Dear and Glorious Physician (32 page)

As Cusa worked, Lucanus emptied packets of disinfectants into the two pails of water which they had brought down with such difficulty. One was for the drinking of the sick and dying slaves; the other was for his own use. He would keep his hands wet while ministering. The odor of the disinfectant added to the other intolerable odors, and Cusa sneezed wretchedly, wiping his nose on his sleeve as his hands worked. Then there was a sharp click, and the lock was undone. “Go at once,” whispered Lucanus. “I will not open the door until you are far from here. Remain in my cabin; if anyone comes, tell him I am asleep.”

But for a long moment the small teacher stood and looked at Lucanus strangely by the light of the high lantern, and his active eyes were oddly still and fixed. He was thinking, If I had had a less just and good master than Diodorus, I too might be in such a galley, dying, without help and without hope. If it had not been for Lucanus, I would still be a slave.

He whispered, “Master, I shall not leave you.” Lucanus frowned at him, and he repeated, “Where you go, there shall I go also.”

Lucanus smiled, and it seemed to Cusa that his face was ringed in a sudden brief light. “Come with me,” said the young Greek. A few rats which had survived the general slaughter this night ran past them, squealing and scuttling, and Cusa believed that they kept to the walls of the corridor as if something seen only to them, and unearthly, had given them an unheard command. At this, Cusa took courage. He felt a sudden surge of exaltation. Nothing could ever injure Lucanus, nor those who served him.

It took the strength of both of them to swing open the door, and then only with tremendous effort. They had placed the lantern and buckets and pouch on the floor, on the driest spot, and so the lantern’s light fell only on the floor of the galley. The rest was absolute blackness. But such an overwhelming noxiousness and heat rushed out from the galleys that Cusa felt them as powerful blows on his body and face, and he staggered back, covering his countenance with his sleeve. The groanings and lamentations of the slaves filled the whole corridor with echoing sound.

“Quickly!” whispered Lucanus. He picked up the lantern and his pouch, and Cusa, recovering himself, but retching, lifted the buckets of disinfected water. Lucanus cast the feeble light of the lantern into the galleys, and Cusa followed. The door swung closed, sluggishly, behind them as the sea heavily rolled for an instant.

Lucanus had been prepared for a scene of dreadfulness. This was beyond his imagining as he slowly threw the lantern’s light in the galley. Only high small portholes, uncovered, admitted any light at all, and this light came only from the starred but moonless sky and the phosphorescent sea. It was hardly a light; it was only the shadows of light, like the reflection from the wings of moths. And in this vagrant illumination, assisted by the coated pale luminescence on the oars protruding through the portholes and by the dancing beams of the lantern, Lucanus could see the naked and bearded men on their benches, the chained and shackled men, white, black, yellow, and brown, their heads bowed, their eyes shut against their pain, their breasts heaving, their ribs and bones visible under the stretched skin. Their arms moved in mechanical rhythm, their voices mourned in one vast groan, and the clanking and clangor of chains and shackles added a low iron chorus to their lament. Along the walls near the door lay the dead and dying, heaped together, those who still lived, those who had newly died, those dead for hours, their faces like taut skulls in the uncertain light. The overseer, himself a slave and a criminal, walked up and down between the rows of laborers, his whip cracking, his eyes staring with terror. He stopped when he saw Lucanus and Cusa, and he stood mutely, wetting his lips.

Lucanus thought that this was a scene from hell, filled with tortured specters, pervaded with stenches only a carnal pit could expel. Deep bilge, black as crawling serpents, swung back and forth on the floor in the movement of the ship. Blood had been vomited; bloody feces had been expelled on the floor, and tainted urine.

The overseer recovered from his astonishment at seeing these two intruders. He thought that they were ghosts in their white garments. Then he came towards them fearfully. Lucanus said at once, calmly, “I am a physician, and I need your help, and this is my assistant. We are nameless. We must work quickly.” The man stood there, staring, as naked as the other slaves. Lucanus motioned to him impatiently. “We must work,” he repeated. “Or all will die. Quickly! Take this bucket and give each man a mouthful.”

His voice cracked with authority, and the overseer reached for the bucket, recovering from his amazement. But first he gulped from the bucket himself. Lucanus and Cusa, in the meantime, splashed the contents of the other bucket over their faces and hands, and Cusa wet his legs also. While the overseer obeyed him, Lucanus examined the ill lying beside the dead. Those who appeared not to be in extremis he pulled apart from the dying to the opposite wall, propping them up against it. Those who were beyond help he let remain with their expired fellows.

It was certainly the deathly plague. The spleens of the sick men were enormously swollen, their tongues thick with white fur, their skins fiery. Buboes bulged, tumescent with pus and blood, in inguinal regions, palpitating. The sick men’s legs trickled with blood from the rectum; blood trickled from the mouths of others. Some of the buboes had already ruptured; their contents dripped from the men’s bodies.

The heart of Lucanus rose in his throat, throbbing with pity. No treatment was effective for these sufferers already stricken, only some alleviation of their suffering. He quickly opened his pouch and brought forth small bags containing heavy sedations in vials. Into each gasping mouth he poured a little of the liquid. The men looked up at him, as mute as tormented animals. Lucanus smiled at them gently; the lantern drew sparks of golden fire from his half-exposed hair; his blue eyes beamed down on them with the deepest and tenderest compassion. The swollen lips of the men moved silently; one or two reached out, without volition, to touch his garments, for they felt his pain for them and his love. The overseer returned with the empty bucket and looked at Lucanus with queer, distended eyes. Cusa refilled the bucket from a barrel nearby, and at Lucanus’ gesture he poured fresh medicine into it.

Lucanus said to the overseer, “Each hour that passes, give the men another sip from the bucket. Tomorrow similar buckets, for those not afflicted, will be placed at the outer door. Command the slave who opens the door to bring them in. And there will also be buckets of water containing disinfectant, marked with a red mark. The well must dash the water over their bodies at frequent intervals. And search out any rats and kill them at once and throw the bodies through the portholes.”

“Yes, Master,” whispered the overseer. He regarded Lucanus with awe. He smiled tremulously. “Master, it is as if a god has entered here. I have drunk of your medicine, and new life has come into me, and into the galley slaves.”

It was Cusa who became aware that the men were no longer lamenting. In the light of the lantern he could see scores of eyes directed at the ministering Lucanus, and they were the eyes of men who suddenly had acquired hope in this stench-filled and rotting hole. Some of them cried out in a nameless song, and after a moment the others joined them. It was a chant of thanksgiving and gratitude, mingling with the swish and creak of the oars. Even the dying and ill heard it, and moved their heads and ceased their moaning. Cusa’s antic face held a lighted expression as he assisted Lucanus. Here were no slaves in this watery pit; they were men.

“Good,” said Lucanus, absently. He stood among the wrack of the ill, the dying, and the dead, and to Cusa he did indeed have the aspect of a conquering god. He had hung the lantern on a hook in the oozing ceiling. His garments were stained with blood and corruption. But his face was a radiance. He said to the overseer, “On the deck, two above, there are wide enough holes or windows. Take two or three of the oarsmen and have them remove the dead from among you, and drop them quietly into the sea. This cannot wait until tomorrow. The dead are your danger.”

The overseer shrank. “Master, it is forbidden for me and the oarsmen ever to leave these galleys!”

“If this is not done, and now, you will all die,” said Lucanus, sternly. “Move as lightly as possible. You will not be heard. This must be done! It is my command.”

The overseer hesitated, then he saw the authoritative blaze in Lucanus’ eyes, and he could no more have hesitated further than if commanded by a god. He called to three of the strongest men and unloosed their shackles. They rose stiffly and weakly from their rough benches and staggered forward. They began to lift the dead on their shoulders, their own bodies drenched with mingled sweat and disinfectant. One or two, recognizing the faces of friends, sobbed aloud.

The door swung open, creaking, and the slaves with their piteous burdens crept out. One by one, as Lucanus continued to administer to the ill, the dead were removed silently. The ship swayed and murmured in all her timbers. When the panting overseer stood at his elbow again, Lucanus said, “You must also dampen the walls and the ceiling with this disinfectant. Remember my orders! It is your only chance for life.”

The overseer said in a hushed voice, “Master, I have been thinking. Those whom we consigned to the sea are more fortunate than we.”

“Yes,” said Lucanus, and his fair brows -wrinkled. “Nevertheless, some of you will be eventually freed, after you have served your sentences. As for the others, while they live they can hope.”

He said, passionately, “Do you think me more fortunate than you? I tell you, all that lives is condemned!”

The sick and dying slept suddenly, huddled together. In the faces of some of the ill there was a great alleviation of pain, and a peace on their filthy and bearded faces. Cusa stood and gazed at them with fear. “There is no hope for them,” said Lucanus, sadly. “We have no effective method of treatment. Even under the best of circumstances the plague is almost always fatal.” His shadow was high on the walls, and seemed winged.

He gave the overseer the rest of his unopened vials. “Be merciful, for you are a man,” he said. “Let each of the sick and the dying have sips of these every three hours, so they may die in peace and without pain.”

He paused. And then he said involuntarily, “God go with you.” And it was not he who really spoke but Sara through him; he repeated her words mechanically, seeing her face before him again. He drew his breath on a harsh sound and motioned to Cusa and took down the lantern and lifted up his pouch. He had work to do. He must distill more of his disinfectants and medicine, alone in his cabin, so that the slaves would have supplies. Scipio and Cusa, in some way, would leave the buckets at the door in the mornings.

He and Cusa pushed open the door. The voices of the slaves rose behind them in an ecstatic wave of tremulous rejoicing, and it was on that wave that they shut the door and relocked it. It was then that Cusa bent and lifted up the hem of Lucanus’ tunic and kissed it speechlessly.

Three days later the captain summoned Lucanus to his cabin, and Lucanus obeyed after a calming word to the affrighted Cusa. “Mine is the blame. None was with me,” he said, soothingly.

Gallo’s face was broad with smiles. “Sit down, honorable Lucanus!” he exclaimed, to the young Greek’s astonishment, for he had been prepared for any calamitous happening. “Wine? Yes, wine! I am a happy man this day, my dear friend! A very happy man!”

Lucanus sipped at the wine the captain gave him with a bow of delighted ceremony, and he looked at the captain’s good-natured face, in which the eyes were dancing with triumph. The captain sat down opposite him, his big hands on his spraddled knees, and he regarded Lucanus with mockery. He shook his finger like an affectionate but admonishing father at the young physician.

“All your gloomy prophecies!” he exclaimed. “Ah, if you were not the son of Diodorus Cyrinus I would laugh at you! But you are young and inexperienced, misfortunes time will cure!”

He was exuberant, and Lucanus was bewildered. “You have had good news?” he ventured. “From the port we touched briefly last night?”

“We did not touch the port,” said the captain. “A small craft rowed out to us, bringing letters. One is for you. It is here on this table. We were not allowed to touch port, carrying a yellow flag. But the flag is being furled today!” He shouted with joy, and slapped his thigh and grinned tauntingly at Lucanus.

He shook his head tolerantly. “You physicians! Even my Priam was mistaken. There was no plague aboard! You know that all die who are afflicted. But even those galley slaves who were stricken recovered, and for three days we have had no illness among them. Do you hear me, young Master? Even the stricken have recovered, and that is impossible with the plague! From one hour to the other they rose from the floor of the galley and took their places at the oars.” He struck his thigh again and bellowed happily in his relief. “And not a single death in three days! It was no plague at all!”

Lucanus was incredulous. “It is not possible!” he exclaimed. He almost betrayed himself, then added, “Your Priam is an excellent physician. He could not have been mistaken. He has seen plague before.”

He was greatly shaken in his self-confidence. Was it possible that both he and Priam had made an error? He brought up the faces of the dead and dying before him; he again saw the buboes; he smelled the red vomit; he felt the scorching fire of the fever. He shook his head in absolute bewilderment. The sick and dying had been beyond hope. Yet they had lived, they had recovered quickly, they had been restored to health! Something impossible had happened.

Nor had it been the medicines he had left for those beyond hope. They had contained only standard opiates to relieve the agony of the moribund. The disinfectant had had its share in preventing fresh infections of the plague, but even this was often ineffective in the face of such virulence. But the sick and dying had lived! Lucanus shook his head again, numbly, and he thought, What sort of a physician am I? The only explanation is that I was mistaken. But the buboes, the hemorrhages from rectum and lung! Could it be that some other as yet unknown disease simulates the plague?

“From one hour to the next the apparently sick and dying rose from the floor and lived and were well!” said the captain, jubilantly. He reached out his hand and clapped the shoulder of Lucanus. He chuckled over and over. “I have talked with the overseer, and you know how superstitious these animals are. He swore to me that Apollo and one of his attendants, shining like light, entered through the locked door — the locked door! — and ministered to the dying, and they recovered!” The captain wagged his head amusedly. “Ah, well, let the poor wretches have their dreams. It is all they have.”

“Yes,” said Lucanus, rising. “It is all we all have.”

He took his letter from the captain’s table, and followed by the captain’s laughter, he left the cabin and went to his own cabin with a heavy step and a musing mind. Let this be a warning to you, he told himself with severity. Make no hasty judgments. He found Cusa in his cabin, Cusa, who was shivering in the expectation of being seized and thrown into irons. Lucanus smiled at him feebly. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “All is well.” And he told Cusa of his conversation with the captain.

Cusa listened, and his lively face became grave and still. He gazed at Lucanus with the strangest of expressions. “It is as I suspected,” he murmured, and before Lucanus could stop him he fell on his knees and laid his head on Lucanus’ feet, to the young man’s amazement. “No, no,” he said, “I did not cure them, my good Cusa! It was not the plague after all.” But Cusa kissed his feet and said nothing.

Lucanus raised him, trying to laugh. “Let us be sensible,” he said, and took up his letter from Rome, to read it. Iris had written him.

Then Lucanus uttered a great cry of sorrow and despair, and when Cusa came to him, he threw himself into his teacher’s arms and wept uncontrollably.