The Yellow Face

by Fred M. White

The woman stopped, and passed her hand across her face just as one does who wakes from an evil dream. And in sooth she had cause enough for her astonishment. Where two bodies had been locked in a death struggle a minute before, only one remained now. The other had vanished utterly. And it needed only a cursory glance to see that the form lying there was not the misshapen outline of Nostalgo.

"This is amazing," the fair stranger said, as she bent over the body of the unconscious man. She did not appear to be the least afraid now; all her coolness had come back to her; she suggested a trained nurse on the battlefield. "Surely my eyes did not deceive me, surely I saw two men in a death struggle there as I came into the courtyard?"

"There is not the slightest doubt about that," Jack murmured. "Why, we were actually watching the fight at the very moment you opened the door. Do you know who this fellow is?"

The lady shook her head, but Jack noticed that she did not repudiate all knowledge of the stricken man.

"I can tell you if you want to know," she said , "but we can discuss that point later on. What we want to know now is how far this man has suffered from his injuries."

Heedless of the dust and dirt, heedless of her resplendent attire, the lady had thrown herself on her knees beside the prostrate body. She laid her hand upon his heart, and bent her head down listening intently.

"At all events he is not dead," she said , "neither can I see any sign of a wound. He has evidently been stunned by some tremendous blow. Ah! see, he stirs."

The injured man opened his eyes in a feeble, spasmodic kind of way, and gazed languidly about him. Rigby, fully alive to the possibilities of the situation, grasped Jack by the arm.

"My dear fellow," he exclaimed, "you say you know that man, and naturally he knows you. Do you think it wise to remain in sight, and thus give him a chance to recognize you?"

Redgrave lay as if lost to all consciousness once more. Despite her dreamy, Madonna-like face, the strange lady was not blind to the danger of the situation.