A SERIOUS REPORT                   23
An extraordinary excitement seized me (the temperature was above 104 F.). Pain I felt none almost; and when I did feel it, it only provoked my wrath. Of course this burst of nervous irritation very soon gave out. Already half-way " thither " I was caught hold of by the arms, and " thence" I was carried all the way.
The situation turned out much more serious even than I imagined.
From the conversation of Dr Oki with his assistant (I have told already, in Rasplata, how I mastered the Japanese language and the Chinese grammar for a bet), I gathered that the inflammation of the lymphatic glands had spread, in consequence of the wound being very dirty (and this accounted for the pain in the waist and the knee) and in the wound itself mortification had set in ... The word "gangrene" (pronounced by the Japanese " gangoren ") figured very frequently in the doctor's conversation. The consultations resulted in a dilemma: on the one hand, science prescribed immediate amputation of the leg at the hip; but on the other hand, such a decision would be practically equivalent to a sentence of death, as in my state of utter bodily exhaustion, my heart would not have stood the strain of an anaesthetic, and