that I have not even had time to
write. After I had finished my story so far, Saleh's slave woman took
me to Abdullah's house. I found that he was in a state of high fever,
but all I could do was to recommend that a wet rag should be applied,
and freshly wetted every quarter of an hour; that his head should be
kept similarly enveloped, in wet bandages; and that his hands should be
dipped in water very frequently.

"When I got back, I found several women waiting outside Saleh's house.
His wife had gossiped with a neighbour, and told them that I had got
the bullet out of his wound. The news spread rapidly, and these women
were all there to beg that I would see their husbands.

"This was awkward. I certainly could not calculate upon being
successful, in cases where a bullet had penetrated more deeply; and
even if I could do so, I should at once excite the hostility of the
native hakims, and draw very much more attention upon myself than I
desired. In vain I protested that I was not a hakim, and had done only
what I had seen a white hakim do. Finding that this did not avail, I
said that I would not go to see any man, except with one of the native
doctors.

"'There are two here,' one of the women said. 'I will go and fetch
them.'

"'No,' I said; 'who am I, that they should come to me? I will go and
see them, if you will show me where they live.'

"'Ah, here they come!' she said, as two Dervishes approached.

"I went up to them, and they said: 'We hear that you are a hakim, who
has done great things.'

"'I am no hakim,' I said. 'I was just coming to you, to tell you so.
The man I aided was a friend, and was not deeply wounded. Having seen a
white hakim take bullets from wounded men, I tried my best; and as the
bullet was but a short way in, I succeeded. If I had had the
instruments I saw the infidel use, it would have been easy; but I had
to make an instrument, which sufficed for the purpose, although it
would have been of no use, had the bullet gone in deeper.'

"They came in and examined Saleh's wound, the bullet, and the tool I
had made.

"'It is well,' they said. 'You have profited by what you saw. Whence do
you come?'

"I told the same story that I had told Saleh.

"'You have been some time at Khartoum?'

"'Not very long,' I said; 'but I went down once to Cairo, and was there
some years. It was there I came to know something of the ways of the
infidels. I am a poor man, and very ignorant; but if you will