blish the effect at
once of power and deformity; to which the yellow skin, high cheek-bones,
small eyes, and the thin black moustaches, drooping long and
perpendicular from each corner of the broken-toothed mouth, added an
expression of cruelty so unmitigated that Amaryllis turned sick at the
sight, closing her eyes in dreadful disgust; while the European leather
and cloth costume of a chauffeur not only added horror to the outlandish
figure, but gave Dick Bellamy almost the certainty that here was yet
another accomplice of Alban Melchard.

As the monster drew near, making his way savagely towards the stables,
there thrust himself in the way Bob Woodfall, the good-natured champion
of the village--six feet two inches and fourteen stone of bone and
muscle, good cricket and five years' war record, dressed in country-made
flannels, ready for his place in the Ecclesthorpe team.

"Hey, man!" he cried good-naturedly. "Be no manner o' sense bargin'
thro' decent throng like a blasty tank into half battalion o' lousy
Jerrys."

Then, quite close, the Malay turned his face full on Amaryllis, and Dick
saw that its right ear had a large gold ring hanging from a hole in the
lobe--a hole that was stretched by the mere weight of the metal to three
times the size of its thickness.

But on the left side of the head was no ring to match, for the reason
that no ear was there to support it. In some unclean strife in Hong-Kong
or Zanzibar it had been torn away, leaving, to mark its place, only the
orifice in the head, staring in ghastly isolation most horrible of all.

Amaryllis saw the face again, this time in its full lopsided
monstrosity, and turned to Dick, clutching him and hiding her eyes
against his shoulder.

Hearing her gasp, a woman in the crowd cried out:

"Howd t' heathen! He flays t' lasses, and he'll curd t' milk."

"Gi' 'im a flap on jaw, Bob Woodfall," cried a youth. "One's all '_e_'ll
take."

It was. Bob, perhaps, was too kindly to put his full weight into the
blow, and got no chance for a second.

With a savage cry, between a grunt and a squeal, the Malay ran in,
clutching with his great horny sailor's hands. Too quickly for any eye
but Dick's to see how it was done, he had Bob Woodfall by the nape of
the neck and the band of his trousers and lifted the long body high
above the crowd at full-length of his terrible arms, brandishing it
helpless, like some Mongolian Hercules a Norse Antaeus; took three steps
to th