"We will overlook that," Le Fenu went on. "It is our turn now, and I don't think you will find our conditions too harsh. It is not so long ago since my friend here was a prisoner in your hands, and since you reduced him to such a condition of mind that he had abandoned hope and lost all desire to live. It is not so long ago, either, since you dared to make me a prisoner in my own house for your own ends. It was fortunate for you that I chose to live more or less alone in London and under an assumed name. But all the time I was looking for you, all the time I was working out my plans for your destruction. Then you found me out—you began to see how I could be useful to you, how I could become your miserable tool, as Mr. Evors here did. You dared not stay at your hotel—things were not quite ripe for you to come down here. Therefore you hit upon the ingenious idea of making me a prisoner under my own roof. But Fate, which has been waiting for you a long time, intervened, and I became a free man again just at the very moment when Mr. Evors also regained his liberty. Since then we have met more than once, and the whole tale of your villainy is now plain before me. You might have been content with the murder of my father and the blood money you extracted from the Four Finger Mine, but that was not enough for you—nothing less than the extermination of our race sufficed. It was no fault of yours that I was not killed in the so-called accident that has made me the cripple that I am. That was all arranged by you, as I shall be able to prove when the proper time comes. I escaped death by a miracle, and good friends of mine hid me away beyond the reach of your arm. Even then you had no sort of mercy, even then you were not content with the mischief you had wrought. You must do your best to pin your crime to Mr. Evors, though that conspiracy cost my sister Beth her reason. Of course, you would deny all these things, and I see you are prepared to deny them now. But it is absolutely useless to add one lie to another, because we know full well—"
"Stop," Fenwick cried. "What are you here for? Why do you tell me this?
A desperate man like myself—"
"No threats," Le Fenu said, sternly. "I am simply here to warn you. God knows what an effort it is on my part not to hand you over to your punishment, but I cannot forget that you are a blood relation of mine—and, therefore, I am disposed to spare you. Still, there is another Nemesis awaiting you, which Nemesis I need not mention by name. When I look at your left hand I feel sorry for you. Bad as you are, the terrible fate which is yours moves me to a kind of pity."
Le Fenu paused and glanced significantly at Fenwick's maimed hand. The latter had nothing more to say; all his swaggering assurance had left him—he sat huddled up in his chair, a picture of abject terror and misery.
"You can help me if you will," he said hoarsely. "You are speaking of Zary. That man is no human being at all, he is no more than a cold-blooded tiger, and yet he would do anything for you and yours. If you asked him to spare me—"
Fenwick broke off and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders were heaving with convulsive sobs now, tears of self-pity ran through his fingers. For the time being, at any rate, the man's nerve was utterly gone. He was prepared to make any conditions to save his skin. Agitated and broken as he was, his cunning mind was yet moving swiftly. A little time ago, these two men would not have dared to intrude themselves upon his presence, he had held them like prisoners in the hollow of his hand; and now it seemed to him that they must feel their position to be impregnable, or they would never have intruded upon him in this bold fashion.
"I am not the man I was," he gasped. "It is only lately that my nerve seems to have utterly deserted me. You do not know what it is to be fighting in the dark against a foe so cold and relentless as Felix Zary. When the first warning came I was alarmed. The second warning frightened me till I woke in the night with a suffocating feeling at my heart as if I were going to die. Against the third warning I took the most elaborate precautions; but it came all the same, and since then I have been drinking to drown my terror. But what is the good of that?—how little does it serve me in my sober moments? As I said just now, Zary would do anything for your family, and if you would induce him to forego that dreaded vengeance which hangs over me—"
"Impossible," Le Fenu said coldly. "Zary is a fanatic, a dreamer of dreams; he has a religion of his own which no one else in the world understands but himself. He firmly and honestly believes that some divine power is impelling him on, that he is merely an instrument in the hands of the Maker of the universe. There have been other beings of the same class in a way. Charlotte Corday believed herself to be the chosen champion of Heaven when she stabbed the French monster in his bath. Nothing I could say or do would turn Zary from what he believes to be his duty. The only thing you can do is to go away and lose yourself in some foreign country where Zary cannot follow you."
"Impossible," Fenwick said hoarsely. "I could not get away. If the man possesses the powers he claims he would know where to find me, even if I hid myself in the depths of a Brazilian forest. I tell you I am doomed. I cannot get away from the inevitable."
Fenwick slipped from his chair and fairly grovelled in his anguish on the floor. It was a pitiable sight, but one that moved the watchers with contempt. They waited patiently enough for the paroxysm of terror to pass and for Fenwick to resume something like the outer semblance of manhood. He drew himself up at length, and wiped the tears from his sickly yellow face.