"Don't cry! don't cry, my darling," I implored him, myself in tears.
"Don't let poor grandmama hear you! It will kill her." And Tioka tried
his best to cry more softly. We crossed the courtyard to the servants'
entrance, and I ran into the kitchen where the servants came thronging
round us in alarm.
"The dog--," I panted, "the dog has bitten us--do you think it will give
us hydrophobia?" With a groan I dropped little Tioka into a chair; he
was a pitiable sight in his torn and bloodstained garments.
The women and the two moujiks wrung their hands. "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!
What shall we do? With the master at Kieff and the Countess ill in bed!"
The cook had filled a basin with boiling water and was laving Tioka's
wounds, while he screamed with the redoubled pain.
I knew it was necessary to do something instantly. But what? I
remembered having read in the life of the three Brontë sisters that one
of those heroic girls had been bitten by a mad dog, and that she
herself, without disturbing her sister, who was ill with consumption,
had heated an iron red-hot and had cauterized her own wounds.
"Put an iron in the fire!" I said, pointing with trembling hand to the
poker.
The dismayed women did so, and I bared my arm and little Tioka's
lacerated shoulder.
But when I had the terrible instrument with its glowing point in my
hand, my courage failed. Tioka was shrieking with terror like a poor
little maddened creature, and the women were on their knees, weeping and
praying.
Alas, I am not a heroine; I threw away the red-hot iron; we bound up the
wounds--which, after they had been washed, looked insignificant and
harmless enough--and determined to go to Kieff at once and consult a
doctor. We went upstairs on tip-toe to my mother's room. She was still
sleeping quietly, with her small, pinched face sunk in the pillow.
We did not venture to wake her and tell her our terrifying story. We
left orders with the servants that they were to say my father had
summoned us to meet him in Kieff; and we started.
All the way I watched Tioka with the deepest anxiety. I also probed my
own feelings intently, wondering whether I felt any desire to bark. I
cannot say that I did. Also, during the entire journey, I kept on
showing Tioka glasses of water, but he did not seem to feel any the
worse for them; nor did I. This comforted us a little.
As soon as we reached Kieff I telegraphed to Prilukoff:
"_Both of us bitten by mad dog. What shall we do?_"