feeling that he had been peering at me through the carving in the
screen, and that he still was doing so. I moved my feet noisily on the
floor and said tentatively, 'I beg your pardon.'

"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