Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/200

and when the ship returned to Europe, he went aboard another and sailed off again. The seasons and years went by, but he did not return home. He survived the foundering of several ships, the death of many companions; he recovered from malaria and other fevers, and from poisoning through swamps and insects; he received wounds which were healing while his countrymen gave him up for dead. But nowhere did Manoel find rest or lasting content; he settled nowhere, but preferred to make a miserable livelihood out of roaming land and seas. His errant life never gave him what he was hungering for, and his passion drove him on and on, until he was old and worn out with the hardships of his toil, and unable to withstand death any longer. Because he was poor, and no one asks a tramp any questions or takes him in, Manoel lay down in the road to die. But it was not ordained that he should die like the beasts of the field, nor like the ordinary man, for he was taken to the Hospital of the Brothers of Mercy. There he was put in a large ward, and above his héad were written his name and the name of the illness of which he was destined to die. His hands were folded across his chest, and he was asleep.