Gabriel murmured a confused reply, and hastened
on. She knew from the look which sentence in her
note had brought him. Bathsheba followed to the
field.
Gabriel was already among the turgid, prostrate forms.
He had flung off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves,
and taken from his pocket the instrument of salvation.
It was a small tube or trochar, with a lance passing
down the inside; and Gabriel began to use it with a
dexterity that would have graced a hospital surgeon.
Passing his hand over the sheep's left flank, and
selecting the proper point, he punctured the skin and
rumen with the lance as it stood in the tube; then he
suddenly withdrew the lance, retaining the tube in its
place. A current of air rushed up the tube, forcible
enough to have extinguished a candle held at the
orifice.
It has been said that mere ease after torment is de-
light for a time; and the countenances of these poor
creatures expressed it now. Forty-nine operations were
successfully performed. Owing to the great hurry
necessitated by the far-gone state of some of the flock,
Gabriel missed his aim in one case, and in one only --
striking wide of the mark, and inflicting a mortal blow
at once upon the suffering ewe.
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