Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/155

. 1, 1863.] scarcely an exception, their children are born within the infected precincts.”

“Whence,” I observed, “it is to be concluded the disease generally shows itself early in life.”

“Just so. Where the taint is hereditary, the development is seldom deferred beyond the eighteenth year. Some capricious and sporadic cases there are, not conformable to this rule; but on examination they turn out to be such as tend to show that there has been no hereditary taint, but that the infection has been, so to speak, accidental.”

“And that supports the idea of the danger of contact with the diseased.”

“Yes: though for my part I must say that I utterly discredit the notion. If the liability to infection, or contagion, were anything like so great as it is assumed to be, the evil would prevail far more extensively than it does. With all precaution, there will always remain a certain number of non-isolated cases; and I have never been able to make out that peculiar penalties have fallen on the households where they have been secreted. Besides, in some parts of this very empire, lepers may be seen as roadside beggars, guarded from contact with passers-by only by the natural horror which their condition inspires.”

This conversation had taken some time, and caused a halt on the road. It had to be explained, bit by bit, to little Bessie. We all were deeply affected at the account. It is bad enough to read of such things; but it was terrible to hear them told vivâ voce, with the practical illustration of the place itself before our eyes. We could not lose ourselves in generalities. It was not only that “such things were,” but there we had them before our eyes. It was only to go up that little hillock, and you might then look down on the main street of the town.

We had not even to do so much. Our halt had attracted their notice, and one after another they came crowding to the wall, for they have a regular wall of enclosure. Ten, a dozen, twenty heads were soon to be counted. There they were in the blank, dismal reality of their affliction. Pale and wan faces, bundles of rags, painful crawling bodies hoisted by the aid of those below. Dismally they looked forth upon us, and I remember that one prevailing sentiment within me at the moment was wonder that, under their circumstances, they should retain sufficient interest in human affairs to give themselves the trouble to climb or to look.

But not all there were sickly and sad. Among the hideous spectres on that wall were faces, more than one, rosy with apparent health. Alas! alas! how sick did I turn as I clearly made out the features of a pretty girl of some seventeen or eighteen years of age. More terrible still, under the circumstances, there came clearly ringing on the ear from out of that dark misery, the joyous chirrup of childhood. We looked, and there was the girl holding up a beautiful child of perhaps four years of age. Others we heard whose little voices were loud, probably in supplication to be lifted up also, that they might see the passers-by.

It seems indeed that the active symptoms of this disease do not always interfere with the personal appearance. Sometimes the morbid manifestations are for years under cover of the clothes; so that you may have the Siren’s head joined on to the body of death. Frequently cases will occur in which health is enjoyed up to the age of eighteen or twenty. In the instance of young women, I am told that they frequently are of attractive appearance up to that time of life. I had no opportunity of judging from experience.

Who would not have been touched with the sight of the little children! In their living tomb they enjoyed the happy immunity of ignorance, and proved that abstractedly from all adventitious aid, joy is the portion of childhood.

I think I have said that, after having seen the lazar village, we did not feel much disposed to appreciate the other sights of the locality. There was a great deal else in Rhodes worthy of notice; indeed, I should think there can scarcely be in the world an island more abounding in objects of interest. Were I not constitutionally lazy, I might, no doubt, have written some account of these matters at large. But this must do for the present, and this it is which furnishes the main recollection of that otherwise happy day, spent with my new friends.

Our expedition occupied pretty nearly the whole day, and in the evening we were reunited in the snug cabin of the Mary Jane. These lodgings we much preferred to anything in the shape of hotel or other accommodation that the town could offer.

Bessie was sent early to bed, and the rest of us sat up, in somewhat saddened mood, talking over our plans. It appeared that, in the course of the day, Quillet had made arrangements for my well-being during my trip to the mainland. A country boat had been engaged for me, and a sharp fellow bespoken to accompany me as dragoman. The offer of his services was valuable, but attended with one drawback—he was limited to time. My need was not likely to extend over a day or two, so that we should agree well enough. It came out in the course of explanation that the reason of his being thus restricted was that he was a Jew, and anxious to be back at Rhodes in time to celebrate their festival of the Passover. So we made our bargain; I only too glad to get an assistant recommended as being thoroughly honest, and he, no doubt, well content to have the opportunity of turning a penny.

Here, perhaps, I ought to pause, and put in a line or two of asterisks, or give some other objective intimation of a wide gulf, as set between the parts of my narrative before and after this point. At all events let it be understood that here is the line of demarcation. I performed my expedition, transacted my business, and, in due time, with every reason to be satisfied with my extemporised prime minister, was returning to Rhodes and nearing the schooner.

The evening was beautiful, the sky lovely, the sea pure ultramarine. Nature looked her best, and gave no note of aught extraordinary. We both (at least I will answer for myself) were without presentiment, and prepared to take up the thread of experience where we had left it. But not so was it to be. We were perhaps half-a-mile