“Yes,” said Frank, whose voice trembled a little; “but if we could put the experiment off for a while, so as to test it first.”
“It might be wiser, but while we are trying the apparatus that man’s life may ebb away.”
“Then you would not wait?”
“No. Test it upon the patient. It may save him.”
Taking heart as he fully grasped the need for immediate action, Frank toiled away till he was able to say that he was ready, the Sheikh looking on in silent wonder and admiration the while.
Before the manipulator of the wondrous adaptation was ready he said a word or two to the Sheikh, who hurried out and returned with a couple of his young men, and then in solemn silence and with great care the apparatus was carried as if in procession to the great tent-like sick-chamber, where at the first glance Frank’s eyes rested upon the three Mullahs, who had returned during his absence, and once more stood together silent and scornful, gazing down at the Emir’s friend, the pulsations of whose arteries the Hakim was still feeling, while the Emir and his son stood hard by watching and waiting for the end.
No word was spoken. The Hakim turned and ran his eyes over the apparatus that was brought in and rapidly placed in position, wires connected to the battery, and after rapid preparation everything was at last announced by the professor as being ready, while Frank’s black face glistened with perspiration as he looked firmly now at his brother’s old friend, who questioned him with a look, and received a quick nod in reply.
All this while the three Mullahs looked on as such men would—old practitioners in fraud and deceit, dealing with the ignorant superstitions of their tribes—their swarthy faces darkening in contempt, treating it all as a piece of jugglery on the part of a Frankish pretender to infinite power.
But on the other hand the faces of the Emir and his son were full of wonder as well as faith, knowing so well as they did the great wisdom and skill of the man who had saved their lives.
“Now,” said the Hakim slowly and gravely, “help me, Frederick, my son. I have probed again for the bullet, and know where it must lie. You and Ibrahim must carefully turn him half upon his face.”