“It’s no difficult matter to find that which one has in his hand, Major Dunwoodie,” replied the surgeon, coolly, preparing his dressings. “It took what that literal fellow, Captain Lawton, calls a circumbendibus, a route never taken by the swords of his men, notwithstanding the multiplied pains I have been at to teach him how to cut scientifically. Now, I saw a horse this day with his head half severed from his body.”
“That,” said Dunwoodie, as the blood rushed to his cheeks again, and his dark eyes sparkled with the rays of hope, “was some of my handiwork; I killed that horse myself.”
“You!” exclaimed the surgeon, dropping his dressings in surprise, “you!
But you knew it was a horse!”
“I had such suspicions, I own,” said the major, smiling, and holding a beverage to the lips of his friend.
“Such blows alighting on the human frame are fatal,” continued the doctor, pursuing his business. “They set at naught the benefits which flow from the lights of science; they are useless in a battle, for disabling your foe is all that is required. I have sat, Major Dunwoodie, many a cold hour, while Captain Lawton has been engaged, and after all my expectation, not a single case worth recording has occurred—all scratches or death wounds. Ah! the saber is a sad weapon in unskillful hands! Yes, Major Dunwoodie, many are the hours I have thrown away in endeavoring to impress this truth on Captain John Lawton.”
The impatient major pointed silently to his friend, and the surgeon quickened his movements.
“Ah! poor George, it is a narrow chance; but”—he was interrupted by a messenger requiring the presence of the commanding officer in the field. Dunwoodie pressed the hand of his friend, and beckoned the doctor to follow him, as he withdrew.
“What think you?” he whispered, on reaching the passage. “Will he live?”
“He will.”
“Thank God!” cried the youth, hastening below.