"That's a bad sign," observed Hodges, shaking his head. "I am afraid it's not all fancy, as I at first supposed. Have you felt sick of late, young man?"
"Not of late," replied Blaize, becoming as white as ashes; "but I do now."
"Another bad symptom," rejoined the doctor. "Take off your doublet and open your shirt."
"Do as the doctor bids you," said Leonard, seeing that Blaize hesitated, "or I apply the cudgel."
"Ah! bless my life! what's this?" cried Hodges, running his hand down the left side of the porter, and meeting with a large lump. "Can it be a carbuncle?"
"Yes, it's a terrible carbuncle," replied Blaize; "but don't cauterize it, doctor."
"Let me look at it," cried Hodges, "and I shall then know how to proceed."
And as he spoke, he tore open the porter's shirt, and a silver ball, about as large as a pigeon's egg, fell to the ground. Leonard picked it up, and found it so hot that he could scarcely hold it.
"Here is the terrible carbuncle," he cried, with a laugh, in which all the party, except Blaize, joined.
"It's my pomander-box," said the latter. "I filled it with a mixture of citron-peel, angelica seed, zedoary, yellow saunders, aloes, benzoin, camphor, and gum-tragacanth, moistened with spirit of roses; and after placing it on the chafing-dish to heat it, hung it by a string round my neck, next my dried toad. I suppose, by some means or other, it dropped through my doublet, and found its way to my side. I felt a dreadful burning there, and that made me fancy I was attacked by the plague."