No sooner said than done; with the passing of the last word through Jantje’s lips half a dozen stalwart Kafirs dived into the hut and in another moment reappeared, bearing between them the unhappy patient, stretched upon an eland’s skin. It was an exceedingly awkward job to get the poor fellow out through the low, narrow doorway of the hut, but they managed it somehow, and in another minute had him satisfactorily disposed beneath the shadow of the tree. Then Dick approached and proceeded to examine his hurts.
They had been severe enough to start with; but now, after nearly forty-eight hours of neglect, their condition was so indescribably loathsome that even Dick, seasoned hand though he was, nearly vomited at the sight of them, while as for Grosvenor, he was compelled to beat a precipitate retreat, but returned gamely, some five minutes later, to see if he could be of any assistance. Dick, however, although he had never in his life before beheld anything approaching such a dreadful sight, quickly pulled himself together and, his professional instinct promptly asserting itself, ordered some hot water to be brought to him, and, while it was being prepared, opened his medicine chest and his case of surgical instruments, the rest of the inhabitants of the village gathering round in a wide, silent, awestruck circle. They had often before seen similar sights, and were therefore in a measure accustomed to them; they knew what the patient’s condition meant, and there was not one among them who did not regard the injured man as already as good as dead. Nevertheless their curiosity was powerfully aroused; for they had heard many wonderful stories of the white men who had lately come into the country toward the south, and were eager to see whether or not it was true that they could perform miracles, as had been asserted.
As for Dick, he found himself confronted at the outset by a very serious difficulty. His patient’s condition was such that he could not possibly do what was necessary without inflicting upon the unfortunate man an amount of suffering that in his low and exhausted condition threatened to result in collapse and death. The man was too far gone, indeed, to justify the use of anaesthetics, yet without them Dick feared to proceed. What was he to do? Suddenly he bethought himself of hypnotism. Yet, how hypnotise a man whose language he could not speak? Then he remembered a very remarkable statement which Humphreys had made when discussing this same subject of hypnotism. “It is not the actual words which you address to a patient,” Humphreys had asserted, “but the commands which your will imposes on him that produce the desired effect, which can be obtained without the employment of words at all, if your will be strong enough. And remember, also, that no abnormal strength of will is needed if your patient be passive, unresisting.” “Surely,” thought Dick, “that ought to meet the present case, and at all events it is well worth trying; so here goes.” Therewith he bent over his patient and, fixing the man’s gaze in the peculiar manner which Humphreys had taught him, silently willed him to sink into so deep a sleep that he should feel nothing of what was about to be done to him. Almost immediately the man’s eyelids fluttered, closed, and he sank into a profound sleep, breathing slowly and deeply, as could be seen by the regular rise and fall of his bare, brawny chest.
“Wao! ’mtagati—’mkulu ’mtagati (a wizard—a great wizard)!” murmured the astonished crowd of onlookers behind their hands, gazing wonderingly in each other’s eyes.
Again Dick laid his fingers on his patient’s pulse; already it was stronger and more steady. Very gently he raised one of the man’s eyelids and lightly laid his finger upon the eyeball; the patient might have been dead for all the effect that the touch had upon him. Then, the warm water opportunely arriving, the young doctor got to work without further delay. Strongly impregnating the water with an antiseptic, he proceeded rapidly to cleanse the wounds, taking a pair of scissors or a knife from time to time and removing the already putrefying flesh; then he proceeded to dress the wounds, one after the other, with healing ointments, drawing the edges together, where necessary, with a few stitches; and when at length, after more than an hour’s diligent, careful work, his labours came to an end, he ordered the wagon cartel to be brought to the village, the door of the man’s hut to be enlarged, and a window opening to be made; and finally, when all these things had been done to his satisfaction, he caused a comfortable bed to be arranged upon the cartel, with skins borrowed from other huts, and the man to be laid thereon and taken back to his hut. And all this time the patient had been sleeping as calmly as an infant! The time had now, however, arrived when he must be aroused, in order that an anti-febrifuge might be administered; Dick therefore once more bent over the man, strongly willing him to awake, which he instantly did, when, through Jantje as interpreter, the question was put to him how he felt. He immediately replied, in a wonderfully strong voice, considering his condition, that he felt much better, and that his wounds were no longer so painful as they had been; whereupon Dick administered the draught, telling him, still through Jantje, that immediately after taking it he would again fall asleep and so remain until the evening, when he would awake much refreshed and stronger. And while the words were being spoken Dick strongly willed that they should be fulfilled. The man obediently gulped down the draught, Dick gently lowered the patient’s head to the pillow, and again deep sleep fell upon the poor fellow.
“Now,” ordered Dick, “I want two women to come and watch by this man. They must constantly fan him with leaves, to keep him cool and prevent the flies from troubling him; and when he wakes someone must immediately fetch me. I shall be in my tent by the wagon, yonder.” Then, turning to Grosvenor, who had remained at his elbow all the time, he said:
“No more trekking for us to-day, Phil, or for the next week, I expect. I must stay, and pull this poor chap through, if I can, now that I have taken him in hand.”
“Oh yes! rather; of course; that goes without saying,” cheerfully assented Grosvenor. “But, I say, Dick, old chap,” he continued, “you have astonished me to-day, fairly taken my breath away; I hadn’t the slightest notion that you were such a swell at your profession as you have just proved yourself to be. Never saw anything like it in my life before, y’know, and couldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Why, I wouldn’t have given three ha’pence for that Kafir’s life when I first set eyes upon him; but now, dash it all, I believe you’re going to set him on his feet again. If you do, your fame will spread far and wide through the country, and do us a lot of good. But, I say, it was a jolly lucky thing for you that the poor chap dropped off into that sound sleep just when he did, eh? Because it enabled you to do several things that, it seems to me, you couldn’t possibly have done had he remained awake. What puzzles me is that he continued to sleep all through it. And I noticed that you didn’t seem to worry in the least about whether you awoke him or not. I suppose it was sleep, was it not?”
“Oh yes!” answered Dick airily; “it was sleep, right enough; nothing in the nature of swoon about it, if that is what you mean. But now, what about those lions? My patient will sleep for several hours to come, and I can quite well leave him. It is now,”—consulting his watch—“only a few minutes past eleven o’clock, and we ought to be able to organise the hunt and bag the beasts comfortably before tiffin. Are you game?”
“You bet I am, rather!” responded Grosvenor. “It is just what I was itching to suggest, but I thought it would seem callous to propose that you should leave your patient, and it would not have been sporting to have proposed to go off alone, leaving you behind.”