The Yellow Face

by Fred M. White

"I have been ill," he said. "Since my operation I have been accustomed to these kind of fainting fits. It was very good of you to come to my assistance."

"Not at all," Seymour said. "I was in my room on the other side of the corridor, and I heard you cry out. Is there anything more I can do for you?"

"Yes," the stranger said. There was a strange thrill in his voice. "Take off that mask of yours, and let me see my old friend Seymour once more. I should have recognized your tones anywhere."

"I am glad that my old chum Ferris should recognize me," Seymour said, in a voice that trembled a little. "But I dare say that you will wonder why I am here. I can assure you it is no coincidence. But what have you been doing to your face? The last time I saw you you were what I am now."

With a bitter laugh Seymour swept his disguise away, and the hideous likeness to Nostalgo stood confessed.

"There is a picture for you," Seymour laughed; "and upon my word you are not much better. Are you attempting to get rid of those damning marks that you and I are meant to carry to the grave--those marks of a scoundrel's vengeance?"

"But I shall not carry them to the grave," Ferris said. "My dear friend, if I had the pluck and courage you yourself possess, I should not have cared so much. But that scoundrel Anstruther haunts me like my own shadow. I managed to elude his search; I hid myself in London. He knew I was here somewhere, and he hit upon that devilish scheme for preying on my imagination. I am alluding to those Nostalgo posters. Most people regard them as no better than an ingenious advertisement, but the scalding truth is known to me. They meet my eye whenever I take my secret walks abroad; they deface the hoardings to remind me that I am still Anstruther's slave."

The speaker wiped his heated face. He made a more or less successful attempt to hide his deep feelings.

"I had almost lost hope," he continued. "I had made up my mind to be blackmailed to my last farthing by Anstruther, when fortune brought me in contact with a clever French doctor who had heard something of the vengeance of the Nostalgos. He assured me that he had treated one of us with absolute success. I found out that my young friend was a brilliantly clever surgeon, and after a little natural hesitation I decided to place myself in his hands. He operated upon the muscles of my face with a view to removing the hideous mask which disfigures what was once a passably good-looking face. The shock to my system was great, and I am but slowly recovering. But when I do recover, I feel quite certain that I shall be as I was before I fell into the hands of Anstruther's creatures in Mexico. I am a pretty sight now, I admit; but if you look at me you will see that the repulsive hideousness has gone."

Seymour gazed long and thoughtfully into the white face of his companion. There was a sudden uplifting of his heart, and the tears rushed to his eyes. It was no ordinary weakness that moved him like this.