But if such thoughts had been in his mind, he forgot them when he had seen what sort of nest this was to sleep in, for turning, he came back towards me, sword up, and we met within a dozen paces of the edge.
I say met, but in truth we did not meet, for he stopped again, well out of reach of my sword.
I sat down upon a block of lava and looked at him; it seemed to me that I could not feast my eyes enough upon his face.
And what a face it was; that of a more than murderer about to meet his reward!
Would that I could paint to show it, for no words can tell the fearfulness of those red and sunken eyes, those grinning teeth and quivering lips.
I think that when the enemy of mankind has cast his last die and won his last soul, he too will look thus as he passes into doom.
‘At length, de Garcia!’ I said.
‘Why do you not kill me and make an end?’ he asked hoarsely.
‘Where is the hurry, cousin?
For hard on twenty years I have sought you, shall we then part so soon?
Let us talk a while.
Before we part to meet no more, perhaps of your courtesy you will answer me a question, for I am curious.
Why have you wrought these evils on me and mine?
Surely you must have some reason for what seems to be an empty and foolish wickedness.’
I spoke to him thus calmly and coldly, feeling no passion, feeling nothing.
For in that strange hour I was no longer Thomas Wingfield, I was no longer human, I was a force, an instrument; I could think of my dead son without sorrow, he did not seem dead to me, for I partook of the nature that he had put on in this change of death.
I could even think of de Garcia without hate, as though he also were nothing but a tool in some other hand.
Moreover, I KNEW that he was mine, body and mind, and that he must answer and truly, so surely as he must die when I chose to kill him.
He tried to shut his lips, but they opened of themselves and word by word the truth was dragged from his black heart as though he stood already before the judgment seat.
‘I loved your mother, my cousin,’ he said, speaking slowly and painfully; ‘from a child I loved her only in the world, as I love her to this hour, but she hated me because I was wicked and feared me because I was cruel.
Then she saw your father and loved him, and brought about his escape from the Holy Office, whither I had delivered him to be tortured and burnt, and fled with him to England.
I was jealous and would have been revenged if I might, but there was no way.
I led an evil life, and when nearly twenty years had gone by, chance took me to England on a trading journey.
By chance I learned that your father and mother lived near Yarmouth, and I determined to see her, though at that time I had no thought of killing her.
Fortune favoured me, and we met in the woodland, and I saw that she was still beautiful and knew that I loved her more than ever before.
I gave her choice to fly with me or to die, and after a while she died.
But as she shrank up the wooded hillside before my sword, of a sudden she stood still and said:
‘“Listen before you smite, Juan.
I have a death vision.
As I have fled from you, so shall you fly before one of my blood in a place of fire and rock and snow, and as you drive me to the gates of heaven, so he shall drive you into the mouth of hell.”’
‘In such a place as this, cousin,’ I said.
‘In such a place as this,’ he whispered, glancing round.
‘Continue.’
Again he strove to be silent, but again my will mastered him and he spoke.
‘It was too late to spare her if I wished to escape myself, so I killed her and fled.
But terror entered my heart, terror which has never left it to this hour, for always before my eyes was the vision of him of your mother’s blood, before whom I should fly as she fled before me, who shall drive me into the mouth of hell.’
‘That must be yonder, cousin,’ I said, pointing with the sword toward the pit of the crater.
‘It is yonder; I have looked.’
‘But only for the body, cousin, not for the spirit.’
‘Only for the body, not for the spirit,’ he repeated after me.
‘Continue,’ I said.
‘Afterwards on that same day I met you, Thomas Wingfield.
Already your dead mother’s prophecy had taken hold of me, and seeing one of her blood I strove to kill him lest he should kill me.’
‘As he will do presently, cousin.’
‘As he will do presently,’ he repeated like a talking bird. ‘You know what happened and how I escaped.
I fled to Spain and strove to forget.
But I could not.
One night I saw a face in the streets of Seville that reminded me of your face.
I did not think that it could be you, yet so strong was my fear that I determined to fly to the far Indies.
You met me on the night of my flight when I was bidding farewell to a lady.’