"What butchery!" one had afterwards exclaimed at a council of five called to discuss the enormity of the doctor's conduct and his growing record of outrages upon humanity. "To extract a portion of the intestines was madness and murder, for who can exist without intestines as God made them?--and his effrontery to put the blame upon the women who in the tenderness of their hearts had fed the youth on _dhal_ and rice for the restoration of his strength--_ai Khodar_! What harm was there ever in plain _dhal_ and rice? It was but an excuse, and now there is Gunesh Prosad without a son to inherit his estate, and all because of this man who is sent among us to cut up human bodies while they are yet alive!" "It is a great danger to us. Someone must teach this _Sarcari_ butcher of human flesh a lesson, or where might it not end?" another had remarked in complete sympathy. "But," put in a third cautiously, fearful of making himself unpopular by repeating the tale with which he was fit to burst, "didst hear of that legend concerning the coolie of Panipara _busti_ who went forth as a beater for the hunt, the time the Collector Sahib and others took long spears and killed wild boars? He was gored, and lay on the grass disembowelled, and as one dead. Quickly on hearing of the accident came the doctor Sahib in his _hawa-ghari_, himself at the wheel, and leaping out he knelt on the grass, and in a twinkling with strange gloves, and water in a _gumla_[15], he washed the coolie's intestines and restored them where they belonged, after which with a needle, even as a _darzi_ sews garments, he stitched up the wound! Those watching turned sick of stomach, but not so the doctor Sahib. Even the Collector Sahib turned his back and called for a glass of spirits. _Ai--Ma!_--how he did it was a miracle, but the man is at the hospital in the Station, recovering, and these are true words; on the head of my eldest born I swear I have repeated it just as it was told to me." [Footnote 15: Earthen receptacle.] "It is a fable; believe it not. More likely he is dead and his body already cremated." "Not so. I was told I could see him, if I willed, with mine own eyes. Many have journeyed to the Station so that they might with their own eyes behold him. The doctor Sahib may be unfeeling, even bloodthirsty, but he is devil-possessed with cunning to work magic." "Even so, he is a danger and should be removed. Who knows what excuse he might take to use the knife on thee and me and the little ones of our households? _Tobah!_ he is a wolf, not a man. And this one the _Sarcar_ has sent among us to mutilate, kill, and rob us of our comforts and rights. Soon, he will take away the _jhil_ from Panipara _busti_ so that the people will be put to the labour of dragging water out of deep wells, and for the washing of their garments, they will have to walk many _kos_ to the river!"