‘Not to snatch a man from the jaws of death, not to achieve a triumph in medical science, not to prove how far this nineteenth century of ours is ahead of the learned Middle Ages, when the best cure surgery could invent for a sick emperor was to wrap him in the skin of an ape, flayed alive?’ ‘Science is a grand thing,’ admitted Dr. Saunders, ‘but I am no friend to rash experiments. And even if I were willing to try the operation upon that poor fellow yonder--who is bound to die, so there’s not much risk for _him_--where am I to find the benevolent subject willing to part with sufficient blood?’ ‘Here,’ answered Cyril. ‘I am ready for your lancet.’ CHAPTER XVIII. ‘SICK, SICK TO THE HEART OF LIFE AM I.’ ‘HAVE you thought of the danger to yourself?’ asked the doctor, startled by Cyril’s proposition. ‘I do not care about the danger--if there be any.’ ‘There may be danger. You have been working night and day. You are by no means a patient I should consider able to lose several ounces of blood with impunity. You had better abandon the idea, Mr. Culverhouse. Your life is more valuable than that poor fellow’s yonder.’ ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Cyril. ‘That young man is all the world to his widowed mother. I am all the world to nobody.’ ‘But you are valuable to a great number of people. Think how much good you have already done in this heathenish town. And you may go on being useful to your fellow-men for the next fifty years, if you do not waste your strength and health upon some benevolent folly. Joyce is in the hands of Providence. Medicine has done all that it can for him.’ ‘Medicine. Yes--meaning drugs. But science has done nothing. I believe that science can save him. Will you perform this operation, Mr. Saunders, yes or no?’ ‘What if I say no?’ ‘I shall go to every doctor in Bridford--down to the cattle doctors--till I find the man who will do it.’ ‘By the time you get to the end of your journey poor Joyce will have started for the other world. But come, if you are absolutely bent upon this--stay, let me feel your pulse. So strong and full. Yes, I think we might risk it. But you must have a cab ready at the end of the alley to take you home. You will be weak and faint after the operation; and you will have to rest for an hour or so at Joyce’s before we move you.’ ‘I’ll go and order a cab while you go and get the instruments for the transfusion. There is no time to be lost. If that poor fellow sinks into a state of collapse our efforts will be useless.’ Mr. Saunders went to his surgery, which was not far off, to fetch all that was required for the experiment. He was governed and impelled by a firmer spirit than his own, or he would hardly have done this thing.