Ten minutes later we were riding in the great courtyard.  The place seemed strangely lifeless and silent; indeed, the plaintive mewing of a cat was the only sound to be heard.  Presently, however, a dog appeared out of an open doorway.  It was a large animal of the mastiff breed, such as might have been expected to bark and become aggressive to strangers.  But this it did not do; indeed, it ran forward and greeted us affectionately.  We dismounted and knocked at the double door, but no one answered.  Finally we entered, and the truth became clear to us—­the hacienda was deserted.  A little burial ground attached to the chapel told us why, for in it were several freshly-made graves, evidently of peons or other servants, and in an enclosure, where lay interred some departed members of the Gomez family, another unsodded mound.  We discovered afterwards that it was that of the Senor Gomez, Emma’s uncle by marriage.

“The footsteps of smallpox,” I said, pointing to the graves; “we must go on.”

Emma was too overcome to object, for she believed that it was her aunt who slept beneath that mound, so once more we mounted the weary mules.  But we did not get far.  Within half a mile of the hacienda we were met by two armed rurales, who told us plainly that if we attempted to go further they would shoot.

Then we understood.  We had penetrated a smallpox cordon, and must stop in it until forty days after the last traces of the disease had vanished.  This, in a wild part of Mexico, where at that time vaccination was but little practised and medical assistance almost entirely lacking, would not be until half or more of the unprotected population was dead and many of the remainder were blinded, deafened or disfigured.

Back we crept to the deserted hacienda, and there in this hideous nest of smallpox we took up our quarters, choosing out of the many in the great pile sleeping rooms that had evidently not been used for months or years.  Food we did not lack, for sheep and goats were straying about untended, while in the garden we found fruit and vegetables in plenty, and in the pantries flour and other stores.

At first Emma was dazed and crushed by fatigue and emotion, but she recovered her spirits after a night’s sleep and on learning from Antonio, who was told it by some peon, that it was not her aunt that the smallpox had killed, but her uncle by marriage, whom she had never seen.  Having no fear of the disease, indeed, she became quite resigned and calm, for the strangeness and novelty of the position absorbed and interested her.  Also, to my alarm, it excited her philanthropic instincts, her great idea being to turn the hacienda into a convalescent smallpox hospital, of which she was to be the nurse and I the doctor.  Indeed she refused to abandon this mad scheme until I pointed out that in the event of any of our patients dying, most probably we should both be murdered for wizards with the evil eye.  As a matter of fact, without medicine or assistance we could have done little or nothing.