The fountain stopped flowing on instant, for Dr. Vernet had squeezed the artery between a pair of forceps, and with deft fingers he began to bind it with a ligature of golden wire. I glanced from him to Sir Charles. He was now bending closely above the cavity in the subject's breast; the syringe had disappeared. He seemed to be sewing something in the hollow, but I could distinguish nothing for blood. Marion's sponge plied backwards and forwards with the regularity of a machine. "What are you doing now?" cried a voice beside me, so harsh and strained that I hardly recognized it. "Sewing up the punctured ventricle," replied Sir Charles with a sort of chuckle. "Some of your friends would be a bit surprised, eh, Cavanagh, if you told them that you saw a doctor patch a man's heart with thread and needle, as a sempstress might a rent gown!" Cavanagh uttered a hollow groan, and I turned just in time to catch him. He had swooned! I carried him to the other end of the room, where I laid him down upon the floor and hurriedly unfastened his collar and cravat. I was hot with rage, for I wished to witness the end of the operation; but I dared not leave him because of Marion. Even as I knelt to chafe his wrists, I heard Sir Charles address her sharply: "Now then, Marion, attend to me. The young fool is all right. Dagmar will look after him." I managed to awaken Cavanagh at last with a capsule I found clutched in his hand, but several precious minutes had been wasted, and we returned to the table only in time to see Sir Charles sewing up with golden wire the flap of muscle which had been the door of his more important work. The operation was over. The negroes were already starting to remove the carcase of the dead ape, whose life blood had been stolen to try and prolong the existence of its fellow creature, man! The other surgeons were grouped about the still living subject, but Sir Charles Venner was no longer in command. Dr. Fulton now held supreme authority. He occupied Venner's former post, and with one hand he fingered the subject's now unfastened wrists, while in the other he grasped a small hypodermic syringe. For some moments a deathly hush obtained, that was but intensified by the slow and stertorous breathing of the patient on the slab. Dr. Fulton's expression was strained and passionately anxious. It formed a curious contrast to Sir Charles Venner's stolid immobility. The others watched him, not the patient. That is to say, all but Marion. She had slipped an arm about George Cavanagh, and she was tenderly supporting him, oblivious of everything else. "Well?" asked Sir Charles at last. I gasped with relief to hear his voice. "Weaker; curse it!" replied Dr. Fulton. "Inject?" "No; last of all. The battery, quick, the glass stool!"