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Dead Man's Land: Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 37. The Doctor's Lancet |
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_ CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. THE DOCTOR'S LANCET
"Here, let me come," cried the doctor. "Let him sit down on that stone--feel faint, my lad?" "No-o," faltered Mark; "only strange and queer. Is it a poisonous snake?" "I don't know. I hope not," said the doctor. "I only had a glimpse of it, and it's gone. Where did you feel the prick?" "In this finger. No, no--don't touch it!" "Nonsense! Be a man. I am not going to hurt you. Did either of you get a good sight of the snake?" "I did, sir," said Buck, "and it must have been a poisonous one." "Why must it?" said the doctor sharply. "Because the niggers run away as soon as they saw it, sir," said Dan. "Look at them up yonder;" and he pointed to where the two blacks were perched on the top of the wall. "They know, sir." "Oh, yes, they know a great deal," said the doctor, shortly, as he busied himself pressing the sides of a little speck of a wound which pierced the boy's skin, now with one nail, now with both at the same time, and making Mark wince. "You are hurting him a good deal," said Sir James. "Do him good," said the doctor, shortly, "and take off the faintness. Now, Buck, I want to make sure," continued the doctor, who from the smattering of knowledge he had obtained from reading was looked up to by everyone present as being master of the situation in the emergency. "What sort of a head had the snake?" "Nasty-looking head, sir! and it kept sticking out its sting with two pyntes to it." "Pooh!" ejaculated the doctor, as he busied himself over the tiny puncture. "But was it a broad spade-shaped head?" "Spade-shaped, sir? What, square? Oh, no, it warn't that." "Bah!" ejaculated the doctor. "I meant spade-shaped--the spade that you see on a pack of cards." "I couldn't be sure, sir. It was so quick, you see. But I should say it was more like a diamond." "Beg pardon, sir," cried Dan; "I think that the place ought to be sucked. I'll do it." "Thanks. Good lad," said the doctor. "You are quite right;" and he gave the little sailor a quick nod as he took the advice himself, held Mark's index finger to his lips, and drew hard at the tiny puncture, trying to draw out any noxious matter that might have been left in the wound, and removing the finger from his lips from time to time to rid his mouth of any poison. "Here, you, Dean," he said, upon one of these occasions, "slip that silk handkerchief from your neck, twist it a little, and now tie it round his arm just above the elbow. That's right--no, no, don't play with it--tie it as tightly as you can--never mind hurting him. I want to stop the circulation." He placed his lips to the wound again and drew hard; then speaking once more-- "Harder. Now, you, Sir James; you are stronger. Tighten the ligature as much as you can. You, Dean, put your hand in my breast-pocket-- pocket-book. Open it and take out a lancet." "There isn't one here, sir." "Bah! No; I remember. Get out your knife, my boy." "There's a lancet in that, sir, you know, and a corkscrew, and tweezers too. Here's the lancet, sir;" and the boy drew out the little tortoiseshell instrument slipped into the handle of the handsome knife which his uncle had presented him with before the start. "Now, then, Mark; I am going to operate." "Very well, sir," said Mark, calmly enough. "You had better take the finger off close down to the joint, for fear the poison has got as far as that." The doctor smiled. "Is it absolutely necessary?" said Sir James anxiously. The doctor gave him a peculiar look which Dean looked upon as horribly grim. "I see two chaps who were bit by snakes out in 'Stralia, gentlemen," said Dan, "and one of them died; and they said that if there had been someone there who had known how to cut his arm off so as he shouldn't bleed to death, it would have saved his life." "Kept the pison from running right through him, mate," growled Buck, with a look of sympathy at the injured lad. "That's so, messmate," continued Dan; "but they sucked t'other one where he was stung for ever so long. He got better." "Now, then," said the doctor sharply, "no more anecdotes, if you please;" and as he spoke he made a slight cut across the speck-like puncture with the keen-pointed lancet, so that the blood started out in a pretty good-sized bead. "Hurt you, my lad?" he asked, while Dean looked on in horror. "Just a little," said Mark. "But hadn't you better do more than that?" "No," said the doctor coolly. "There is a little poison there, and the bleeding will relieve it. It has begun to fester." "What, so soon?" said Sir James. "Yes," was the calm reply. "Now, Dean, I must come to you for another of your surgical instruments--the tweezers." "Yes," cried the boy excitedly; and in his hurry he broke his thumb nail in drawing the tweezers out of the haft of the knife, for the instrument was a little rusted in. "Now," said the doctor, as he pressed the two little spring sides of the tweezers right down into the cut and got hold of something. "Oh! hurts!" cried Mark. "Yes, but it would have hurt more if I had taken your finger off," said the doctor, laughing. "There we are," he continued, as he drew out a sharp glistening point and held it up in the sun. "There's your snake sting, my boy, and the little cut will soon heal up. There, suck the wound a little yourself, and draw out the poison." "But, doctor," cried Sir James, "surely a venomous snake injects the poison through hollow fangs. Are you sure that that is a tooth?" "No, sir," said the doctor. "That is the point of one of those exceedingly sharp thorns that we are so infested with here. Look at it;" and he held out the tweezers for everyone to examine the point. "It's a false alarm, Mark, my lad. I can see no sign of any snake bite." "But I felt it!" cried Mark, as he stared at the thorn. "I can't see any mark, and if the snake did bite it was only a prick with one of its tiny sharp teeth. Look, Sir James; you see there's no sign of any swelling, and no discoloration such as I believe would very soon appear after the injection of venom." "But what's that?" said Sir James anxiously, pointing. "That? That's a thorn prick," said the doctor. "Well, but that?" "That's the stain from some crushed leaf." "Well, that, then?" cried Sir James angrily at finding the doctor so ready to give explanations to his doubts. "That's another prick." "Tut, tut, tut! Well, that?" "That's a scratch." "Well, that, then?" cried Sir James, almost fiercely. "There's the discoloration you said would appear." "Oh," said the doctor, laughing; "that's dirt!" Sir James made no answer, but snatching a handkerchief from his pocket he moistened a corner between his lips, passed it over the clear skin of his son's wrist, and the dark mark passed away. "Here, Dean," said the doctor, "hands up! That's right; draw back your shirt sleeve." The boy obeyed. "Look here, Sir James," said the doctor, and he pointed with the thorn he held between the tweezers. "You see that--and that--and that?" "Oh, those are only pricks I got in the bushes, sir, the other day," said Dean sharply. "Yes, I see," said the doctor, "and you had better let me operate upon this one. It has begun to fester a little too." As he spoke the doctor pressed the little dark spot which showed beneath the boy's white skin. "Oh, you hurt!" cried Dean, flinching. "Yes, there's a thorn in there, and I see there's another half way up your arm, Mark, my lad. You had better try to pick that out with a needle. It is all a false alarm, Sir James, I am thankful to say. Snake bites are very horrible, but you must recollect that the great majority of these creatures are not furnished with poison fangs. I was in doubt, myself, at first, but the fact that the puncture was so large, and unaccompanied by another-- venomous snakes being furnished with a pair of fangs that they have the power to erect--was almost enough to prove to me that what we saw was only produced by a thorn." "I beg your pardon, doctor," said Sir James, grasping him by the hand. "I could not help thinking you were dreadfully callous and cool over what has been agony to me. I am afraid I was horribly disbelieving and annoyed." "Don't apologise, sir," replied the doctor. "I did seem to treat it all very cavalierly, but I had a reason for so doing. I wanted to put heart into my patient to counteract the remarks which were being made about snake bites and treating them by amputation. Now, Mark, do you feel well enough to handle your gun again?" "Oh, yes, quite," cried the boy, starting up; and getting possession of his rifle he raised it up, fired the remaining cartridge, and then opening the breech held it up, to treat it as a lorgnette, looking through the barrels. "There are no snakes in here now," said the boy, speaking quite cheerfully, "but the night damp has made a lot of little specks of rust." "Let me clean it, sir," cried Dan. "I'll wash out the barrels and give it a good 'iling." "Yes, do," said Mark, who began to suck his finger. "Why, I say, Mark," cried Dean, "I never thought of it before: that's the finger you asked me to get the thorn out of that day after we got back from my slip into that hole." "Eh?" exclaimed Mark, looking at him doubtfully. "Why, of course! Don't you remember?" "No," said Mark. "I feel quite stupid this morning, after this." "Try to think, my boy," cried Sir James impatiently. "It would set all our minds at rest." "Why, to be sure, Mark," cried his cousin. "Don't you remember? You said you could not do it yourself because it was in your right finger and it was such a bungle to handle a pin with your left hand." Mark stared at his cousin for a few moments, and gazed round at those who were waiting to hear him speak; and then a gleam of light seemed to dart from his eyes as he cried excitedly, "Why, of course! I remember now; and you couldn't get it out with the pin, and you said it was a good job too, for a brass pin was a bad thing to use, and that we would leave it till we could get a big needle from Dan, such as he used for mending his stockings." "Hear, hear!" cried the little sailor, by way of corroboration as to his handling of a needle. "And then we forgot all about it," cried Dean. "Yes," cried Mark. "Oh, I say, I am sorry! What a fuss I have been making about nothing!" _ |
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