"I am writing this on the following morning. Saleh has slept quietly all night. His hand is cool this morning, and I think I may fairly say that he is convalescent. Abdullah's wife came in yesterday evening, and told the women here that her husband was asleep, but that he would come round in the morning. I warned her not to let him stir out of doors, and said I would come and see him.
"It has taken me five hours to write this, which seems a very long time to spend on details of things not worth recording; but the act of writing has taken my thoughts off myself, and I intend always to note down anything special. It will be interesting to me to read it, if I ever get away; should I be unable to escape, I shall charge Saleh to carry it to Khartoum, if he ever has the chance, and hand it over to the Governor there, to send down to Cairo.
"A week later. I am already losing count of days, but days matter nothing. I have been busy, so busy that I have not even had time to write. After I had finished my story so far, Saleh's slave woman took me to Abdullah's house. I found that he was in a state of high fever, but all I could do was to recommend that a wet rag should be applied, and freshly wetted every quarter of an hour; that his head should be kept similarly enveloped, in wet bandages; and that his hands should be dipped in water very frequently.
"When I got back, I found several women waiting outside Saleh's house. His wife had gossiped with a neighbour, and told them that I had got the bullet out of his wound. The news spread rapidly, and these women were all there to beg that I would see their husbands.
"This was awkward. I certainly could not calculate upon being successful, in cases where a bullet had penetrated more deeply; and even if I could do so, I should at once excite the hostility of the native hakims, and draw very much more attention upon myself than I desired. In vain I protested that I was not a hakim, and had done only what I had seen a white hakim do. Finding that this did not avail, I said that I would not go to see any man, except with one of the native doctors.
"'There are two here,' one of the women said. 'I will go and fetch them.'
"'No,' I said; 'who am I, that they should come to me? I will go and see them, if you will show me where they live.'
"'Ah, here they come!' she said, as two Dervishes approached.
"I went up to them, and they said: 'We hear that you are a hakim, who has done great things.'
"'I am no hakim,' I said. 'I was just coming to you, to tell you so. The man I aided was a friend, and was not deeply wounded. Having seen a white hakim take bullets from wounded men, I tried my best; and as the bullet was but a short way in, I succeeded. If I had had the instruments I saw the infidel use, it would have been easy; but I had to make an instrument, which sufficed for the purpose, although it would have been of no use, had the bullet gone in deeper.'