“We don’t know.”

“Why?”

“They are bleeding.”

“But with what?”

“With a rake.”

“Where’s the murderer?”

“One on the head and the other on the arm.  Go in, they’re waiting for you; the women are there.”

So the commissaire went in and we followed.  We heard sobs, screams, and excited conversation and saw a jostling, curious mob.  People stepped on one another’s toes, dug one another’s ribs, cursed, and caused general confusion.

The commissaire got angry; but as he could not speak Breton, the garde got angry for him and chased the crowd out, taking each individual by his shoulders and shoving him through the door into the street.

When the room had been cleared of all except a dozen persons, we managed to discover in a corner, a piece of flesh hanging from an arm and a mass of black hair dripping with blood.  An old woman and a young girl had been hurt in the fight.  The old woman was tall and angular and had skin as yellow and wrinkled as parchment; she was standing up, groaning and holding her left arm with her right hand; she did not seem to be suffering much, but the girl was crying.  She was sitting on a chair with her hands spread out on her knees and her head bent low; she was trembling convulsively and shaking with low sobs.  As they replied by complaints to all our questions, and as the testimony of the witnesses was conflicting, we could not ascertain who had started the fight or what it was about.  Some said that a husband had surprised his wife; others, that the women had started the row and that the owner of the house had tried to kill them in order to make them stop.  But no one knew anything definite.  M. le commissaire was greatly perplexed and the garde perfectly nonplussed.

As the doctor was away, and as it might be that the good people did not wish his services, because it meant expense, we had the audacity to offer the help of our limited knowledge and rushed off for our satchels, a piece of cerecloth, and some linen and lint which we had brought with us in anticipation of possible accidents.

It would really have been an amusing sight for our friends, had they been able to see us spread out our bistoury, our pincers, and three pairs of scissors, one with gold branches, on the table of this hut.  The commissaire praised our philanthropy, the women watched us in awed silence, and the tallow candle melted and ran down the iron candle-stick in spite of the efforts of the garde, who kept trimming the wick with his fingers.  We attended to the old woman first.  The cut had been given conscientiously; the bare arm showed the bone, and a triangle of flesh about four inches long hung over it like a cuff.  We tried to put this back in its place by adjusting it carefully over the edge of the gaping wound and bandaging the arm.  It is quite possible that the violent compression the member was subjected to caused mortification to set in, and that the patient may have died.