Erebus quickly drew his dagger and raised it over the pirate before Trimalcyon could take a step.
Pog, calm and unmoved, opened his breast without a sign of emotion.
Twice Erebus raised his arm, twice he let it fall again. He could not make up his mind to strike a defenceless man. He bowed his head with a sorrowful air.
Pog sat down again and said to Erebus, in a severe and imperious voice:
“Child, do not quote maxims whose meaning perhaps you may comprehend, but which your weak heart will not let you put in practice. Listen to me, once for all. I received you without pity. I feel as much hatred and contempt for you as I do for all other men. I have trained you to pillage and murder, as I would have amused myself in training a young wolf for slaughter, that some day I might be able to hurl you against my enemies. I have killed all the chevaliers of Malta who have fallen into my hands, because I have a terrible vengeance to wreak on that order. I have taught you that your family was massacred by them, in the hope of exciting your rage, and turning it against those whom I execrate. You have already served my purpose; you have killed two caravanists with your own hand, in one combat. I know you had no pleasure in it, you thought you were avenging your father and mother. I deal with you as a man deals with his war-horse; as long as he serves him, he spurs him and urges him to the fray; when he becomes feeble, he sells him. Do not feel bound in any respect to me; kill me if you can. If you dare not strike before my face, act as a traitor,—you will succeed, perhaps.”
As Erebus heard these frightful words, he seemed to be in a dream.
If he had never been deceived as to the tenderness of Pog, he believed that the man had at least an interest in him, the interest that a poor, abandoned child always inspires in one who has the care of him. The brutal confession of Pog left him no longer in doubt. These detestable maxims he had just uttered were too much in accord with the rest of his life to allow the young man to question their reality.
The feelings of his own heart were inexplicable. He seemed to have fallen into some deep and bloody abyss. The thoughts which rushed upon him drove him to frenzy. His tender and generous instincts thrilled painfully, as if an iron hand had torn them from his heart.
After the first moment of dejection, the detestable influence of Pog regained the ascendency. Erebus wished to vie with this man in cynicism and barbarity. He lifted up his pale face, and said, as a sarcastic smile played upon his lips: