They say the sickness is worse now than ever it was.
People drop down dead in street and market, and soon there will be none left to bury them.

That must have been Reuben's fate.

He has dropped down with the infection upon him, and if he be not lying in some pest house--which they say it is death now to enter--he must be lying in one of those awful graves.
"O Reuben! Reuben! we shall never see you again!".