"It is," Marion muttered hoarsely to herself, "the pest. That man is sickening, has sickened of it. God help us all! Slave-drivers and slaves alike. I saw one like him at Toulon once." And again she muttered, "God help us all!"
Above her murmur, which hardly escaped beyond her white, clenched teeth, there rose a shout from those whom she termed to herself the slave-drivers--a shout of fury and of horror.
"Away, leper!" cried the man who had been the most stern of all the guards, on seeing this figure near to him and his companions; "away, or I shoot you like a dog," and he wrenched a great horse pistol from out his belt as he spoke. "Away, I say, to a distance. At once."
The unfortunate, yellow-faced creature did as he was bidden, dragging himself wearily off for several paces, while falling once, also, upon one knee, yet recovering himself by the aid of a huge knotted stick he held in his hands; then he turned and said in a voice which, though feeble, was still strong enough to be heard:
"In the name of God give me some water. I burn within. Oh! that one should live and yet endure such agony!"
"You shall have water--later," a warder answered. "Only, approach not on peril of your life. Presently, a jar of water for you shall be carried to a spot near here." Then the speaker asked huskily, and in a voice which trembled with fear, "Is it the pest? Down there--in the city?"
"It is the pest," the man replied, his awful white eyes gleaming sickeningly. "They die in hundreds daily. Whole families--whole streets of families--are dead. All mine are gone--my wife and seven children. I, too, am stricken after nursing, burying them. I cannot live. In pity's sake, put that jar of water where I can reach it ere--ere they come forth!"
"They come forth?" the guards of the cordon exclaimed all together. "Ere who come forth?"
"Many who are still left alive. All are fleeing who can leave the city. It is a vast tomb. Hundreds lie dead in the streets--poisoning, infecting the air. Also, the dogs--they, too, are stricken, through tearing them. The rooks, likewise, who have swooped down upon the bodies. God help me! The water! The water The water! Ere they come."
Perhaps it was compassion, perhaps fear, perhaps the knowledge that ere long they, too, might be burning inwardly from the same cause as that which now affected this unhappy man, which caused those brutal custodians to take pity on his sufferings. But, from whatever cause it might be, at least that pity was shown. A flat, squat bottle holding about a pint was taken by one of them to a little rising knoll some seventy yards away and put on the ground; then the pest-stricken man was told he might go to it.