LA VIRUELA.
A long interval behind the rear-guard--indeed, the very last of the
army, and quite two hours behind--came four Indian slaves, bringing a
man stretched upon a litter.
And the litter was open, and the sun beat cruelly on the man's face; but
plaint he made not, nor motion, except that his head rolled now right,
now left, responsive to the cadenced steps of his hearers.
Was he sick or wounded?
Nathless, into the city they carried him.
And in front of the new palace of the king, they stopped, less wearied
than overcome by curiosity. And as they stared at the great house,
imagining vaguely the splendor within, a groan startled them. They
looked at their charge; he was dead! Then they looked at each other, and
fled.
And in less than twice seven days they too died, and died horribly; and
in dying recognized their disease as that of the stranger they had
abandoned before the palace,--the small-pox, or, in the language which
hath a matchless trick of melting everything, even the most ghastly,
into music, _la viruela_ of the Spaniard.
The sick man on the litter was a negro,--first of his race on the new
continent!
And most singular, in dying, he gave his masters another servant
stronger than himself, and deadlier to the infidels than swords of
steel,--a servant that found way everywhere in the crowded city, and
rested not. And everywhere its breath, like its touch, was mortal;
insomuch that a score and ten died of it where one fell in battle.
Of the myriads who thus perished, one was a KING.