It would really have been an amusing sight for our friends, had they
been able to see us spread out our bistoury, our pincers, and three
pairs of scissors, one with gold branches, on the table of this hut. The
_commissaire_ praised our philanthropy, the women watched us in awed
silence, and the tallow candle melted and ran down the iron candle-stick
in spite of the efforts of the _garde_, who kept trimming the wick with
his fingers. We attended to the old woman first. The cut had been given
conscientiously; the bare arm showed the bone, and a triangle of flesh
about four inches long hung over it like a cuff. We tried to put this
back in its place by adjusting it carefully over the edge of the gaping
wound and bandaging the arm. It is quite possible that the violent
compression the member was subjected to caused mortification to set in,
and that the patient may have died.
We did not know exactly what ailed the girl. The blood trickled through
her hair, but we could not see whence it came; it formed oily blotches
all over it and ran down into her neck. The _garde_, our interpreter,
bade her remove the cotton band she wore on her head, and her tresses
tumbled down in a dull, dark mass and uncoiled like a cascade full of
bloody threads.
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