From his bag he took a little piece of something that shone like silver. It was in the form of a minute, hollow cylinder, with two grooves on it, a cylinder so tiny that it would scarcely have slipped over the point of a pencil.
"A cannulla," he explained, as he prepared to make an incision in
Elaine's arm and in the arm of the wounded rogue.
He cuffed it over the severed end of the artery, so cleverly that the inner linings of the vein and artery, the endothelium as it is called, were in complete contact with each other.
Clutching Hand watched eagerly, as though he had found some new, scientific engine of death in the little hollow cylinder.
A moment and the blood that was, perhaps, to save the life of the wounded felon was coursing into his veins from Elaine.
A moment later, Dr. Morton looked up at the Clutching Hand and nodded,
"Well, it's working!"
At Elaine's head, Clutching Hand himself was administering just enough ether to keep her under and prevent a struggle that would wreck all. The wounded man had not been anesthetized and seemed feebly conscious of what was being done to save him.
All were now bending over the two.
Dr. Morton bent closest over Elaine. He looked at her anxiously, felt her pulse, watched her breathing, then pursed up his lips.
"This is—dangerous," he ventured, gazing askance at the grim Clutching
Hand.