"Stand off! By what strange chance I find you, I can scarcely imagine. But do not come nearer to me for a little while, or I shall fall dead at your feet!"
Awe-struck and trembling they obey him.
"I would not touch one of your dear hands till you have heard me and judged me, though death were the penalty for depriving myself of the joy! I would not receive one kiss from your honored lips upon my cheek till you have heard me and judged me, though I were sure that my tongue would be paralyzed in the utterance of what I have to say! Some part of your sufferings, some part of your pain, I know from my own suffering and pain, and I will clear myself before your eyes, so help me Thou! or go forever from my sight!"
Susan is running to him with cries of "Justice! justice!" and is about to throw herself upon him, when George Marvel's arm restrains and keeps her back. "Be still, madwoman!" he mutters sternly, and stands by her side, watchful of her, and no less watchful and attentive of every word that falls from his son's lips.
Joshua takes the cap from his head, and lets it fall to the ground, still keeping his strong grasp upon Solomon Fewster, whose cowardly blood grows thin as he writhes and listens.
"Justice!" echoes Joshua. "You shall have it, and so shall this base dog, whose presence pollutes the air I breathe. Listen well. Of another matter that we must speak of presently, and which is near and dear to all our hearts, I will say nothing before him. But in the 'Merry Andrew' in which I sailed from Gravesend, and which is now at the bottom of the sea, with many dear brave souls that were aboard her, was a villanous sailor--a Lascar, from whose hands I once rescued the woman who calls for justice, and who struck me down on that dreadful Christmas-eve when I first came home from sea. He shrinks and trembles beneath my grasp, this false friend, of whose bad heart I warned my brother Dan before the 'Merry Andrew' sailed. At one time during the voyage, when we were in danger, there was an attempt at mutiny, and this Lascar was one of the cowardly wretches who endeavored to spread dissatisfaction. When we were in dread peril, this Lascar sailor and a mutinous mate, whom we had to put in irons, strove hard to injure me and the captain--Heaven rest his soul--and, happily, failed. The ship was wrecked, and we had to abandon her, and take to a raft which we had made; and on that raft we suffered more than six weeks hunger and thirst, and every species of misery. Out of the entire crew and passengers only seven were saved, among them being myself and this Lascar sailor and his confederate, the mutinous mate. Before the captain died, he appointed me to succeed in the command, and I have the record from the log-book about me now. We got ashore. How we lived, you shall hear from me by and by; but once the Lascar (whom we suspected of having killed his confederate) stole upon me, and but that I turned my head in time, I should not be here now to expose the villainy of this cowardly wretch. Foiled in his devilish design, he told me then that he had been set to trap me, and was paid for it. Some time after that, I found the Lascar dead in the forest; and before I buried him--not wishing to leave a human creature however vile, to be eaten by birds and beasts--I obtained evidence which proved to me that the wretch who writhes now within my grasp was the master who paid him to ruin, and perhaps to murder me."
"A clever lie," Solomon Fewster manages to say, though he is shaking from terror.
"A lie! have the proofs. Be thankful that I have met you here among those who are all that the world holds dear for ma. If I had met you in the forest, in the midst of such scenes as I have witnessed lately, I would not have answered for your life."
Joshua hurls Solomon Fewster from him with such force that he falls, almost stunned, in the corner of the room. Then Joshua takes from his neck the bag containing; his relics, and selects from them the silver watch and the document which Fewster had given the Lascar, and after reading aloud the document and the inscription on the watch, lays them upon the table.
"Here are the proofs of your crime and your villainy," he says to Fewster. "Be thankful if you are allowed to escape punishment. Go and go quickly, and without a word!" He stands aside to let the man pass; and Solomon Fewster, without a word or a look to any one there, passes out of the room, and out of the village. And is never seen in it again.