to a neighboring eminence to accost the strangers. Seeing them approach, the travelers drew up in an irregular line on one side of the highway. Being beckoned into the adjoining land, they refused, and pointed each with a staff to the road as the only place for them. In numbers several hundreds, clad in rags, limbs bound in coarse bandages, many with rough branches for crutches, many others painfully limping, all emaciated, dirty and cadaverous.
“They are the lepers from the Frankish country,” exclaimed Pietro. “They are returning to their own land, as these regions are exhausted, and they can find no sustenance.” With some difficulty Lord Witek and Pietro prevailed on the leader to advance from the rest a short space. To the question, “Who are you, and why come you here?” the spokesman replied, after carefully placing himself below the wind: “We are the afflicted of the Lord. Upon us he has laid the plague of leprosy. We come here because, although there are in our own land more than two thousand leproseries, all crowded until not one poor cabin, of the hundreds in each asylum, can hold another patient, yet our affliction multiplies our numbers until not a foot of space remains. We burrow in the hillsides for a momentary shelter. We dare not leave the highways, as death is the penalty. By-paths, markets, churches and above all meat stalls are forbidden. We dare not bathe in any stream or even draw water from it. A morsel of bread in the place I point to is all we crave,” “Whither go you?” inquired Lord Witek.
