Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL _and Other Tales of Adventure_ A. CONAN DOYLE NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1918, 1919, BY A. CONAN DOYLE COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY ASSOCIATED SUNDAY MAGAZINES, INC. COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY THE MCCLURE COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1900, 1902, BY THE S. S. MCCLURE COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1894, D. APPLETON & COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS TALES OF ADVENTURE I DEBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE II THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL III BORROWED SCENES IV THE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL V THE GREAT BROWN-PERICORD MOTOR VI THE SEALED ROOM TALES OF MEDICAL LIFE VII A PHYSIOLOGIST'S WIFE VIII BEHIND THE TIMES IX HIS FIRST OPERATION X THE THIRD GENERATION XI THE CURSE OF EVE XII A MEDICAL DOCUMENT XIII THE SURGEON TALKS XIV THE DOCTORS OF HOYLAND XV CRABBE'S PRACTICE TALES OF ADVENTURE I THE DEBUT OF BIMBASHI JOYCE It was in the days when the tide of Mahdism, which had swept in such a flood from the great Lakes and Darfur to the confines of Egypt, had at last come to its full, and even begun, as some hoped, to show signs of a turn. At its outset it had been terrible. It had engulfed Hicks's army, swept over Gordon and Khartoum, rolled behind the British forces as they retired down the river, and finally cast up a spray of raiding parties as far north as Assouan. Then it found other channels to east and to west, to Central Africa and to Abyssinia, and retired a little on the side of Egypt. For ten years there ensued a lull, during which the frontier garrisons looked out upon those distant blue hills of Dongola. Behind the violet mists which draped them, lay a land of blood and horror. From time to time some adventurer went south towards those haze-girt mountains, tempted by stories of gum and ivory, but none ever returned. Once a mutilated Egyptian and once a Greek woman, mad with thirst and fear, made their way to the lines. They were the only exports of that country of darkness. Sometimes the sunset would turn those distant mists into a bank of crimson, and the dark mountains would rise from that sinister reek like islands in a sea of blood. It seemed a grim symbol in the southern heaven when seen from the fort-capped hills by Wady Halfa.