When we approached the little semicircle of huts which I have described before, and in which poor Aunt Bab's negroes were lodged, there appeared no crowd round any of the doors, such as I had seen there on a preceding visit. On the contrary, all was now still and silent; and I could not but fear that the wounded man was dead. Mr. Thornton, however, judged better. "Oh, no!" he answered, when I expressed my apprehension; "they are most likely out in the field. If he were dead, you would hear noise enough. It is only with people educated to control their feelings that grief is silent. With these poor childlike creatures it is always noisy. But there is a horse's head between two of the huts. Perhaps Christy is with him." So it proved. The good surgeon was there, seated on a little stool by the poor man's side, with his fingers on the pulse, and his eyes half closed, almost as if he were dosing. A woman and a child were also in the cabin, standing at a little distance behind the surgeon. Though she was the man's wife, she was quite a young creature--almost a child herself--and she looked quite bewildered with grief and apprehension. We had opened the door without Doctor Christy moving or unclosing his eyes; but the moment Bessy Davenport entered, he started and looked up. "I knew it!" he cried. "I felt it in the poor devil's pulse. Miss Bessy, you have no right to make any one's pulse gallop so, has she, Sir Richard? Squire, your very humble servant. You have all come just in the nick of time, for I want help here. All the people are out in the field, and this poor girl is hardly able to help herself." "Oh, dear Miss Bessy, I'se so glad to see you, and with your own people too," cried the poor man. "You'se very good to come and see poor Ercles." "Hush!" said the doctor, "not a word, if you would have me save your life." "Oh, I knows I'se going to die any how, Mas'r Christy," said the man. "You shall die if you talk, and I won't try to save you," answered the doctor. "How hot his hand is!" said Bessy, who had gone up and taken the gigantic black hand in hers. "Yes," said the doctor, oracularly; "he has had great irritation all night, and is now somewhat low. But I have made up my mind to two things, since I have been sitting here, in the hope that some sensible person would come to help me. The first is, that no vital organ has been touched, though, as so often happens in wounds, all sorts of mortal places lay in the way. The second is, that two balls were in the gun, fired so near that they did not spread at all, and that one of them is still in the wound." "I feel it burning here, close to my back, mas'r," said Hercules, "I dare say you do," answered the doctor; "nothing else could produce the symptoms which I perceive. Now, I must get that bail out; and I want some one to hold his right arm down while I operate; for yesterday he _would_ move it. The poor fellow could not help it indeed--it was involuntary when he felt the pain."