in a little brandy."

"Yes, do, for goodness' sake, man, before I go mad."

"Use this," said the professor, taking a little stoppered bottle from
his pocket.

"What is it--more poison?" cried Mr Burne.

"Ammonia," said the professor quietly.

"Humph!" ejaculated the patient; and he sat down on another stone, after
making sure that it did not cover an insect's nest, and had not been
made the roof of a viper's home.

Quite a crowd gathered round, to the old lawyer's great disgust, as he
prepared himself for the operation.

"Hang the scoundrels!" he cried; "anyone would think they had never seen
an old man's white leg before."

"I don't suppose they ever have, Mr Burne," said Lawrence.

"Why, you are laughing at me, you dog! Hang it all, sir, it's too bad.
Never mind, it will be your turn next; and look here, Lawrence," he
cried with a malignant grin, "this is a real bite, not a sham one. I'm
not pretending that I have been bitten by a snake."

"Why, Mr Burne--"

"Well, I thought it was, but it is a real bite. Here, you, Yussuf, hold
hard--what a deadly-looking implement!" he cried, as their guide bared
his long keen knife. "Look here, sir, I know I'm a dog--a giaour, and
that you are one of the faithful, and that it is a good deed on your
part to injure me as an enemy, but, mind this, if you stick that knife
thing into my leg too far, I'll--I'll--confound you, sir!--I'll bring an
action against you, and ruin you, as sure as my name's Burne."

"Have no fear, effendi," said Yussuf gravely, going down on one knee,
while the people crowded round.

"Cut gently, my dear fellow," said Mr Burne; "it isn't kabobs or tough
chicken, it's human leg. Hang it all! You great stupids, what are you
staring at? Give a man room to breathe--_wough_! Oh, I say, Yussuf,
that was a dig."

"Just enough to make it bleed, effendi. There, that will take out some
of the poison, and now I'll touch the place with some of this spirit."

"_Wough_!" ejaculated Mr Burne again, as the wound was touched with the
stopper of the bottle. "I say, that's sharp. Humph! it does not hurt
quite so much now, only smarts. Thank ye, Yussuf. Why, you are quite a
surgeon. Here, what are those fellows chattering about?"

"They say the Franks are a wonderful people to carry cures about in
little bottles like that."

"Humph! I wish they'd kill their snakes and insects, and not waste
their time staring," said the old gentleman, drawing up