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"All right," said Alan, who through the eyeholes of his mask had been studying the walls to seek a spot in them that could be climbed if necessary, and found none. So they returned to the room, which had been swept and garnished in their absence.
The curtains slowly moved under the wind, which made its way in through a cracked pane of glass, and the wax-tapers caused shadows to oscillate above the corpse's skull and also above the painted face. An earthy colour made them equally brown. The cheek-bones were consumed by mouldiness, the eyes no longer possessed any lustre; but a flame shone above them in the eyeholes of the empty skull.
The lock gave way, and the door swung inward. Wade sprang back and caught up a chair. Framed in the door, silhouetted against the outer blackness, appeared a man. His hat was pulled low over his eyes. A handkerchief cut with eyeholes concealed his face. His right hand held a six-shooter, with which he covered Wade. Back of him, pressing forward, were other armed men.
Three wax tapers burned at the side of the table pushed against the wall beneath the portrait of Père Bouvard, above which rose the death's-head. They had even stuffed a candle into the interior of the skull, and rays of light shot out through the two eyeholes. In the centre, on a chafing-dish, incense was smoking.
The solitude and the stillness of the long dormitory could not be borne any longer; the ghastly white beds were turning into spectres the coronal of each became a death's- head, huge and sun-bleached dead dreams of an elder world and mightier race lay frozen in their wide gaping eyeholes.
When they had gone the Asika looked at this man in a reflective way, and Alan looked at him also through the eyeholes of his mask, finding him well worth studying. As has been said, notwithstanding his paint and grotesque decorations, he was very good-looking for a native, with well-cut features of an Arab type. Also he was tall and muscular and not more than thirty years of age.
Meanwhile that heavy oaken door had closed on a narrow cell, bare of everything which could be supposed to be a matter of convenience in the abode of a human being. A table of the rudest and most primitive construction was garnished with a skull, whose empty eyeholes and grinning teeth were the most conspicuous objects in the room.
The Crown Prince had never met any one with so many varied attainments. He gazed through the eyeholes, which were rather too far apart, in rapt admiration. "As you haven't got a belt," Bobby said generously, "I'll give you the rifle. Ever hold a gun?" "Oh, yes," said the Crown Prince.
Next, from an inner pocket he drew a pocket-book, out of the first division of which dropped a black mask, like those worn at the assault upon Marnhoul, with pierced eyeholes and strings for fastening behind the ears. There were also a few papers and a card on which was printed a name
Seen in the light, his face seemed more ghastly bony still; and as he glanced for a moment at my little ivory he made a sound of contempt I know it was contempt. I thought it rather cheek, coming into my place and He turned his cavernous eyeholes on me. "I don't want anything of that sort. I want you to photograph me. I'll be here at ten in the morning."
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