“Stop it!” I cried; “pull yourself together!” and I

poured out some water from a caraffe.


It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical outbursts which

come upon a strong nature when some great crisis is over and gone. Presently he

came to himself once more, very weary and pale-looking.


“I have been making a fool of myself,” he gasped.


“Not at all. Drink this.” I dashed some brandy into the water, and

the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks.


“That’s better!” said he. “And now, Doctor, perhaps you

would kindly attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb used to

be.”


He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even my hardened

nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four protruding fingers and a horrid

red, spongy surface where the thumb should have been. It had been hacked or

torn right out from the roots.


“Good heavens!” I cried, “this is a terrible injury. It must

have bled considerably.”


“Yes, it did. I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must have

been senseless for a long time. When I came to I found that it was still

bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very tightly round the wrist and

braced it up with a twig.”


“Excellent! You should have been a surgeon.”


“It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own

province.”


“This has been done,” said I, examining the wound, “by a very

heavy and sharp instrument.”


“A thing like a cleaver,” said he.


“An accident, I presume?”


“By no means.”


“What! a murderous attack?”


“Very murderous indeed.”


“You horrify me.”


I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered it over with

cotton wadding and carbolised bandages. He lay back without wincing, though he

bit his lip from time to time.


“How is that?” I asked when I had finished.


“Capital! Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man. I was