“You will remember that I have an appointment, sir,” said the surgeon, with some irritation; “pray confine yourself to the necessary details.”

“You will see that it is necessary.  Today my wife fell down in a faint in the room in which I keep my wares, and she cut her lower lip upon this cursed dagger of Almohades.”

“I see,” said Douglas Stone, rising.  “And you wish me to dress the wound?”

“No, no, it is worse than that.”

“What then?”

“These daggers are poisoned.”

“Poisoned!”

“Yes, and there is no man, East or West, who can tell now what is the poison or what the cure.  But all that is known I know, for my father was in this trade before me, and we have had much to do with these poisoned weapons.”

“What are the symptoms?”

“Deep sleep, and death in thirty hours.”

“And you say there is no cure.  Why then should you pay me this considerable fee?”

“No drug can cure, but the knife may.”

“And how?”

“The poison is slow of absorption.  It remains for hours in the wound.”

“Washing, then, might cleanse it?”

“No more than in a snake bite.  It is too subtle and too deadly.”

“Excision of the wound, then?”

“That is it.  If it be on the finger, take the finger off.  So said my father always.  But think of where this wound is, and that it is my wife.  It is dreadful!”

But familiarity with such grim matters may take the finer edge from a man’s sympathy.  To Douglas Stone this was already an interesting case, and he brushed aside as irrelevant the feeble objections of the husband.

“It appears to be that or nothing,” said he brusquely.  “It is better to lose a lip than a life.”

“Ah, yes, I know that you are right.  Well, well, it is kismet, and it must be faced.  I have the cab, and you will come with me and do this thing.”

Douglas Stone took his case of bistouries from a drawer, and placed it with a roll of bandage and a compress of lint in his pocket.  He must waste no more time if he were to see Lady Sannox.

“I am ready,” said he, pulling on his overcoat.  “Will you take a glass of wine before you go out into this cold air?”

His visitor shrank away, with a protesting hand upraised.

“You forget that I am a Mussulman, and a true follower of the Prophet,” said he.  “But tell me what is the bottle of green glass which you have placed in your pocket?”

“It is chloroform.”

“Ah, that also is forbidden to us.  It is a spirit, and we make no use of such things.”

“What!  You would allow your wife to go through an operation without an anaesthetic?”

“Ah! she will feel nothing, poor soul.  The deep sleep has already come on, which is the first working of the poison.  And then I have given her of our Smyrna opium.  Come, sir, for already an hour has passed.”