"
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.
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