“What ails you, friend?” inquired Blaize, uneasily.

“I don’t know,” replied Pillichody; “but I feel extremely unwell.”

“He looks to me as if he had got the plague,” observed Patience, to Blaize.

“The plague!” exclaimed the latter, letting fall the glass, which shivered to pieces on the stone floor.  “And I have touched him.  Where is the vinegar-bottle?  I must sprinkle myself directly, and rub myself from head to foot with oil of hartshorn and spirits of sulphur.  Mother! dear mother! you have taken away my medicine-chest.  If you love me, go and fetch me a little conserve of Roman wormwood and mithridate.  You will find them in two small jars.”

“Oh yes, do,” cried Patience; “or he may die with fright.”

Moved by their joint entreaties, old Josyna again departed; and her back was no sooner turned, than Patience said in an undertone to Pillichody,—­“Now is your time.  You have not a moment to lose.”

Instantly taking the hint, the other uttered a loud cry, and springing up, caught at Blaize, who instantly dropped the halberd, and fled into one corner of the room.

Pillichody then hurried upstairs, while Blaize shouted after him, “Don’t touch him, Master Stephen.  He has got the plague! he has got the plague!”

Alarmed by this outcry, Stephen suffered Pillichody to pass; and the latter, darting across the yard, mounted the rope-ladder, and quickly disappeared.  A few minutes afterwards, Bloundel returned with the watch, and was greatly enraged when he found that the prisoner had got off.  No longer doubting that he had been robbed of his daughter by the Earl of Rochester, he could not make up his mind to abandon her to her fate, and his conflicting feelings occasioned him a night of indescribable anxiety.  The party of watch whom he had summoned searched the street for him, and endeavoured to trace out the fugitives,—­but without success; and they returned before daybreak to report their failure.

About six o’clock, Mr. Bloundel, unable to restrain himself longer, sallied forth with Blaize in search of his daughter and Leonard.  Uncertain where to bend his steps, he trusted to chance to direct him, resolved, if he were unsuccessful, to lay a petition for redress before the throne.  Proceeding along Cheapside, he entered Paternoster-row, and traversed it till he came to Paul’s Alley,—­a narrow passage leading to the north-west corner of the cathedral.  Prompted by an unaccountable impulse, he no sooner caught sight of the reverend structure, than he hastened, towards it, and knocked against the great northern door.

We shall, however, precede him, and return to the party at the altar.  The awful warning of Solomon Eagle so alarmed Quatremain, that he let fall his prayer-book, and after gazing vacantly round for a few moments, staggered to one of the stalls, where, feeling a burning pain in his breast, he tore open his doublet, and found that the enthusiast had spoken the truth, and that he was really attacked by the pestilence.  As to Amabel, on hearing the terrible denunciation, she uttered a loud cry, and would have fallen to the ground but for the timely assistance of the apprentice, who caught her with one arm, while with the other he defended himself against the earl and his companions.