and the hopeless crying of two words, "Unclean! Unclean!"

Then silence fell. Upon Zia descended a fear beyond all power of words
to utter. In his quaking young torment he lifted his eyes and met the
gaze of the old woman as it flamed down upon him.

"Go within!" she commanded suddenly, and pointed to the wretched room
inside. He obeyed her, and she followed him, closing the door behind
them.

"Tear off thy garment!" she ordered. "Strip thyself to thy skin--to thy
skin!"

He shook from head to foot, his trembling hands almost refusing to obey
him. She did not touch him, but stood apart, glaring. His garments fell
from him and lay in a heap at his feet, and he stood among them naked.

One look, and she broke forth, shaking with fear herself, into a
breathless storm of fury.

"Thou hast known this thing and hidden it!" she raved. "Leper! Leper!
Accursed hunchback thing!"

As he stood in his nakedness and sobbed great, heavy childish sobs, she
did not dare to strike him, and raged the more.

If it were known that she had harbored him, the priests would be upon
her, and all that she had would be taken from her and burned. She would
not even let him put his clothes on in her house.