Then began a bustling in the apparatus-room, and I saw that the three assistants had just come in. They stretched out the gagged monkey on the table, and fastened it solidly down; William thrust something under its nose.
Karl, with a morphia syringe, pricked the chimpanzee’s flank, then the tall old man, Johann, approached. He put his golden spectacles straight, with a hand which held a knife, and bent over the patient.
I cannot explain the operation so rapid was it, but in less than no time, the face of the chimpanzee was nothing but a hideous blur of red.
I turned away, sickened with a sense of discomfort—a discomfort caused by seeing blood. At last I turned my face back again. It was too late; the sun was striking on the windows, and I could not see for the dazzle; but in the courtyard, the dogs had left their boxes, and amongst them now Donovan Macbeth’s dog Nell was prowling about.
She was coughing. Her hairless skin no longer suggested the fine coat of a St. Bernard. The superb creature was nothing but a great carcass, whose leanness contrasted with the comparative plump shapes of her companions.
Nell, too, wore a bandage on the back of her neck. What had Lerne devised to make her suffer since the night of their adventure? What diabolical invention was he trying upon her?
Nell seemed to be reflecting; her very manner of walking suggested consternation. She held aloof from the other dogs, and when a certain bulldog accosted her in the way of gallantry, she started back with a look so fierce, and a hoarse cry so terrible, that the other hurried off to the depths of its lair, whilst the rest of the pack, put out of countenance, raised their bedizened heads.
The coy Nell went her way.
What was I doing, remaining there! In spite of my haste to shorten this reconnaissance, and betake myself to other pastimes, something held me back—something inexplicable in the behavior of this poor dog.
At this moment, a “quick-step” played by the band at Grey-l’Abbaye, reached Fonval on the wings of the wind. My fingers, of their own accord, beat time on the branches of my observation post, and I perceived that Nell had quickened her walk and was marching in time to the rhythm of the music!