were ranging in the forest in quest of game. His companion took a poisoned
arrow and sent it at a red monkey in a tree above him. It was nearly a
perpendicular shot. The arrow missed the monkey, and in the descent struck
him in the arm a little above the elbow. He was convinced it was all over
with him. "I shall never," said he to his companion, in a faltering voice,
and looking at his bow as he said it, "I shall never," said he, "bend this
bow again." And having said that, he took off his little bamboo poison-box,
which hung across his shoulder, and putting it together with his bow and
arrows on the ground, he laid himself down close by them, bid his companion
farewell, and never spoke more.

He who is unfortunate enough to be wounded by a poisoned arrow from
Macoushia had better not depend upon the common antidotes for a cure. Many
who have been in Guiana will recommend immediate immersion in water, or to
take the juice of the sugar-cane, or to fill the mouth full of salt; and
they recommend these antidotes because they have got them from the Indians.
But were you to ask them if they ever saw these antidotes used with
success, it is ten to one their answer would be in the negative.

Wherefore let him reject these antidotes as unprofitable and of no avail.
He has got an active and deadly foe within him which, like Shakespeare's
fell Serjeant Death, is strict in his arrest, and will allow him but little
time--very, very little time. In a few minutes he will be numbered with the
dead. Life ought, if possible, to be preserved, be the expense ever so
great. Should the part affected admit of it, let a ligature be tied tight
round the wound, and have immediate recourse to the knife:

Continuo, culpam ferro compesce, priusquam
Dira per infaustum serpant contagia corpus.