "No
Chalk," which to their indignation and astonishment were scored over
the doorway by means of that very mineral whose presence they
purported to deny. Not that the gift of decyphering written
characters -- a gift among the commonalty of that day considered
little less cabalistical than the art of inditing -- could, in strict
justice, have been laid to the charge of either disciple of the sea;
but there was, to say the truth, a certain twist in the formation of
the letters -- an indescribable lee-lurch about the whole -- -which
foreboded, in the opinion of both seamen, a long run of dirty
weather; and determined them at once, in the allegorical words of
Legs himself, to "pump ship, clew up all sail, and scud before the
wind."

Having accordingly disposed of what remained of the ale, and looped
up the points of their short doublets, they finally made a bolt for
the street. Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the fire-place,
mistaking it for the door, yet their escape was at length happily
effected -- and half after twelve o'clock found our heroes ripe for
mischief, and running for life down a dark alley in the direction of
St. Andrew's Stair, hotly pursued by the landlady of the "Jolly Tar."

At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for many years
before and after, all England, but more especially the metropolis,
resounded with the fearful cry of "Plague!" The city was in a great
measure depopulated -- and in those horrible regions, in the vicinity
of the Thames, where amid the dark, narrow, and filthy lanes and
alleys, the Demon of Disease was supposed to have had his nativity,
Awe, Terror, and Superstition were alone to be found stalking abroad.

By authority of the king such districts were placed under ban, and
all persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon their
dismal solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch, nor the huge
barriers erected at the entrances of the streets, nor the prospect of
that loathsome death which, with almost absolute certainty,
overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril could deter from the adventure,
prevented the unfurnished and untenanted dwellings from being
stripped, by the hand of nightly rapine, of every article, such as
iron, brass, or lead-work, which could in any manner be turned to a
profitable account.

Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening of
the barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars, had proved but
slender protection to those rich stores of wines and liquors which,
in consideration of the risk and trouble of removal, many of the
numerous dealers having shops in the neighbourhood had consented to
trust, during the period of exile, to so insufficient a security.

But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who attributed
these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-spirits,
plague-goblins, and fever-demons, were the popular imps of mischief;
and tales so blood-chilling were hourly told, that the whole mass of
forbidden buildings was, at length, enveloped in terror as in a
shroud, and the plunderer himself was often scared away by the
horrors his own depreciations had created; leaving the entire vast
circuit of prohibited district to gloom, silence, pestilence, and
death.

It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned, and which
indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-ban, that, in
scrambling down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh Tarpaulin found
their progress suddenly impeded. To return was out of the question,
and no time was to be lost, as their pursuers were close upon their
heels. With thorough-bred seamen to clamber up the roughly fashioned
plank-work was a trifle; and, maddened with the twofold excitement of
exercise and liquor, they leaped unhesitatingly down within the
enclosure, and holding on their drunken course with shouts and
yellings, were soon bewildered in its noisome and intricate recesses.

Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their
reeling footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their
situation. The air was cold and misty. The paving-stones, loosened
from their beds, lay in wild disorder amid the tall, rank grass,
which sprang up around the feet and ankles. Fallen houses choked up
the streets. The most fetid and poisonous smells everywhere
prevailed; -- and by the aid of that ghastly light which, even at
midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and pestilential at
atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths and alleys, or
rotting in the windowless habitations, the carcass of many a
nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand of the plague in the very
perpetration of his robbery.

-- But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or
impediments such as these, to stay the course of men who, naturally
brave, and at that time especially, brimful of courage and of
"humming-stuff!" would have reeled, as straight as their condition
might have permitted, undauntedly into the very jaws of Death. Onward
-- still onward stalked the grim Legs, making the desolate solemnity
echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific war-whoop of the
Indian: and onward, still onward rolled the dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging
on to the doublet of his more active companion, and far surpassing
the latter's most strenuous exertions in the way of vocal music, by
bull-roarings in basso, from the profundity of his stentorian lungs.

They had now evidently reached the strong hold of the pestilence.
Their way at every step or plunge grew more noisome and more horrible
-- the paths more narrow and more intricate. Huge stones and beams
falling momently from the decaying roofs above them, gave evidence,
by their sullen and heavy descent, of the vast height of the
surrounding houses; and while actual exertion became necessary to
force a passage through frequent heaps of rubbish, it was by no means
seldom that the hand fell upon a skeleton or rested upon a more
fleshly corpse.

Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a tall and
ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually shrill from the
throat of the excited Legs, was replied to from within, in a rapid
succession of wild, laughter-like, and fiendish shrieks. Nothing
daunted at sounds which, of such a nature, at such a time, and in
such a place, might have curdled the very blood in hearts less
irrevocably on fire, the drunken couple rushed headlong against the
door, burst it open, and staggered into the midst of things with a
volley of curses.

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