"Open his windpipe! Oh, doctor! It will kill him. Let me look at you."

She looked hard in his face. It gave her confidence.

"Is it the only chance?"

"The only one: and it is flying while we chatter."

"DO IT."

He whipped out his lancet.

"But I can't look on it. I trust to you and my Saviour's mercy."

She fell on her knees, and bowed her head in prayer.

Staines seized a basin, put it by the bedside, made an incision in
the windpipe, and got Dick down on his stomach, with his face over the
bedside. Some blood ran, but not much. "Now!" he cried, cheerfully, "a
small bellows! There's one in your parlor. Run."

Phoebe ran for it, and at Dr. Staines' direction lifted Dick a little,
while the bellows, duly cleansed, were gently applied to the aperture
in the windpipe, and the action of the lungs delicately aided by this
primitive but effectual means.

He showed Phoebe how to do it, tore a leaf out of his pocket-book, wrote
a hasty direction to an able surgeon near, and sent his wife off with it
in the carriage.