It was not the next day, but the next day but one, if I rightly
remember, that I sent to request another interview with my doctor.
In due time Dthemetri, who was my messenger, returned, looking
sadly aghast--he had "MET the medico," for so he phrased it,
"coming out from his house--in a bier!"
It was of course plain that when the poor Bolognese was looking at
my throat, and almost mingling his breath with mine, he was
stricken of the plague. I suppose that the violent sweat in which
I found him had been produced by some medicine, which he must have
taken in the hope of curing himself. The peculiar rolling of the
eyes which I had remarked is, I believe, to experienced observers,
a pretty sure test of the plague. A Russian acquaintance, of mine,
speaking from the information of men who had made the Turkish
campaigns of 1828 and 1829, told me that by this sign the officers
of Sabalkansky's force were able to make out the plague-stricken
soldiers with a good deal of certainty.
It so happened that most of the people with whom I had anything to
do during my stay at Cairo were seized with plague, and all these
died. Since I had been for a long time en route before I reached
Egypt, and was about to start again for another long journey over
the Desert, there were of course many little matters touching my
wardrobe and my travelling equipments which required to be attended
to whilst I remained in the city.
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