Which was more essential. And why not? Hope's bright hue blotted out emaciation. They had broken through to food that day. Bueno, could they not do it again? Old croons had returned to their stalls and accustomed corners in the market place, and as in days of peace were already squatted before corn or beans heaped on the stone pavement in portions for a quartilla, a media, or a real, as though the pyramids were not so pitifully little, as though the wholesale purchase were not made just that morning in heavy terms of blood. Behind the ponderous Assyrian-like church of Santa Rosa, in the old, half ruined monastery and garden, was the hospital of the besieged. A stifling, fetid odor, far worse than of drugs merely, sickened the two girls as a foul breath when they passed with their guide between thick walls into the large, overcrowded rooms. Military medical service was not yet become an institution in Mexico, and this place was like some horrible antechamber of the grave. Every cot had its ghastly transient, and so had the benches, brought here from the different plazas. More and more wounded were arriving constantly, and those found to be still alive were laid on the flagstones wherever space for a blanket remained. But in spite of the morning's fight, in spite of almost daily skirmishes for weeks past, the sick outnumbered all others; and those who did come with wounds, and survived them, stayed on to swell the longer list. Men tossed in fever, craving what they might not have, a cooling draught, a proper food, and effective medicine, until, with waking, they craved an easier boon, and died. But the hospital fever, the calenturas, the gangrene, were not to be all. Out of the diseased air, mid the fumes of pious tapers, the spectre of epidemic was taking hideous shape over the many, many upturned faces. The spectre was the tifo, a plague more dreaded in high altitudes than black vomit in the low. Jacqueline found Maximilian bending over a stricken cavalry officer. The Emperor was far from a well man, and his fair skin more than ever contrasted as something foreign and lonely among the swarthy faces on every side. His ostentation was now simplicity, as befitted a monarch in camp. He wore neither sword nor star. His garb was plain charro, in which he often walked among citizens and soldiers, inquiring about rations, or requesting a light for his cigar, never minding if a shell burst and kicked dust over him, and always affable, always ready to smile and praise. It was a role that came naturally to his gentle soul. One would like to believe--if one could, alas!--that he had in mind no kingly precedent.