Mechanically he trudged on and on, aimlessly now, a man walking in a nightmare. The light grew. The moonstone light of early dawn took on colour and began to glow as with the fires of the opal; the sky was invaded and suffused by the saffron heralds of the sun.
At last he paused, without knowledge or care of where he was; utterly bereft of strength, he sank presently into the shelter of the doorway of a deserted house, and there fell asleep.
When next he awakened, he was lying in the full glare of a sun that was already high in the heavens. He looked about him, and found himself in surroundings that were utterly strange to him, so that he could form no notion of whither he had strayed.
In mid-street stood a man in a steeple hat dressed in black, leaning upon a red wand and regarding him attentively.
“What ails you?” the man asked him, seeing him awake and conscious.
Disgruntled, Holles glared at him. “The sight of you,” he snapped, and struggled stiffly up. “Naught else.”
Yet, even as he gained his feet, a giddiness assailed him. He steadied himself a moment against the door-post: then reeled and sank down again upon the step that had been his couch. For some few seconds he sat there bemused, marvelling at his condition. Then, acting on a sudden thought, he tore open the breast of his shirt.
“I lied!” he shouted wildly. When next he looked up, he was laughing, a ringing, exultant laugh. “I lied! There is something else. Look!” And he pulled his shirt wider apart, so that the man might see what he had found. And that was the last thing that he remembered.
On his breast the flower of the plague had blossomed while he slept.