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friends. On mustering our numbers for the night, three were found missing.
When I enquired for them, the man to whom I spoke, uttered the word
"plague," and fell at my feet in convulsions; he also was infected. There
were hard faces around me; for among my troop were sailors who had crossed
the line times unnumbered, soldiers who, in Russia and far America, had
suffered famine, cold and danger, and men still sterner-featured, once
nightly depredators in our over-grown metropolis; men bred from their
cradle to see the whole machine of society at work for their destruction. I
looked round, and saw upon the faces of all horror and despair written in
glaring characters.
We passed four days at Fontainebleau. Several sickened and died, and in the
mean time neither Adrian nor any of our friends appeared. My own troop was
in commotion; to reach Switzerland, to plunge into rivers of snow, and to
dwell in caves of ice, became the mad desire of all. Yet we had promised to
wait for the Earl; and he came not. My people demanded to be led forward--
rebellion, if so we might call what was the mere casting away of
straw-formed shackles, appeared manifestly among them. They would away on
the word without a leader. The only chance of safety, the only hope of
preservation from every form of indescribable suffering, was our keeping
together. I told them this; while the most determined among them answered
with sullenness, that they could take care of themselves, and replied to my
entreaties with scoffs and menaces.
At length, on the fifth day, a messenger arrived from Adrian, bearing
letters, which directed us to proceed to Auxerre, and there await his
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