"Yes," replied Nicolas, in a stifled voice.
"Good. Now then, Despois, attention!—the sponge!"
Then, with a large knife, he described a rapid circle through the flesh, while Nicolas ground his teeth with the agony.
The blood spurted out. Despois put a bandage tight round. The grinding of the saw was heard for a few seconds, and the arm fell heavily to the ground.
"That's what I call an operation well got through with," said Lorquin.
Nicolas was not smoking now: his pipe had fallen from his lips. David Schlosser de Walsch, who had held him, let him go. They bandaged the stump, and then Nicolas went without any assistance and laid himself down again on the mattrass.
"There's one more despatched. Sponge the table, Despois, and let's get on to another," said the doctor, washing his hands in a large bowl.
Every time he said "Let's go to another," all the wounded were struck with fear on account of the groans they heard, and the sharp knives they caught sight of now and then; but what was to be done? Every room in the farm, the barn, the attics, all were filled with the wounded. There was nothing but the large room on the ground-floor left at liberty for the people belonging to the place; so the doctor was obliged to operate under the very eyes of those whose turn must come sooner or later.
All this had passed in a few moments. Materne and his sons had stood looking on, as people do look on at anything horrible to know what it is. Then they had seen in a corner on the left, just under the old Dutch clock, a heap of arms and legs jumbled together. Nicolas's arm had already been thrown on to the top, and the doctor was preparing to extract a ball from the shoulder of a mountaineer of the Harberg with red whiskers; large gashes in form of a cross had to be made in his back, and from his hairy, shuddering flesh the blood was streaming down to his boots.