“Let him join us now,” said the Englishman; “though I think if the poor fellow has walked from Bexar, you might have been satisfied he could n't carry the leprosy with him.”
“I've known it go with a piece of gun-wadding from Bexar to the Rio del Norte,” said one.
“I saw a fellow who caught it from the rind of a watermelon a lépero had thrown away.”
“There was a comrade of ours at Puerta Naval took it from sitting on the bench beside a well on the road where a lépero had been resting the day before,” cried a third.
“Let him sit yonder, then,” said the Englishman “You 're more afeard of that disease than the bite of a cayman; though you need n't be squeamish, most of you, if it 'a your beauty you were thinking of.”
And thus amid many a tale of the insidious character of this fell disorder, and many a rude jest on the score of precaution against it, I was ordered to seat myself at about a dozen or twenty paces distant, and receive my food as it was thrown towards me by the others,—too happy at this humble privilege to think of anything but the good fortune of such a meeting.
“Don't you remember me yet?” cried the Englishman, standing where the full glare of the fire lit up his marked features.
“Yes,” said I, “you 're Halkett.”
“To be sure I am, lad. I 'm glad you don't forget me.”
“How should I? This is not the first time you saved my life.”