“Of course,” replied the young man; “how could it be otherwise. It was real.”
“Splendid,” said the professor. “Robert, old fellow, I was proud of you.”
“I don’t think you would have been, Fred, if you could have seen inside.”
“What do you mean—not nervous?”
“I was never worse in my life. I wonder I got through it as I did. You both noticed how my hands shook.”
“That I did not,” said Frank warmly. “You seemed to me as firm as a rock.”
“Appearances are very deceitful,” said the doctor with a quaint look. “Well, I did my best for him. He was in a terrible state.”
At that moment the Sheikh, who had been giving orders to his young men not to let the camels stray, rejoined them, and he gave the doctor a look full of reverence.
“It was a great, a noble cure, O Hakim,” he said. “That wound was dangerous, was it not?”
“He would have been delirious by this time to-morrow, Ibrahim,” said the doctor.