At noon--the hour when the people had been bidden to cry, "Live, Prince
of the Everlasting Glory!"--they were moving restlessly, fearfully
through the Bazaar and the highways, and watching from a distance a
little white house, with blue curtains, where lay the man who was sick
with the Red Plague, and where watched beside his bed Cumner's Son and
the beggar of Nangoon. No one came near.

From the time the sick man had been brought into the house, the beggar
had worked with him, giving him tinctures which he boiled with sweetmeat
called the Flower of Bambaba, while Cumner's Son rubbed an ointment into
his body. Now and again the young man went to the window and looked out
at the lines of people hundreds of yards away, and the empty spaces where
the only life that showed was a gay-plumaged bird that drifted across the
sunlight, or a monkey that sat in the dust eating a nut. All at once the
awe and danger of his position fell upon him. Imagination grew high in
him in a moment--that beginning of fear and sorrow and heart-burning;
yet, too, the beginning of hope and wisdom and achievement. For the
first time in his life that knowledge overcame him which masters us all
sometimes. He had a desire to fly the place; he felt like running from
the house, shrieking as he went. A sweat broke out on his forehead, his
lips clung to his teeth, his mouth was dry, his breast seemed to
contract, and breathing hurt him.

"What a fool I was! What a fool I was to come here!" he said.

He buried his head in his arms as he leaned against the wall, and his
legs trembled. From that moment he passed from headlong, daring, lovable
youth, to manhood; understanding, fearful, conscientious, and morally
strong. Just as abject as was his sudden fear, so triumphant was his
reassertion of himself.