“They have the inheritance of his virtues,” said I, scoffingly.
“Can you have the heart for such cruelty?” cried he, almost sobbing.
“Come with me when I land at Houston, and see,—that's all!” said I. “A few minutes back, I was hesitating whether I would not land at this island and abandon my purpose. The weakness is now over; I feel a kind of fiendish spirit growing up within me already; I cannot think of the fellow without a sense of loathing and hatred!”
“Lie down, my son, and compose yourself for an hour or two; sleep and rest will calm your agitated brain, and you will then listen to my counsels with profit: your present excitement overmasters your reason, and my words would be of no effect.”
“I know it—I feel it here, across my temples—that it is a kind of paroxysm; but I never close my eyes that I do not fancy I see the fellow, now in one shape, now in another, for he can assume a thousand disguises; while in my ears his accursed name is always ringing.”
“I pity you from my heart!” said the other; and certainly a sadder expression I never saw in any human face before. “But go down below; go down, I beseech you.”
“I have only taken a deck-passage,” said I, doggedly; “I determined that I would see no one, speak to no one.”
“Nor need you, my son,” said he, coaxingly. “They are all sound asleep in the after-cabin; take my berth,—I do not want it; I am always better upon deck.”
“If you will have it so,” said I, yielding; “but, for your life, not a word of what I have said to you! Do not deceive yourself by any false idea of humanity. Were you to shoot me where I stand, you could not save him,—his doom is spoken. If I fail, there is Broughton, and, after him, a score of others, sworn to do the work.”
“Lie down and calm yourself,” said he, leading me to the companion-ladder; “we must speak of this to-morrow.”