CHAPTER III.
SAVED BY FIRE.
She looks up into his eyes; there is a set expression to be seen there, but his face is no whiter than before, although it must be a terrible shock to any man to see the imprint of a mad dog's teeth in the flesh of his arm.
"Oh, it has happened, the worst that could come about! What will you do, doctor ?" He is a man of medicine, and he knows full well what such a wound means.
"There is only one thing to be done.

Excuse me for a minute or two, Lady Ruth." He springs away from her side, and, turning with surprise, she sees him dart into the smithy of a worker in iron, just down the road a bit.
"Let us follow him!" says Philander.
"Poor, poor boy!" remarks Aunt Gwen.
"Oh, aunt! do you believe he will go mad ?" gasps the younger lady, in a trembling voice.
"I am afraid; I've known of cases that happened like this.

One thing's in his favor." "And that ?" "He wasn't bit in the face, or on the hand." "How does that matter ?" demands Sharpe.
She gives him a look of scorn.
Then, ignoring her spouse, she says, as if continuing her speech to Lady Ruth: "The dog's teeth went through several thicknesses of woolen cloth before entering the skin.

The fabric very probably absorbed the poison.

A rattlesnake's fangs are a different thing; they cut through the cloth and the poison is then injected from the hollow teeth or fangs." "Oh!" They have reached the smithy, and, standing in the door-way, witness a singular scene.
The smith is a brawny native Maltese, with a form a Hercules might envy.
He has just taken from the fire a slender rod of iron, one end of which is hissing hot, even red.
With this he advances upon John Craig, who has laid his arm, bared almost to the shoulder, upon a high window ledge.
Then the iron just touches the flesh, and a little gust of white smoke puffs up.
"Jove! the boy has grit," mutters Colonel Lionel, unable to restrain his admiration, even for a rival in love.
As if overcome with the sensation of inflicting such pain, the blacksmith shudders and draws back.
"Again, it is not near enough," cries John Craig.
The blacksmith shakes his head.
"I cannot," he says, in English.
"My life may depend on it, man.