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Rh he had been able to win the first love of such a woman as Adela Austin.

On the other side of Fernandez, and facing the watchers, were three men who impressed Philip differently. One was a large-made, shambling-looking man with fiery blue eyes almost hidden, under white eyelashes, and heavy eyebrows of the same pale hue. His skin was freckled, his features lumpy, his hair red, and his great hands knuckly and seamed. He looked, what he undoubtedly was, a coarse and brutal ruffian. As they afterwards came to know, his name was Dennis MacBride, an Americanised Irishman.

The second from him was an old man, with long, silvery hair and full beard, which gave him a most benevolent appearance. His features were Jewish, the skin olive-tinted, yet waxy in their pallor, as one who had long existed, shut out from the light of day, as, indeed, he had, for he was an escaped prisoner from Siberia, by name Alexis Simonoff.

The third man was insignificant as to size, and swarthy almost to blackness, with features pinched and mean-looking, also deeply pitted with small-pox marks, large, famished-looking and wild, black eyes, and thin, straggly hair that appeared stuck on his face and head in detached patches. This was Pedro Yitroff, a man with a nature like a venomous snake, active and energetic in the cause, yet attached to no man. He had the face and the spirit of a devil.

The others were too smoke-enveloped to describe in detail, but they were orderly in their demeanour, and all well dressed. They listened attentively to what the doctor was saying, and bent their heads in token of their approval—that is, those who were awake; those who were asleep lay as calmly with their heads on