“The man, the first, lies at the entrance of the Path by the Bazaar. No one will pass near him, and all the city goes mad with fear. What’s to be done? What’s to be done? Is there no help for it?” the lad cried in despair. “I’m going to Pango Dooni. Where is he? In the Palace?”
McDermot shook his head mournfully, for he knew the history of this plague, the horror of its ravages, the tribes it had destroyed.
The beggar leaned back against the cool wall and laughed. McDermot turned on him in his fury, and would have kicked him, but Cumner’s Son, struck by some astute intelligence in the man’s look, said:
“What do you know of the Red Plague?”
Again the beggar laughed. “Once I saved the city of Nangoon from the plague, but they forgot me, and when I complained and in my anger went mad at the door of the Palace, the Rajah drove me from the country. That was in India, where I learned to speak English; and here am I at the door of a Palace again!”
“Can you save the city from the plague?” asked Cumner’s Son, coming closer and eagerly questioning. “Is the man dead?” asked the beggar.
“Not when I saw him—he had just been taken.”
“Good. The city may be saved if—” he looked at Cumner’s Son, “if thou wilt save him with me. If he be healed there is no danger; it is the odour of death from the Red Plague which carries death abroad.”
“Why do you ask this?” asked McDermot, nodding towards Cumner’s Son.
The beggar shrugged his shoulders. “That he may not do with me as did the Rajah of Nangoon.”