“Mercy!” gasped Michael. “Mercy for my daughter’s sake—I ask none for myself!”
“You have discovered mercy. Who called for mercy for Peter Petrovitch twenty years ago when you ordered him and his father sent to prison—and then his father was cut down by your Cossacks? Answer me that?”
“If my daughter were safe from the Ataman, you could take your vengeance,” said Michael simply. “I have lived beyond——”
“Oh, hush!” cried Peter angrily, clapping his hand over Michael’s mouth. He slipped his fingers under the folds of the bandage about Michael’s face, and slipped it back over his head, pulling it upward from the chin.
“Let me see your face, Michael! It has been a long time since we looked at one another—and each knew the other. On that day you were the bold, brave Governor, surrounded by your soldiers. Life was cheap then—to you. Come! Stand upon your feet like a man!” And Peter lifted him up against the table.
“I have no fear of death,” said Michael proudly.
“No,” said Peter, laughing. “You are so ready to meet death that you tie your face up in rags. But you look like yourself, Michael! Yes, I would have known you but for the rags. Life is not so strong in you, now, it is true, but you are the same, yes.”
Peter stood before him, with folded arms, and scanned Michael’s face with reflective memory. He spoke quietly, almost soothingly, and his face was lighted by his joyful exultation. He thought of nothing but that his triumph had come, and he cared for nothing but that he should drink his fill of the wine of revenge.
“I am helpless now—an old man,” said Michael. “But I can die—Gorekin.”
“I suppose you can,” said Peter, “much as you would throw away a lemon that had been sucked dry. But I am thinking now of my father, twenty years ago. You were brave with his life, too—and mine! I was a helpless boy and you left me in your filthy prison. I might be there now for all you cared.”