Look, nature herself is sick," and she led him to the broad balcony of the chamber and pointed to long lines of curious mist which in the bright moonlight they could see creeping toward Venice from the ocean, although what wind there was appeared to be off land.
"Those fogs are unnatural," she went on.

"At this season of the year there should be none, and these come, not from the lagoons, but up from the sea where no such vapours were ever known to rise.

The physicians say that they foretell sickness, whereof terrible rumours have for some time past reached us from the East, though none know whether these be true or false." "The East is a large place, where there is always sickness, lady, or so I have heard." "Ay, ay, it is the home of Death, and I think that he travels to us thence.

And not only I, not only I; half the folk in Venice think the same, though why, they cannot tell.

Listen." As she spoke, the sound of solemn chanting broke upon Hugh's ear.