Unconsciously I pulled upon the bridle, and the tired mule stopped. “Malignant smallpox!” I muttered, “and that fool is trying to treat it with cold water!”[2]
The old woman looked up and saw me. “Si, Senor Inglese,” she said with a ghastly smile, “viruela, viruela!” and she went on gabbling something which I could not understand.
“She say,” broke in Antonio, “nearly quarter people dead and plenty sick.”
“For Heaven’s sake, let us get out of this,” I said to Emma, who, seated on the other mule, was staring horror-struck at the sight.
“Oh!” she said, “you are a doctor; can’t you help the poor things?”
“What! and leave you to shift for yourself?”
“Never mind me, Dr. Therne. I can go on to the hacienda, or if you like I will stay too; I am not afraid, I was revaccinated last year.”
“Don’t be foolish,” I answered roughly. “I could not dream of exposing you to such risks, also it is impossible for me to do any good here alone and without medicines. Come on at once,” and seizing her mule by the bridle I led it along the road that ran through the town towards the hacienda on the height above.
Ten minutes later we were riding in the great courtyard. The place seemed strangely lifeless and silent; indeed, the plaintive mewing of a cat was the only sound to be heard. Presently, however, a dog appeared out of an open doorway. It was a large animal of the mastiff breed, such as might have been expected to bark and become aggressive to strangers. But this it did not do; indeed, it ran forward and greeted us affectionately. We dismounted and knocked at the double door, but no one answered. Finally we entered, and the truth became clear to us – the hacienda was deserted. A little burial ground attached to the chapel told us why, for in it were several freshly-made graves, evidently of peons or other servants, and in an enclosure, where lay interred some departed members of the Gomez family, another unsodded mound. We discovered afterwards that it was that of the Senor Gomez, Emma’s uncle by marriage.
“The footsteps of smallpox,” I said, pointing to the graves; “we must go on.”
Emma was too overcome to object, for she believed that it was her aunt who slept beneath that mound, so once more we mounted the weary mules. But we did not get far. Within half a mile of the hacienda we were met by two armed rurales, who told us plainly that if we attempted to go further they would shoot.
Then we understood. We had penetrated a smallpox cordon, and must stop in it until forty days after the last traces of the disease had vanished. This, in a wild part of Mexico, where at that time vaccination was but little practised and medical assistance almost entirely lacking, would not be until half or more of the unprotected population was dead and many of the remainder were blinded, deafened or disfigured.
Back we crept to the deserted hacienda, and there in this hideous nest of smallpox we took up our quarters, choosing out of the many in the great pile sleeping rooms that had evidently not been used for months or years. Food we did not lack, for sheep and goats were straying about untended, while in the garden we found fruit and vegetables in plenty, and in the pantries flour and other stores.
At first Emma was dazed and crushed by fatigue and emotion, but she recovered her spirits after a night’s sleep and on learning from Antonio, who was told it by some peon, that it was not her aunt that the smallpox had killed, but her uncle by marriage, whom she had never seen. Having no fear of the disease, indeed, she became quite resigned and calm, for the strangeness and novelty of the position absorbed and interested her. Also, to my alarm, it excited her philanthropic instincts, her great idea being to turn the hacienda into a convalescent smallpox hospital, of which she was to be the nurse and I the doctor. Indeed she refused to abandon this mad scheme until I pointed out that in the event of any of our patients dying, most probably we should both be murdered for wizards with the evil eye. As a matter of fact, without medicine or assistance we could have done little or nothing.
Oh, what a pestilence was that of which for three weeks or so we were the daily witnesses, for from the flat roof of the hacienda we could see straight on to the plaza of the little town. And when at night we could not see, still we could hear the wails of the dying and bereaved, the eternal clang of the church bells, rung to scare away the demon of disease, and the midnight masses chanted by the priests, that grew faint and fainter as their brotherhood dwindled, until at last they ceased. And so it went on in the tainted, stricken place until the living were not enough to bury the dead, or to do more than carry food and water to the sick.
It would seem that about twelve years before a philanthropic American enthusiast, armed with a letter of recommendation from whoever at that date was President of Mexico, and escorted by a small guard, descended upon San Jose to vaccinate it. For a few days all went well, for the enthusiast was a good doctor, who understood how to treat ophthalmia and to operate for squint, both of which complaints were prevalent in San Jose. Then his first vaccination patients developed vesicles, and the trouble began. The end of the matter was that the local priests, a very ignorant class of men, interfered, declaring that smallpox was a trial sent from Heaven which it was impious to combat, and that in any case vaccination was the worse disease of the two.
As the viruela had scarcely visited San Jose within the memory of man and the vesicles looked alarming, the population, true children of the Church, agreed with their pastors, and, from purely religious motives, hooted and stoned the philanthropic “Americano” and his guard out of the district. Now they and their innocent children were reaping the fruits of the piety of these conscientious objectors.
After the first fortnight this existence in an atmosphere of disease became absolutely terrible to me. Not an hour of the day passed that I did not imagine some symptom of smallpox, and every morning when we met at breakfast I glanced at Emma with anxiety. The shadow of the thing lay deep upon my nerves, and I knew well that if I stopped there much longer I should fall a victim to it in the body. In this emergency, by means of Antonio, I opened negotiations with the officer of the rurales, and finally, after much secret bargaining, it was arranged that in consideration of a sum of two hundred dollars – for by good luck I had escaped from the brigands with my money – our flight through the cordon of guards should not be observed in the darkness.
We were to start at nine o’clock on a certain night. At a quarter to that hour I went to the stable to see that everything was ready, and in the courtyard outside of it found Antonio seated against the water tank groaning and writhing with pains in the back. One looked showed me that he had developed the usual symptoms, so, feeling that no time was to be lost, I saddled the mules myself and took them round.
“Where is Antonio?” asked Emma as she mounted.
“He has gone on ahead,” I answered, “to be sure that the road is clear; he will meet us beyond the mountains.”
Poor Antonio! I wonder what became of him; he was a good fellow, and I hope that he recovered. It grieved me much to leave him, but after all I had my own safety to think of, and still more that of Emma, who had grown very dear to me. Perhaps one day I shall find him “beyond the mountains,” but, if so, that is a meeting from which I expect no joy.
The rest of our journey was strange enough, but it has nothing to do with this history. Indeed, I have only touched upon these long past adventures in a far land because they illustrate the curious fatality by the workings of which every important