."

Blaize would fain have run away, but, afraid of incurring the
apprentice's anger, he walked tremblingly after him. They entered the
garden-gate, and soon reached the principal door, which, as usual, stood
open. Scarcely able to support himself, the porter tottered into the
large room; but as he cast his eyes around, and beheld the miserable
occupants of the pallets, and heard their cries and groans, he was so
scared that he could not move another step, but stood like one
transfixed with terror. Paying little attention to him, Leonard walked
forward, and at the further extremity of the chamber found the young
chirurgeon whom he had formerly seen, and describing the stranger,
inquired where he was placed.

"The person you allude to has been removed," returned the chirurgeon.
"Doctor Hodges visited him this morning, and had him conveyed to his own
dwelling."

"Was he sensible at the time?" asked the apprentice.

"I think not," replied the chirurgeon; "but the doctor appeared to
recognise in him an old friend, though I did not hear him mention his
name; and it was on that account, I conclude, that he had him removed."

"Is he likely to recover?" asked Leonard, whose curiosity was aroused by
what he heard.

"That is impossible to say," replied the young man. "But he cannot be in
better hands than those of Doctor Hodges."

Leonard perfectly concurred with him, and, after a few minutes' further
conversation, turned to depart. Not seeing Blaize, he concluded he had
gone forth, and expected to find him in the garden, or, at all events,
in the field adjoining. But he was nowhere to be seen. While wondering
what had become of him, Leonard heard a loud cry, in the voice of the
porter, issuing from the barn, which, as has already been stated, had
been converted into a receptacle for the sick; and hurrying thither, he
found Blaize in the hands of two stout assistants, who had stripped him
of his clothes, and were tying him down to a pallet. On seeing Leonard,
Blaize implored him to deliver him from the hands of his persecutors;
and the apprentice assuring the assistants that the poor fellow was
perfectly free from infection, they liberated him.

It appeared, on inquiry, that Blaize had fallen against one of the
pallets in a state almost of insensibility, and the two assistants,
chancing to pass at the time, and taking him for a plague patient, had
conveyed him to the barn. On reaching it, he recovered, and besought
them