by G. A. Henty
“But are you sure that he will live if you do it?”
“I am sure, lady, that the operation will not kill him. I believe that he will live, but that is in the hands of God. You see him now, the shock has prostrated him. He has but little life in him, and if he dies he will die from that and not from the taking off of his foot. But I do not think he will die, he is young and hardy, and on my faith as a Russian gentleman I believe that he will live.”
“It shall be tried,” the Buriat said abruptly. “God has doubtless sent you here at this moment. Why otherwise should a doctor be brought to my door when this has happened? Do as you will.”
Alexis felt the boy’s pulse. “I must wait,” he said, “until he has recovered somewhat from the shock. Give him some warm milk with a spoonful, not more, of vodka in it. Your men have taken the knives that I and my friend carried; they were specially made for this, and we shall need them. Do not fear as to the operation, it is the most simple in surgery. Let him have the milk at once. Let him remain quiet upon his back, and do not let him attempt to move his leg. Do not tell him about this, it would frighten and agitate him. If I had medicines that we use in our hospitals I could send him to sleep so that he would know nothing about it, and when he woke up would be ignorant that his foot had been removed; but as there is none of it within a hundred miles of us we must manage it as we best can. Please tell your men to release my friend, I shall need his assistance.”
After bidding the woman heat some milk at once the Buriat went out and ordered Godfrey’s guards to release him at once, and to restore to them their knives and all their other possessions. Alexis informed Godfrey of what had taken place, and what he proposed to do.
“The operation would be a very easy one if we had chloroform and proper implements. Unfortunately there is no chance of their having such a thing as a fine saw, and how in the world I am to make a clean cut through the bone I do not know. The knife that you carry is just the right thing for the job; but how about a saw? If we could have chloroformed him, we could, after making the cuts through the flesh, have put the leg on a log of wood and have cut clean through the bone with a chopper. It would not be a good plan, for it would probably splinter the bone, but it might have been tried, but without chloroform it is not to be thought of.”
Godfrey thought for a moment. “The knives are of a very good steel, Alexis?”
“Oh yes, of the very best steel!”
“Is it hard steel like that of a razor?”
“Yes, very much the same.”
“Then I should think it could be managed. I know the least thing will notch a razor. Now I should think if we took the large knife, and with my pocket-knife or with the edge of a hard stone notch the edge carefully all the way down, it would make a very good saw.”
“I should think it might do anyhow, Godfrey, and the idea is a very good one. Well, let us set about it at once. I can get a piece of fresh bone to try on; no doubt they kill a sheep here every day.”
They set to work and in ten minutes had notched the blade of the knife all the way down. Alexis had, as he expected, no trouble in obtaining a freshly-picked bone, and they found that the knife sawed through it very cleanly. Then Alexis went in to see the boy again. Before, he had been lying with his eyes half-closed, without a vestige of colour in his cheeks; the warm milk had done its work almost instantaneously, and he was perfectly conscious and there was a slight colour in his cheeks. His pulse had recovered strength wonderfully. Alexis nodded approvingly to the Buriat. He drew him outside the tent.
“If I were you,” he said, “I would send away all the people from the other huts. If the poor child screams they may get excited and rush in, and it is better that everything should be perfectly quiet. I should send away also the ladies, unless of course his mother particularly wishes to be with him; but it will be trying for her, and I own that I would rather not have anyone in the tent but you and my friend.”
The Buriat went inside; he returned in two or three minutes. “My wife will stay; my sister and the attendant will go.” Then he called to the men who were standing at the doors of their huts:
“The doctor says there must be silence for some time; he is going to do something and he wishes that all shall retire to a distance until I wave my hand for them to return. Will there be anything you want?” he asked Alexis.
“A large jug of warm water,” he said, “a bowl, and some soft rag—that is all. By the time that is ready I shall be. You will have to hold his leg, Godfrey,” he went on as the Buriat returned to his tent. “You must hold it just under the knee as firmly as possible, so as to prevent the slightest movement. But I am going to try to mesmerize him. I have seen it done with perfect success, and at any rate it is worth trying. In the weak state he is in I ought to be able to succeed without difficulty. Now I want a couple of small flat stones with rounded edges, a strip of soft skin, and a bit of stick three or four inches long and as thick as your finger, to make a tourniquet with.”
By the time that these were ready a perfect stillness reigned in the camp. The whole of the natives had gone away to a distance of over a quarter of a mile, and were sitting in a group watching the tents, and, Godfrey had no doubt, debating hotly as to the folly of allowing a stranger to have anything to do with the son of their employer. He now followed Alexis into the tent, where all was in readiness. The child’s head was slightly raised by a skin folded and placed under it. His mother knelt beside him.
“What do you wish me to do?” the Buriat asked.
“I wish you to stand beside him and aid his mother to hold him should he struggle, and I may need you to dip the rag into the warm water, squeeze it out, and give it me.”
“Of course he will struggle,” the Buriat said; “we men can bear pain, but a child cannot.”
“I am going to try to put him to sleep,” Alexis replied; “a sleep so sound that he will not wake with the pain. I do not say that I shall be able to, but I will try.”
The Buriat looked at Alexis as if he doubted his sanity. That a Russian doctor should be able to take off the child’s leg was within his comprehension. He had once seen a man in the street of Irkutsk with only one arm, but that anyone could make a child sleep so soundly that he would not wake under such an operation seemed to him beyond the bounds of possibility.
“Tell the child that I am going to do him good,” Alexis said to the mother, “and that he is to look at my eyes steadily.” He placed himself at the side of the couch and gazed down steadily at the child; then he began to make passes slowly down his face. For three or four minutes the black eyes looked into his unwinkingly, then the lids closed a little. Alexis continued his efforts, the lids drooped more and more until they closed completely. He continued the motions of his hand for another minute or two, then stooping he lifted an eyelid; the eye was turned upwards, so that the iris was no longer visible.
“Thank God, he has gone off!” he said. “Now for the tourniquet. That is right; twist gradually now, Godfrey, and place the stone on the main artery. Now,” he said to the Buriat, “hold this stick firm with one hand and place the other on his chest to prevent his moving. Do you lay your arm across him,” this to the mother; “that is right. Kneel with your face against his. Now, Godfrey, grasp the leg just below the knee and hold it firmly.”
Godfrey did so, and then shut his eyes as he saw the doctor about to use the knife, expecting to hear a piercing scream from the child. There was no sound, however, and in a very few seconds he heard Alexis utter a low exclamation of satisfaction. He looked now; the flesh was already cut through and no cry had escaped the child. Another moment the foot and the lower portion of the leg came away at the point where the bone was crushed; then Alexis pushed the flesh upwards so as to expose another inch of the shin-bone, and then took the saw and cut through it. Some strands of silk lay close to his hand; with a long needle he took up the ends of the arteries and tied them with the silk; then he took hold of the stick of the tourniquet and loosened it a l
ittle. The result was satisfactory; the arteries were securely tied. Then he tightened it again and gave it to the Buriat to hold, wiped the wound with the damp rag, drew down the flesh over the end of the bone, brought up the flap of flesh from behind, and with a few stitches sewed it in its place.
“It is all done,” he said, rising to his feet. Then he passed his hand several times across the child’s forehead. “Tell him softly, when he opens his eyes,” he said to the mother, “that he will soon be well now, and that he must go to sleep.” He continued the passes for some time, occasionally lifting the eyelid. “He is coming round now,” he said at last. A few more passes and the child drowsily opened its eyes. His mother spoke to him softly, and with a faint smile he closed them again. Alexis stood quietly for another minute or two. “He is asleep now,” he said to the Buriat; “you need hold him no longer.”
The tears were running down the man’s cheeks; he seized one of the hands of Alexis and pressed it to his lips, while the mother, sobbing with joy, did the same to the other. To them it seemed almost a miracle.
“Have some milk kept warm,” Alexis said, “and give it to him when he awakes. Do not tell him anything about his foot having been taken off. Keep a blanket lying over him so that he will not see it It is well that he should not be agitated, but tell him that he must lie perfectly quiet and not move his leg, as it would hurt him if he did so. Now, chief, it would be as well if you called the others back and told your servant to get some breakfast, for my friend and I have had nothing to eat since your men woke us this morning.”
The Buriat went outside the tent and waved a blanket, and the others came running in at the signal.
“Tell them not to make a noise,” Alexis said; “the longer the child sleeps quietly the better.”
The Buriats uttered exclamations of the most profound astonishment when the chief told them that the Russian doctor had taken off the leg of the child without his feeling the slightest pain, and that there was every hope of his speedily recovering, whereupon they looked at Alexis with a feeling of respect amounting to awe. A sheep was at once killed, skinned, cut up, and placed in a great cooking pot over a fire; but long before this was done two great bowls of hot milk were brought out by the Buriat to Alexis and Godfrey, to enable them to hold on until the meal was prepared. At his order the men at once set about erecting a tent for them close to his own, and as soon as this was up, piles of soft skins were brought in.
“That has been a lucky stroke indeed, Godfrey,” Alexis said as they took possession of their new abode.
“It has indeed, Alexis. Nothing could have been more providential. We are in clover as long as we choose to stop here. Do you think the child will recover?”
“I think there is every hope of his doing so. These natives are as hard as nails. I don’t suppose the child has ever had a day’s illness in his life, and in this pure dry air there is little fear of the wound doing badly. The next thing to do is to make him a pair of crutches to get about with till he can bear to have a wooden stump on. The only nuisance is that we shall be delayed. As a doctor, I cannot very well leave my patient till he is fairly on the road towards recovery.”
“Certainly not,” Godfrey agreed. “Well, I daresay we shall put away the time pleasantly enough here.”
Half an hour later two horses were brought up, and these with their saddles and bridles were presented by the Buriat to his guests, and were picketed by their tent. The next three weeks passed pleasantly; they rode, hunted, and shot. The little patient made rapid progress towards recovery, and at the end of that time was able to get about on two crutches Godfrey had made for him.
“It is better that you should make them, Godfrey, and also the wooden leg when he is ready for it,” Alexis had said. “It is just as well that their gratitude should be divided a little, so I will hand that part of the work over to you.”
The Buriats were delighted indeed when they saw the child hopping about the camp with his crutches, and their gratitude knew no bounds to their guests. Alexis had made no secret to the Buriat of their intention of trying to make their way to Pekin. He endeavoured in every way to dissuade them from it.
“You will never find your way across the desert,” he said, “and will die for want of water. The people are wild and savage. They are ruled by their lamas, and if they do not put you to death, which they would be likely to do for what you have, they will certainly send you back to Kiakhta and hand you over to the Russians there; and even if you got through the desert the Chinese would seize you and send you back. It would be madness to try. It would be better than that to go south and make for Thibet, although even that would be a desperate expedition. The tribes are wild and savage, the desert is terrible for those who do not know it. You would never find the wells, and would perish miserably of thirst even if you escaped being killed by the tribesmen. Still your chances would be greater than they would be of reaching Pekin. But you had far better make up your minds to live here. I will give you flocks and herds. You should be as of my family, and you, Alexis, should marry my sister, who is rich as well as pretty, for she owns a third of all the flocks and herds you see.”
Alexis warmly thanked the Buriat for the offer, but said they must take time to consider it. “One might do worse,” he said, laughing, to Godfrey when they were alone. “The women are certainly a great deal better-looking than the men, and the girl would be considered fair-looking even in Russia. At any rate it would be vastly better being a Buriat here than being inside that prison at Irkutsk.”
“I agree with you there, Alexis; but it would be horrible being cut off here from the world for life.”
“But one is cut off in prison, Godfrey; and though I agreed to share your attempt I have never been very hopeful about its success, and I am still less hopeful now from what I hear of the difficulties ahead of us. As I said when you first talked of it, there must be some frightful difficulties here, or this would be the way by which convicts would always try to escape, and yet we have never heard of one doing so.”
“Yes, I begin to think myself I have made a mistake, Alexis, in choosing this route instead of a northern one. Besides, we shall have winter upon us in a very few weeks now, which would of course add tremendously to our difficulties. But you are not seriously thinking of stopping here, are you?”
“I don’t know, Godfrey. You see you have got a home and friends waiting for you if you do get away, I have nothing but exile. I do believe we shall never succeed in getting out through China, and I think we couldn’t do better than stop here for a year or two. By the end of that time we may succeed in establishing relations by means of this Buriat with some of the tea merchants at Kiakhta, and getting one of them to smuggle us through with a caravan; but, at any rate, if you still hold to going I shall go too. I have no intention of deserting you, I can assure you.”
In another fortnight Godfrey had made a stump for the child. The hollow was lined with sheepskin to take off the jar, and it strapped firmly on to the limb. The wound was not quite sufficiently healed yet for the child to use it regularly, but when on first trying it he walked across the tent the joy of his father and mother knew no bounds.
They had only been waiting for this to make a move, for the pasture had for some time been getting short, and on the following day the tents were pulled down, and for three days they journeyed east, and then finding a suitable spot again pitched their tents. They were now, as the Buriat told them, only some thirty miles from Kiakhta. Godfrey and Alexis had talked matters over during the journey. They agreed that the season was now too late for them to think of attempting the journey until the following spring, and had almost concluded that the attempt to get through China should be altogether abandoned. Going north there were the rigour of the climate and the enormous distances as obstacles, but the passage would be chiefly by water. There was no danger from the tribes they would have to pass through, no difficulties such as they might meet with from the opposition of the Chinese, and they had pretty w
ell resolved to pass the winter with the Buriats and to make a start in the spring.
Their host was greatly pleased when they informed him of their intention at any rate to spend the winter with them, for he hoped that before the spring Alexis would have made up his mind to accept his offer, and to settle down as a member of the tribe.
The day after the Buriats pitched their fresh camp one of the men reported that he had seen a large bear at the edge of a forest two miles from the huts. Alexis and Godfrey at once took their guns, borrowed a couple of long spears and two hunting knives, and started for the wood, the native going with them to show them the exact spot where he had seen the bear. There was a good deal of undergrowth about, and they thought it probable that the animal was not far off. The Buriat had brought a dog with him, and the animal at once began sniffing the ground. His master encouraged it, and presently it started, sniffing the ground as it went. It had gone but a few hundred yards when it stopped before a thick clump of bushes and began growling furiously. They had a short consultation, and then the two friends took up their post one at each corner of the bushes, while the Buriat went round to the rear of the clump with his dog and began beating the bushes with his stick, while the dog barked and yelped. A minute later a bear broke out of the bushes within four yards of Alexis.
The Russian levelled his gun. Godfrey heard a report far louder than usual, and something flew close to his head. A moment later he saw Alexis struck to the ground by the bear. Godfrey rushed up, and fired when within two paces of the animal, which with a fierce growl turned upon him. He sprang aside and plunged his spear deep into its side. The bear struck at the handle and broke it in two, and then rose on its hind-legs. Godfrey drew his knife and awaited its rush, but it stood stationary for half a minute, swayed to and fro, and then fell on its side. Godfrey leaned over it and plunged his knife in deep behind its shoulders, pressing it until the blade disappeared. Then feeling certain it was dead he ran to Alexis, who lay motionless on the ground. By the side of him lay the stock of the gun and a portion of the barrel; it had exploded, completely shattering the Russian’s left hand. But this was not his only or even his most serious injury. The bear had struck him on the side of the head, almost tearing off a portion of the scalp and ear.
