In view of these and other sinister occurrences it is not surprising
that a sense of insecurity should have fallen upon the more credulous
section of the natives. Even sceptical persons thought it rather
provoking on the part of Providence, or whoever managed these things,
that the disquieting of men's minds should take place during this
particular fortnight, the most important of the whole year, midway
between the great feasts of Saint Dodekanus and Saint Eulalia when the
island was crammed with visitors.
And there followed late at night yet another surprise. Mr. Parker had
been called away from his duties at the Club in hot haste by the news
that his lady was seriously ill. A few days earlier she had been stung
on the lip by a mosquito; no further attention was paid to the
incident, though the disagreeable south wind provoked a rise in
temperature and some discomfort. On this afternoon, however, her face
had suddenly begun to assume strange tints and to swell in wondrous
fashion. It was no already enlarged to twice its natural size and
altogether--in the words of the physician who had been summoned to her
villa--"a thing to see.
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