The doctor gave him a peculiar look which Dean looked upon as horribly grim.
“I see two chaps who were bit by snakes out in ’Stralia, gentlemen,” said Dan, “and one of them died; and they said that if there had been someone there who had known how to cut his arm off so as he shouldn’t bleed to death, it would have saved his life.”
“Kept the pison from running right through him, mate,” growled Buck, with a look of sympathy at the injured lad.
“That’s so, messmate,” continued Dan; “but they sucked t’other one where he was stung for ever so long. He got better.”
“Now, then,” said the doctor sharply, “no more anecdotes, if you please;” and as he spoke he made a slight cut across the speck-like puncture with the keen-pointed lancet, so that the blood started out in a pretty good-sized bead.
“Hurt you, my lad?” he asked, while Dean looked on in horror.
“Just a little,” said Mark. “But hadn’t you better do more than that?”
“No,” said the doctor coolly. “There is a little poison there, and the bleeding will relieve it. It has begun to fester.”
“What, so soon?” said Sir James.
“Yes,” was the calm reply. “Now, Dean, I must come to you for another of your surgical instruments—the tweezers.”