Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1918-01-11
CHAPTER xI.-continued.


=
"Are there devils in Tophet? Fire
and my veins are one!''
The man did not notice the eager
ness beaming out of Kings horn
trimmed spectacles, but Ismail did; it
seemed to him time to prove his vir-
tues as assistant.
sThis is the famous hakim Kurram
Khan.' he boosted. sHe can cure any
thing, and for very little fee!"
The man looked incredulous, but
King drew the covering from his row
eff instruments and bottles.
'aTake chancel" he advised. "None
but the brave wins anythingi"
Ismail and Darya Khan were new to
had the man down, held tight on the
floor to the huge amusement of the
rest, before he could even protest; and
his bowls of rage did him no good, for
Ismail drove the hilt of a knife be-
tween his open jaws to keep them open.
A very large proportion of Kings
stores consisted of morphia and CO.
Cdlu0s AC 1uJCCLCO CAOuSA COEdlAC "
deaden the mans nerves, and allowed
1t time to work. Then he drew out
three back teeth in quick succession,
to make sure he had the right one.
Ismail let the victim up, and Darya
Khan gave him water in a brass cup.
Utterly without pain for the first time
for days, the man was as grateful as
q wolf freed from a trap.
"Are there any others in pain in
Khinjan?" King asked him.
Listen to him! What is Khinjan?
Is there one man without wound or
sore or scar or a sickness?"
''Then, tell them,' said King.
The man laughed.
'When show my jaw, there will be
a fight to be first Make ready, hakim
I go!"
King sat down to eat, but he had not
finished his meal-he had made the
last little heap Of rice into ball with
his fingers, native style, and was mop
ping up the last of the curried gravy
with it-when the advance guard of
the lame and the halt and the sick
made it's appearance. The caves en-
trance became damned with them, and
no riot ever made more noise.
"Hakiml Ho, hakiml Where is the
hakim who draws teeth? Where is the
man who knows yunani?"
Ten men burst down the passage all
together, all clamoring, and one man
wasted no time at all but began to tear
away bloody bandages to show his
wound. King rolled up his sleeves and
began, so that eagerness gave place to
wonder. The desperate need of winning
his first trick, made him horror-proof;
and nobody waiting for the next turn
was troubled because the man under
the knife screamed a little or bled
more than usual.
When they died-and more than one
did die-men carried them out and
dung them over the precipice into the
waterfall below.
Ismail and Darya Khan became
choosers of the victims. They seized a
man, laid him on the bed, tore of his
disgusting bandages and held their
breath until the awful resulting stencil
had more or less dispersed. Then
King would probe or lance or bandage
as he saw fit, using anesthetics when
he must, but managing mostly without
them.
They almost flung money at him. He
tossed money and clothes and every
other thing they gave him into corner
at the back Of the cave, and nobody
tried to steal them back, although a
man suspected OF honesty in that
company would have been tortured to
death as an hereto and would have
had no sympathy.
For hour after gruesome hour he
toiled over wounds and sores such as
only battles and evil living can pro-
duce, until men began to come at last
with fresh wounds, all caused by bull
lets, wrapped in bandages on which
the blood bad caked but had not grown
foul.
''There has been fighting in the Khy-
ber," somebody informed him, and he
stopped with lancet in midair to listen.
scanning a hundred faces swiftly in
the smoky lamplight. There were ten
men who held lamps for him, one of
them a newcomer, and It was he who
spoke.
"Flghting in the Khyber! Aye! We
were little laShkar, but we drove