Hale rapped on the door and announced himself. A feminine voice from within said: "Go away! The Plague is here!" "Never mind! I've had it! I'm immune! Let me in!" He tried the door and found it unlocked. He stepped in--and stopped. Before him, staring wide-eyed, was the most beautiful honey-blonde he had ever seen. _If all their women look like this_, Hale thought, _it's no wonder they keep them at home!_ "Where is Yon the Fisher?" he asked aloud. "In--in the bedroom," she said softly, pointing. Hale strode in. Yon was lying on a pallet of the same rough gray-brown material that his robe was made of, his breath heavy and rasping. "You should not have come here, Leland Hale," he said. "You'll get the Plague and die." "Rot," said Leland Hale. "Here, take these." He gave Yon twenty-five grains of aspirin, two hundred milligrams of thiamine hydrochloride, and five hundred milligrams of ascorbic acid. He made the Village Officer swallow them with a good slug of the purple ferment and told him to relax. For good measure, he put two capsules of a powerful laxative on a dish beside the bed. "Take one of those in two hours, and the other one four hours later." He turned to the woman, who had followed him into the room. "Don't give him any solid food for two days--just soup." He looked the girl up and down again, then turned back towards the pallet. "I forgot one pill," he said. He gave Yon the Fisher half a grain of narcolene. "What about Caryl?" asked Yon, indicating his wife. "Will she catch the Plague?" "Don't worry, Yon," Hale assured him. "I'm going to fix her right up." He gave her ten grains of aspirin and made her wash it down with a full cup of the purple liquor. Then he gave her ten more, which also had to be followed by a full cup of juice. After that came ascorbic acid, chased with a third cup of liquor. "Now just sit down a minute while that takes effect," he said ambiguously. She sat down on a stone bench near a big slab of stone which served as a table. "Will Yon really be all right?" she asked. "Really?" "I guarantee it," Hale said. Over on the pallet, Yon slowly closed his eyes. "And I won't catch it?" There was a note of fear in her voice. "If you do, it will be mild," Hale said. From the pallet came the sound of soft snoring. The narcolene had taken effect. And something else was taking effect. Caryl looked up at him and blinked. "I feel queer," she said. As Hale had suspected, drinking was strictly For Men Only on Cardigan's Green. "It's just the medicine," Hale told her. "Mr. Hale," she said softly, "you're a very brave and very wonderful man. I don't know how I can ever repay you for what you've done for us." Succinctly, Hale told her. She looked at him, wide-eyed. "But--" "Precisely," said Leland Hale. CHAPTER V