There was a long pause, during which the deep silence was interrupted only by the heavy breathing of Old Death, as if the utter darkness of the place sate oppressively upon him.
“Are you afraid of spectres, I ask?” demanded the Black, who was leaning with folded arms against the door, and with his eyes in the direction where he presumed Old Death to be seated; though not even the faintest outline of his form could he trace amidst that black obscurity.
“Bring me a light, or let me out—and I will answer all your questions,” cried Benjamin Bones, his anxiety to obtain his freedom giving a cadence of earnest appeal to his voice in spite of the tremendous rage which his bosom cherished against the individual who had proclaimed himself to be his gaoler.
“Do you deserve mercy?—do you merit the indulgence of man?” asked the Black, in a tone profoundly solemn.
“What do you know of me?—who are you?—why did you have me brought here?—and by what right do you keep me in this infernal place?” demanded Old Death, rapidly and savagely.
“Is it not a just retribution which makes you a prisoner in a subterranean where you have often imprisoned others?” said the Black.
“Then ’tis that miscreant Ellingham who has put me here!” exclaimed Bones, in a tone which showed that he was quivering with rage. “Demon!—fiend!—yes—you are Lord Ellingham—I thought I knew your voice, although you tried to disguise it. At the first moment I fancied—but that was stupid,—still it struck me that it was the voice of Tom Rain which spoke. Ha! ha!” the old wretch chuckled with horrible ferocity and savage glee—“I did for him—I did for him! I sent him to the scaffold—I got him hanged—and now he is food for worms! Ellingham—for I know you are Lord Ellingham—I can have the laugh at you, you devil, although you keep me here!”
“Miserable old man,” said the Black, in a tone of deep pity, though still disguised in modulation,—“are you insensible to the whisperings of conscience?”
“Yes—now that you are here!” cried Benjamin Bones, his clothes rustling as if with the trembling nervousness of enraged excitement. “You made me sell you these houses—you took them away from me by force, as it were; and now you keep me a prisoner here. It is all through vengeance that you do it—you who pretended to be above all thoughts or intentions of revenge!”
“As God is my judge, I harbour no such sentiment towards you!” said the Blackamoor, emphatically. “But will you converse tranquilly and calmly with me?”