When the strange sick man was brought in he was placed on a cot not far from where Benoit Vascal was resting. For some time the two did not notice each other. Then, of a sudden, the Frenchman glanced at the other and uttered a shriek of amazement and terror.
“’Tis he! ’Tis he! Tis the judgment!” he screamed in French. “Take him away! I cannot bear to face him!”
At the sound of Vascal’s voice the strange sick man turned over and gave him a wandering look. Then he also started up and gave a cry.
“You! you!” he screamed. “You! I know you, Benoit Vascal! What have you done with my children!” He staggered from his couch, fell forward, and caught the Frenchman by the arm. “Tell me! My children, what of them?”
“What’s the matter here?” demanded Sam Barringford, who chanced to be close by.
“This man!” panted the strange sick man. “He—he stole my children! He is the rascal I have been hunting for—he and another, a Paul Camont. They took my twin boys! Ah, I remember it all now! Where are my children? Don’t dare to say you killed them!”
“Your children—twins,” gasped the old frontiersman. “Can it be possible thet you air Mr. Maurice Hamilton?”
“Yes! yes! that is my name! How strange I could not think of it before. Maurice Hamilton, yes, of London.”
“Well, by the eternal!” came faintly from Barringford. He looked at the sick man sharply. “It must be so—ye look alike, same eyes, same nose, an’ all. This staggers me!”
“Let me go!” came faintly from Benoit Vascal. “He has ze children—I haf zem not, no! Let me go!” for the other man now held him by the throat.