There came a knocking at the door. The beggar frowned, but Cumner’s Son turned eagerly. He had only been in this room ten hours, but it seemed like years in which he had lived alone-alone. But he met firmly the passive, inquisitorial eyes of the healer of the plague, and he turned, dropped another bar across the door, and bade the intruder to depart.
“It is I, Tang-a-Dahit. Open!” came a loud, anxious voice.
“You may not come in.”
“I am thy brother-in-blood, and my life is thine.”
“Then keep it safe for those who prize it. Go back to the Palace.”
“I am not needed there. My place is with thee.”
“Go, then, to the little house by the Aqueduct.” There was silence for a moment, and then Tang-a-Dahit said:
“Wilt thou not let me enter?”
The sudden wailing of the stricken man drowned Tang-a-Dahit’s words, and without a word Cumner’s Son turned again to the victim of the Red Plague.
All day the people watched from afar, and all day long soldiers and hillsmen drew a wide cordon of quarantine round the house. Terror seized the people when the sun went down, and to the watchers the suspense grew. Ceaseless, alert, silent, they had watched and waited, and at last the beggar knelt with his eyes fixed on the sleeper, and did not stir. A little way off from him stood Cumner’s Son-patient, pale, worn, older by ten years than he was three days before.