"There was no reply, and the hand did not stir. Apparently, the man
was bent upon ignoring me, but, as all I wished was to apologize for
my intrusion and to leave the house, I walked up to the alcove and
peered around it. Inside the screen was a divan piled with cushions,
and on the end of it nearer me the man was sitting. He was a young
Englishman with light-yellow hair and a deeply bronzed face. He was
seated with his arms stretched out along the back of the divan, and
with his head resting against a cushion. His attitude was one of
complete ease. But his mouth had fallen open, and his eyes were set
with an expression of utter horror. At the first glance, I saw that
he was quite dead.

"For a flash of time I was too startled to act, but in the same flash
I was convinced that the man had met his death from no accident, that
he had not died through any ordinary failure of the laws of nature.
The expression on his face was much too terrible to be
misinterpreted. It spoke as eloquently as words. It told me that
before the end had come he had watched his death approach and
threaten him.

"I was so sure he had been murdered that I instinctively looked on
the floor for the weapon, and, at the same moment, out of concern for
my own safety, quickly behind me; but the silence of the house
continued unbroken.

"I have seen a great number of dead men; I was on the Asiatic Station
during the Japanese-Chinese war. I was in Port Arthur after the
massacre. So a dead man, for the single reason that he is dead, does
not repel me, and, though I knew that there was no hope that this man
was alive, still, for decency's sake, I felt his pulse, and, while I