The cuts being made, the surgeon applied the saw to the gash.
“My friend,” said Balsamo, “sing me that song the saltmakers of Batz sing on knocking off work of an evening. I only remember the first line which goes:
‘Hail to the shining salt!’”
The saw bit into the bone: but at the request of the magnetiser, the patient smilingly commenced to sing, slowly and melodiously like a lover or a poet:
“Hail to the shining salt,
Drawn from the sky-blue lake:
Hail to the smoking kiln,
And my rye-and-honey cake!
Here comes wife and dad,
And all my chicks I love:
All but the one who sleeps,
Yon, in the heather grove.
Hail! for there ends the day,
And to my rest I come:
After the toil the pay;
After the pay, I’m home.”
The severed limb fell on the board, but the man was still singing. He was regarded with astonishment and the mesmeriser with admiration. They thought both were insane. Marat repeated this impression in Balsamo’s ear.
“Terror drove the poor lad out of his wits so that he felt no pain,” he said.
“I am not of your opinion,” replied the Italian sage: “far from having lost his wits, I warrant that he will tell us if I question him, the day of his death if he is to die; or how long his recovery will take if he is to get through.”
Marat was now inclined to share the general opinion that his friend was mad, like the patient.
In the meantime the surgeon was taking up the arteries from which spirted jets of blood.