spital. This time the
man on the bed was a fine young Pathan of about twenty summers, and
his father--a greybeard, with handsome but stern features, and one
arm stiffened from an old sword-cut on the shoulder--accompanied the
bearers, carefully shielding his son's face from the sun with an old
umbrella. His was a long-standing feud with the malik of a village
hard by, and he had been shot through the thigh at long range while
tending his flocks on the mountain-side. It had happened four days ago,
but the journey being a difficult one, they had delayed bringing him;
and meanwhile they had slain a goat, and, stripping the skin off the
carcass, had bound it round the injured limb with the raw side against
the flesh. Under the influence of the hot weather the discharges
from the wound and the reeking skin had brought about a condition of
affairs which made bearers and bystanders, all except the father and
the doctor, wind their turbans over their mouths and noses as soon as
the hospital dresser began to unfold and cut through the long folds
of greasy pagari which bound the limb to an improvised splint and
that to the bed. It was a severe compound fracture of the thigh-bone,
with collateral injuries, and I called the father aside and said:
"The only hope of your son's life is immediate amputation. If I
delay, the limb will mortify, and he will certainly die." The old
man, visibly restraining his emotion, said: "If you amputate the leg,
can you promise me that he will recover?" "No," I said; "even then he
might die, for the injury is severe, and he is weak from loss of blood;
but without amputation there is no hope." "Then," said the father,
"let it be as God wills: let him die, for, by our tribal custom,
if he dies as he is I can go and shoot my enemy; but if he dies from
your operation then I could not, and I want my revenge." After this
they would not even accept my offer of keeping the wounded lad in
the hospital to nurse, but bore him away as they had brought him, so
that he might die at home among his people, and then--well, the mind
pictured the stealthy form crouching behind the rock; the hapless
tribesman of the other village with his rifle loaded and slung on
his shoulder right enough, but who was to warn him of his lurking
enemy? And then the shot, the cry, and exultation.

A man of the Khattak tribe was out on the hills with a friend after
mountain goats; he tracked one, but in following it up passed over into
th