He was an Aissouiyah
dancer, and had evidently overdone his part in the heat of enthusiasm;
there were no less than forty-three sword-cuts across his middle. After
receiving a handsome fee the doctor gave him some liniment which caused
exquisite pain: the patient writhed in agony.
[Illustration: Natives of Gafsa]
"That's good medicine," I heard Achmet telling him, reassuringly; "that's
strong. See how it hurts!"
For a while he bore up bravely, but the pain growing worse instead of
better, the doctor was at last persuaded, out of compassion and in return
for a second fee, to give him something with a more soothing effect.
But eye diseases are his speciality. His _piece de resistance_ is a Jewish
tradesman whom he has lately supplied with an admirable glass eye--a thing
almost unheard-of in these parts. This man and myself were sitting in the
shop not long ago when a Moroccan happened to be passing who had known him
in his one-eyed days; the stranger gave him a sharp look and then walked
swiftly away, apparently suspecting himself to be the victim of some
absurd hallucination as regards the new eye.
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