t, with the curtains
hanging before the door (this was Saleh's room); and on the opposite
side, the guest chamber. I have not mentioned that there were four or
five children, all of whom had been turned out, as soon as we entered;
and threatened with terrible punishments, by their mother, if they made
any noise.

"When I finished my meal I went into the guest chamber, threw myself
down on the angareb there, and slept till sunset. When I awoke, I found
that a native doctor had come, and examined Saleh. He had approved of
what the woman had done, told told her to continue to poultice the
wound, and had given her a small phial, from which she was to pour two
drops into the wound, morning and evening. He said, what I could have
told her, that her husband was in the hands of Allah, If He willed it,
her husband would live.

"Of course, I had seen something of wounds, for in the old times--it
seems a lifetime back--when I was, for two years, searching tombs and
monuments with the professor, there had been frays between our workmen
and bands of robbers; and there were also many cases of injuries,
incurred in the work of moving heavy fragments of masonry. Moreover,
although I had no actual practice, I had seen a good deal of surgical
work; for, when I was at the university, I had some idea of becoming a
surgeon, and attended the courses there, and saw a good many
operations. I had therefore, of course, a general knowledge of the
structure of the human frame, and the position of the arteries.

"So far the wound, which I examined when the woman poured in what I
suppose was a styptic, looked healthy and but little inflamed. Of
course, a skilled surgeon would have probed it and endeavoured to
extract the ball, which had not gone through. The Soudanese were armed
only with old muskets, and it was possible that the ball had not
penetrated far; for if, as he had told me, he was some distance from
the square when he was hit, the bullet was probably spent.

"I told the woman so, and asked her if she had any objection to my
endeavouring to find it. She looked surprised.

"'Are you, then, a hakim?'

"'No, but I have been at Khartoum, and have seen how the white hakims
find which way a bullet has gone. They are sometimes able to get it
out. At any rate, I should not hurt him; and if, as is likely, the ball
has not gone in very far--for had it done so, he would probably have
died before he got home--I might draw it out.'

"'You can