"Yes. It was a poor fool of a Dane. He got into a row with somebody about the war. Said he would undertake to whip ten Deutschers single-handed; that he had done so many a time in the Schleswig-Holstein war. Then there was some fighting, and he was shot."
I spoke a few words to the policeman at the door, and was admitted. The saloon was empty but in the billiard-room at its rear I saw a doctor in his shirt-sleeves, bending over a man who lay outstretched on a billiard-table. A bartender was standing by with a basin of water and a bloody towel.
"Do you know his name?" I inquired of the police officer.
"They used to call him Danish Bill," he answered. "Have known him for a good while. Believe his real name was Danborg, or Dan—something."
"Not Dannevig?" I cried.
"Dannevig? Yes, I guess you have got it."
I hastily approached the table. There lay Dannevig—but I would rather not describe him. It was hard to believe it, but this heavy-lidded, coarse-skinned, red-veined countenance bore a cruel, caricatured resemblance to the clean-cut, exquisitely modelled face of the man I had once called my friend. A death-like stupor rested upon his features; his eyes were closed, but his mouth half open.
"By Jove!" exclaimed the physician, in a burst of professional enthusiasm, "what a splendid animal he must have been! Hardly saw a better made man in all my life."
"But he is not dead!" I protested, somewhat anxiously.
"No; but he has no chance, that I can see. May last over to-morrow, but hardly longer. Does any one know where he lodges?"