“I hope he won’t turn nervous over it,” thought Matt. “Be serious to a man in his position, with so many looking on.—Can’t I have the chloroform?” he then whispered to a dresser by his side.
“Yes, of course: here he is with it,” said the man; and for the second time in his life Matt gazed curiously at a polished mahogany box which was being brought forward.
“I say,” whispered Matt earnestly to the man at his side, “if anyone comes afterwards—afterwards, you know, and asks for me, you’ll say, ‘Medicine and attendance,’—there, don’t laugh—it’s particular—you’ll say, ‘Medicine and attendance;’ and that old Matt tried to think it out to the last. You’ll do that for me?” he whispered earnestly.
The man repeated the words over, and smiled as he made the required promise.
“Tell him not to give me too much,” said Matt, now with the first display of anxiety, as he glanced at the inhaling apparatus.
The time since old Matt had been brought into the theatre might be reckoned by moments; and now, in the midst of a profound stillness, the grey-haired man calmly raised his eyebrows, turned up his sleeves, and then walked a step or two from the patient, now inhaling the wondrous vapour of that simple-looking limpid fluid, whose first effect was to cause him to push away the apparatus and struggle feebly with those who administered it. But there was a strong hand upon his pulse and a pair of stern eyes watching him, and, as the mouthpiece was kept firmly against his face, old Matt gave one or two more inspirations and became insensible. Then every eye was fixed upon the calm, business-like man, whose nerves seemed of kindred material to the blades he drew from their delicate purple-velvet resting-places and quietly inspected for an instant, his eyes flashing brightly as their grey-hued blades—knives whose keen edges were formed of the finest-tempered metal that human skill and ingenuity could produce.
A breathless silence ensued, and the gay thoughtless aspect was gone from the young faces crowding the benches. Here and there an assumed cynical smile could be seen, but the effects of a strange clutching at the heart, a curious vibration of the nerves, was visible in the pallor of cheeks and fevered aspect of the onlookers of the upper seats. Two young men right at the back surreptitiously drank from small flasks, and when wiping their lips paused, too, to pass their handkerchiefs over their damp foreheads, before thrusting them in their moist palms as the great surgeon—one who had climbed by slow degrees to his present eminence in the profession, and upon whose knowledge and skill now depended the life of a fellow-creature—gave his quick, sharp orders, and changed the position of one or two assistants at the operating-table, pointing, like a general preparing for battle, with the keen blade he held in his hand. Short, quick orders as he grasped the flashing steel and made ready for the fight—for the combat à l’outrance, with the grim, slow-crawling, dragon disease—a fight where skill and genius took the place of physical force and daring.
A painful silence, and then, while every eye was fixed upon his movements, the great surgeon gave a hasty glance round to see that all was in readiness for the time when moments were more than grains of gold, and would add their weight in one scale of the balance—life or death; but all seemed there, ready hands and the many appliances for checking the rapid flow of life’s stream, and then, with almost an air of nonchalance, he stretched out his arms to secure freedom of action.
Not a whisper, not a movement, the spectators of the scene with craning necks, immovable as groups of statuary, as they gazed from their tiers of benches in this modern amphitheatre down upon the gladiatorial combat taking place, even as of old the Roman citizens may have watched some fight for life or death.
A keen bright flash of the blade in the softened light, and the surgeon thoughtfully describing an imaginary curve in the air with the point just above the insensible patient; then, with a satisfied nod, he leaned forward. There was once more a bright flash of the knife, followed by a bold, firmly-directed cut, deep and long, but clear of vital parts in the wondrous organisation. Then came the spouting gush from many a vessel as the old man’s life-blood rushed from its maze; busy fingers at work, here upon arteries to stay their waste, there applying sponge; one blade changed for another, more manipulation, and orders performed after being given in a calm impressive whisper; a few more busy moments, and the throbbing flow of life arrested; rapidly-moving fingers with sponges, silk, strapping, towels; and the great surgeon softly wiping his hands, cool, calm, and unruffled.