human
Oh! Monsieur, Monsieur le Duc, he gasped,
gpt
Cannot go forward! Desparre ejaculated.
human
Why not? Has that man--that man who passed us endeavoured to stop the carriage?
gpt
No, Monsieur. No. But--but they flee from the city; in hundreds they flee. There are some outside already, Marseilles is----
human
What?
gpt
Stricken with the pest. They die like flies; they lie in thousands unburied in the streets. It is death to enter it. Nay, more, and the man shook all over,
human
My God! Marseilles stricken again. Yet we must go on. We must, I say. Where is that--that cavalier who overtook--rode past us?
gpt
He has gone on, Monsieur le Duc. He would not be stayed, though warned also. The people, the fugitives--there are a score at the inn a few yards ahead of where we are--warned him to turn back ere too late, and told him it was death to approach the city; that, here even, so near to it, the air is infected, tainted, poisonous! He heeded them not but said his mission was itself one of life or death, and that this news made that mission--his reaching the city at once--even more imperative. Oh! Monsieur le Duc, for God's sake give the orders to turn back.
human
Fool, poltroon, be silent So, also, by this news, if it be true, is my reaching the city become more imperative. Where is this crowd, this inn you speak of?