"There is a piece in my bag," Mikail replied. The doctor took it and made a rough tourniquet above the wounds, then drew the edges together, put in two stitches in each, and then strapped them up. Then he attended to Mikail. "You have had a narrow escape," he said; "the knife has struck on your hip bone and made a nasty gash, and there is another just below it. If the first wound had been two inches higher there would have been nothing to do but to bury you."
"Well, this is a nice business," Mikail said, when the doctor had left. "To think of that little villain being so treacherous! You were right and I was wrong, Ivan, though how you guessed he was up to mischief is more than I can imagine."
"Well, you know the fellow's history, Mikail, and that he had murdered nine people he had lived among and who trusted him. What could one expect from a villain like that?"
"Oh, I know he is a bad one," Mikail said, "but I did not think he dare take the risk."
"I don't suppose he thought there was much risk, Mikail. If I had been asleep he would have stabbed you to the heart, and when we found you dead in the morning who was to know what prisoner had done it?"
"Well, it was a lucky thought my putting you next to me, young fellow; I meant it for your good not for my own, and now you see it has saved my life."
"A kind action always gets its reward, Mikail—always, sooner or later; in your case it has been sooner, you see. Now I shall go off to sleep, for I feel as drowsy as if I had been up for the last three nights."