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Boylan was nearing fifty, a man all in one piece thick, ponderous, hard, scarred with la viruela, a saber sweep, a green-blue arc in his throat where some dart or arrow had torn its way in between vital columns. His head was bald and wrinkled, but very large, his neck and jaw to match, his eyes a soft blue that once had been his secret shame. Very often he had been called into the public glare.
As the viruela had scarcely visited San Jose within the memory of man and the vesicles looked alarming, the population, true children of the Church, agreed with their pastors, and, from purely religious motives, hooted and stoned the philanthropic "Americano" and his guard out of the district.
It all came back to me with a shock, the horrible scene of which I had scarcely thought for years, so vividly indeed that I seemed to hear the old hag's voice crying in cracked accents, "Si, senor, viruela, viruela!" I ought to have sent to warn the police and the health officers of the city, for I was sure that the man was suffering from what is commonly called confluent smallpox. But I did not.
Oddly enough, when, some years ago, the writer was travelling in a part of Mexico where smallpox was prevalent, it came to his notice that this system is still followed among the Indians, as they allege, with good results. The old woman looked up and saw me. "Si, Senor Inglese," she said with a ghastly smile, "viruela, viruela!" and she went on gabbling something which I could not understand.
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