But one could not look upon his
cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the
fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow,
without reading Nature's plainest danger-signals. He took no
heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes's face
with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally
blended. "You fiend!" he kept on muttering. "You clever,
clever fiend!"
"Ah, Colonel!" said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar.
" 'Journeys end in lovers' meetings,' as the old play says. I
don't think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you
favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the
Reichenbach Fall."
The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance.
"You cunning, cunning fiend!" was all that he could say.
"I have not introduced you yet," said Holmes. "This, gentle-
men, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty's Indian
Army, and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has
ever produced. I believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that
your bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?"
The fierce old man said nothing, but still glared at my com-
panion.
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