The surgeon comes with his assistants. Little Najib is laid on the table; the chloroform towel is applied; the scalpels, the cotton, the basins of hot water, and other accessories, are handed over by one doctor to another.
The Cutter begins.
- Shakib is there watching with the rest;
- Najma is in an adjacent room weeping;
- and Khalid is pacing up and down the hall, his brows moistened with the cold sweat of anguish and suspense.
No pus between the scalp and the bone: the little hammer and chisel are handed to the Cutter. One, two, three—the child utters a faint cry; the chloroform towel is applied again;—four, five, six, and the seventh stroke of the little hammer opens the skull. The Cutter then penetrates with his catheter, searches thoroughly through the brain—here—there—above—below—and finally holds the instrument up to his assistants to show them that there is—no pus! “If there be any,” says he, “it is beyond the reach of surgery.” The wound, therefore, is quickly washed, sewn up, and dressed, while everybody is wondering how the great Celebrity can be wrong. …
Little Najib remains under the influence of anaesthetics for two days—for two days he is in a trance. And on the third, the fever mounts to the danger line and descends again—only after he had stretched his little arm and breathed his last!
And Khalid and Najma and Shakib take him out to the desert and bury him in the sand, near the tent round which he used to play. There, where he stepped his first step, lisped his first syllable, smacked his first kiss, and saw for the first time a star in the heaven, he is laid; he is given to the Night, to the Eternity which Khalid does not fear. And yet, what tears, Shakib tells us, he shed over that little grave.