The False Faces - Further Adventures from the History of the Lone Wolf by Louis Joseph Vance
page 42 of 346 (12%)
page 42 of 346 (12%)
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He paid no heed, his interest wholly focussed upon that distant patch of
shining water. As his dazzled vision cleared he saw that the submarine had disappeared. Unconsciously, in French, he commented: "So that is finished!" Likewise in French, but in a woman's voice of uncommon quality, deep and bell-sweet, came the protest from the passenger at his side: "But, monsieur, what are we doing? We turn away from them--those poor things drowning there!" That was quite true: under forced draught the _Assyrian_ was heading away on a new course. "They drown out there in that black water--and we leave them to that!" Lanyard turned. "The destroyers will take care of them," he said--"if any survived that explosion with strength enough to swim." He spoke from the surface of his thoughts and with a calm that veiled profound surprise. The woman by his side was neither the American widow nor her English daughter, but wholly a stranger to the ship's company he knew. The training of the Lone Wolf had been wasted if one swift glance had failed to comprehend every essential detail: that tall, straight, slender figure cloaked in the folds of a garment whose hood framed a face of singular pallor and sweetness in the moonlight, its shadowed eyes wide with emotion, its lips a little parted.... With a shiver she lifted her hands to her eyes as if to darken the visions |
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