“Of course it’s plague. But if Professor Silk Hat, in there, officially declared it such, he’d have bracelets on his arms in twelve hours. The present Government of Caracuia doesn’t believe in bubonic plague. I fancy our unfortunate friend in there will presently disappear, either just before or just after death. It doesn’t greatly matter.”
“What is to be done now?” asked Carroll.
“See that brush fire up there?” The hermit pointed to the hillside. “If we steep ourselves in that smoke until we choke, I think it will discourage any fleas that may have harbored on us. The flea is the only agent of communication.”
Soot-begrimed, strangling, and with streaming eyes, they emerged, five minutes later, from the cloud of smoke. From his pocket the Unspeakable Perk dragged forth his white gloves. The action attracted his companion’s attention.
“Good Lord!” he cried. “What has happened to your hands?”
“They’re blistered.”
“Stripped, rather. They look as if you’d fallen into a fire, or rowed a fifty-mile race. That message of Mr. Brewster’s—See here, Perkins, you didn’t row that over to the mainland? No, you couldn’t. That’s absurd. It’s too far.”
“No; I didn’t row it to the mainland.”
“But you’ve been rowing. I’d swear to those hands. Where? The blockading Dutch warship?”
The other nodded.