Captain Sarceda? Is he also
dead?'

'No, senor, he alone is recovering of all whom the scourge has smitten.
And now I must go to my brother, but first I will seek food for you.'

She went and presently returned with meat and a flask of wine which she
had hidden beneath her dress, and I ate and blessed her.

For two days she fed me thus, bringing me food at night. On the second
night she told me that her brother was dead and of all the crew only
fifteen men and one officer remained untouched by the sickness, and that
she herself grew ill. Also she said that the water was almost finished,
and there was little food left for the slaves. After this she came no
more, and I suppose that she died also.

It was within twenty hours of her last visit that I left this accursed
ship. For a day none had come to feed or tend the slaves, and indeed
many needed no tending, for they were dead. Some still lived however,
though so far as I could see the most of them were smitten with the
plague. I myself had escaped the sickness, perhaps because of the
strength and natural healthiness of my body, which has always saved me
from fevers and diseases, fortified as it was by the good food that I
had obtained. But now I knew that I could not live long, indeed chained
in this dreadful charnel-house I prayed for death to release me from the
horrors of such existence. The day passed as before in sweltering heat,
unbroken by any air or motion, and night came at last, made hideous by
the barbarous ravings of the dying. But even there and then I slept and
dreamed that I was walking with my love in the vale of Waveney.

Towards the morning I was awakened by a sound of clanking iron, and
opening my eyes, I saw that men were at work, by the light of lanterns,
knocking the fetters from the dead and the living together. As the
fetters were loosed a rope was put round the body of the slave, and dead
or quick, he was hauled through the hatchway. Presently a heavy splash
in the water without told the rest of the tale. Now I understood that
all the slaves were being thrown overboard because of the want of water,
and in the hope that it might avail to save from the pestilence those of
the Spaniards who still remained alive.

I watched them at their work for a while till there were but two slaves
between me and the workers, of whom one was living and the other dead.
Then I bethought me that this would be my fate also, to be cast quick
into the sea, and to