"He had quietly opened his instrument-case in the dark, taken out a lancet, and severed his femoral artery.

Sheer panic, do you see, at the whistle of a bullet." Even upon these men, case-hardened to horrors, the incident related in its bald simplicity wrought its effect.

From some there broke a half-uttered exclamation of disbelief; others moved restlessly in their chairs with a sort of physical discomfort, because a man had sunk so far below humanity.

Here an officer gulped his wine, there a second shook his shoulders as though to shake the knowledge off as a dog shakes water.

There was only one in all that company who sat perfectly still in the silence which followed upon the story.