"If I fall, I will take care you do not recover.

I will fight him to-morrow," he added aloud.
He then summoned his servants, but when they found their mistress was attacked by the plague, they framed some excuse to leave the room, and instantly fled the house.

Driven almost to his wits' end, Disbrowe went in search of other assistance, and was for a while unsuccessful, until a coachman, to whom he applied, offered, for a suitable reward, to drive to Clerkenwell--to the shop of an apothecary named Sibbald (with whose name the reader is already familiar), who was noted for his treatment of plague patients, and to bring him to the other's residence.

Disbrowe immediately closed with the man, and in less than two hours Sibbald made his appearance.

He was a singular and repulsive personage, with an immense hooked nose, dark, savage-looking eyes, a skin like parchment, and high round shoulders, which procured him the nickname of Aesop among his neighbours.