“Colonel Holles!” he cried. “Or is it your ghost, sir? There’s more ghosts than living men in this stricken city.” “We are both ghosts, I think, Banks,” the Colonel answered him. “Maybe, but our gullets ain’t ghostly, praise the Lord! And there’s still some sack left at The Harp. It’s the greatest of all electuaries is sack, as Dr. Hodges has it. Sack with plenty of nutmeg, says he, and avoid sweating. And that’s how I’ve kept myself alive. Shall we have a bottle of the medicine, Colonel?” “I’d say yes, with all my heart. But--lackaday!--I’ve not the means to pay for the sack.” “Pay?” The vintner made a lip. “Sit ye down, Colonel.” Banks fetched the wine, and poured it. “A plague on the plague, is the toast,” said he, and they drank it. “’Slife, Colonel, but I am glad to see you alive. I feared the worst for you. Yet you’ve contrived to keep yourself safe, avoiding not only the plague, but them pestilential fellows that was after you.” Without waiting for a reply, he dropped his voice to add: “Ye’ll have heard how Danvers was took, and how he broke away and won free--good luck to him! But all that is a dream by now, that conspiracy business, and no one bothers much about it. Not even the government. There’s other things to engage them, and not much government left neither. But of yourself now, Colonel?” “My tale’s soon told. I’ve not fared quite as well as you suppose. I’ve had the plague.” “The devil you have. And ye’ve won through!” Banks regarded him with a new respect. “Well, ye were born lucky, sir.” “You give me news,” said the Colonel. “There isn’t many escapes,” the vintner assured him ruefully. “And you having had the pestilence makes you a safe man. Ye can come and go as ye please without uneasiness.” “And your sack as an electuary is wasted on me. But if I’m safe I’m also penniless, which is what has brought me here: to see if some gear of mine is still in your possession that I may melt it into shillings.” “Aye, aye, I have it all safe,” Banks assured him. “A brave suit, with boots and a hat, a baldric, and some other odds and ends. They’re above-stairs, waiting for you when you please. But what may you be thinking of doing, Colonel, if I may make so bold as to ask?” Holles told him of his notion of sailing as a hand aboard a vessel bound for France. The vintner pursed his lips and sadly shook his head, regarding his guest the while from under bent brows. “Why, sir,” he said, “there’s no French shipping and no ships bound for France at Wapping, and mighty few ships of any kind. The plague has put an end to all that. The port of London is as empty as Proctor’s yonder. There’s not a foreign ship’ll put into it, nor an English one go out of it, for she wouldn’t be given harbour anywhere for fear of the infection.” The Colonel’s face lengthened in dismay. This, he thought, was the last blow of his malignant Fortune. “I shall have to go to Portsmouth, then,” he announced gloomily. “God knows how I shall get there.”