the Turk and Servian on the southern side of the Save are as much
asunder as though there were fifty broad provinces that lay in the
path between them. Of the men that bustled around me in the
streets of Semlin there was not, perhaps, one who had ever gone
down to look upon the stranger race dwelling under the walls of
that opposite castle. It is the plague, and the dread of the
plague, that divide the one people from the other. All coming and
going stands forbidden by the terrors of the yellow flag. If you
dare to break the laws of the quarantine, you will be tried with
military haste; the court will scream out your sentence to you from
a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, instead of gently
whispering to you the sweet hopes of religion, will console you at
duelling distance; and after that you will find yourself carefully
shot, and carelessly buried in the ground of the lazaretto. When all was in order for our departure we walked down to the
precincts of the quarantine establishment, and here awaited us a
"compromised" {1} officer of the Austrian Government, who lives in
a state of perpetual excommunication. The boats, with their
"compromised" rowers, were also in readiness.
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