I thought then it was time for me to be gone, for I had no manner of
courage for that risk; and I think verily I was more afraid of being
taken sick in a strange country than ever I was of being killed in
battle. Upon this resolution I procured a pass to go for Genoa, and
accordingly began my journey, but was arrested at Villa Franca by a
slow lingering fever, which held me about five days, and then turned
to a burning malignancy, and at last to the plague. My friend, the
captain, never left me night nor day; and though for four days more I
knew nobody, nor was capable of so much as thinking of myself, yet it
pleased God that the distemper gathered in my neck, swelled and broke.
During the swelling I was raging mad with the violence of pain, which
being so near my head swelled that also in proportion, that my eyes
were swelled up, and for the twenty-four hours my tongue and mouth;
then, as my servant told me, all the physicians gave me over, as past
all remedy, but by the good providence of God the swelling broke.

The prodigious collection of matter which this swelling discharged
gave me immediate relief, and I became sensible in less than an hour's
time; and in two hours or thereabouts fell into a little slumber which
recovered my spirits and sensibly revived me. Here I lay by it till
the middle of September. My captain fell sick after me, but recovered
quickly. His man had the plague, and died in two days; my man held it
out well.

About the middle of September we heard of a truce concluded between
all parties, and being unwilling to winter at Villa Franca, I got
passes, and though we were both but weak, we began to travel in
litters for Milan.

And here I experienced the truth of an old English proverb, that