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                         THE UNLUCKY THEATRE - 5                             
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   Their faces were as pale as those of the dead and there was something     
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unpleasantly inhuman about them.                                             
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   The woman whom Fernaghan had seen on the edge of the stage was now seated 
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alone in a box. She wore a rich evening dress of the kind that might have    
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been worn in the early years of the nineteenth-century. She was leaning      
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forward and watching the stage with great attention.                         
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   The musicians below the stage were playing an old tune which had once been
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popular, no doubt, but which was now forgotten. They broke off suddenly as   
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the curtain rose. The scene was a wood where two men were about to have a    
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sword-fight. One man was tall with fair hair and a beard; the other was dark 
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and had no beard. At a signal from a third man they began to fight.          
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   There was an immediate silence in the theatre, which was broken only by   
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the sharp noises of the fight. Fernaghan looked up at the lady in the box,   
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whose beauty held his attention. She was watching every sword-stroke of the  
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fighters with the greatest anxiety and excitement.                           
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   Suddenly the fair man's sword flashed forwards and struck the dark man in 
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the chest. He gave a long cry, took a few unsteady steps and fell. There was 
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a terrible cry from a girl who had been watching from behind a stage tree,   
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and a joyful shout from the lady in the box, who applauded victoriously.     
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