gument of the rawhide (_nagajka_)
to bring them to their senses. Three of them, cornered and flogged,
lifted the unconscious man and carried him toward the horse, the
soldiers, meanwhile believing me to be an officer, standing in the
attitude of attention. As the Bulgarians bore the Turk to the horse, a
few drops of blood fell to the ground. I noticed then that he had his
shirt tied around his left shoulder, under his jacket. Supported in the
saddle by two natives on each side, his head falling forward on his
breast, the wounded prisoner was carried with all possible tenderness to
the Stafford House hospital, near the Konak. As we moved slowly up the
hill I looked back, and saw the two guardsmen sitting on the muddy
sidewalk, with their guns leaning against their shoulders--too much
exhausted to go either way.

I found room for my charge in one of the upper rooms of the hospital,
where he was washed and put into a warm bed. His wound proved to be a
severe one. A Berdan bullet had passed through the thick part of the
left pectoral, out again, and into the head of the humerus. The surgeon
said that the arm would have to be operated on, to remove the upper
quarter of the bone.

The next morning I went to the hospital to see what had become of the
wounded man, for the incident of the previous evening made a deep
impression on my mind. As I walked through the corridor I saw a group
around a temporary bed in the corner. Some one was evidently about to
undergo an operation, for an assistant held at intervals a great cone of
linen over a haggard face on the pillow, and a strong smell of
chloroform filled the air. As I approached the surgeon turned around,
and recognizing me, with a nod and a smile said, "We are at work on your
friend." While he was speaking he bared the left shoulder of the wounded
man, and I saw the holes made by the bullet as it passed from the
pectoral into the upper part of the deltoid. Without waiting longer, the
surgeon made a straight cut downward from near the acromion through the
thick fibre of the deltoid to the bone. He tried to sever the tendons to
slip the head of the humerus from the socket, but failed. He wasted no
time in further trial, but made a second incision from the bullet-hole
diagonally to the middle of the first cut, and turned the pointed flap
thus made up over the shoulder. It was now easy to unjoint the bones,
and but a moment's work to saw off the shattered piece, tie the severed