“Conscience makes cowards of us all;” so the great writer has said; and truer words never stood out bold and striking from the paper on which they were written.
In his abject misery and dread, Mark Penelly saw, in the stern gaze before him, anger and a vindictive desire for revenge; he saw therein fierce hate, and an implacable, unchanging condemnation; he felt that Harry was sustaining him there where he had dragged him to make his sufferings more acute, and that, after holding him up for a while, he would loosen his hold, causing him to sink at once into the deep water by the rocks, and be swept away by the tremendous current.
He judged Harry Paul, in fact, by the same measure as he would have meted out to an enemy himself; and so terrible were his thoughts, so horrifying to him was the thought of the death from which he had escaped, that he was robbed of all energy; he had not strength to do more than hang there clinging to the weeds with desperate clutch, and, with only his head out of water, gaze up in Harry’s stern eyes.
And they were stern, for strange thoughts had intruded themselves, seeming to take possession of the young man’s mind, and making him speak and act contrary to his wont.
At last he spoke, and the trembling wretch beneath him shivered and uttered a despairing cry.
“How came you in the water?” said Harry sternly.
“Oh, in mercy, spare me, Harry Paul,” shrieked the miserable wretch, “and I’ll tell you all.”
“Then he did throw the nets over me,” thought Harry, in spite of himself; and he began to wonder why it was he did not make an effort to drag Penelly on to the rock.
“Tell me, then,” he said in a low hoarse voice, that he did not know for his own.
“I will—yes, I will tell you,” said Penelly; “only promise me you’ll spare me.”