"This is a strange rigmarole you tell me," he said. "Fortunately you confess that it was only a dream."
"Doctor Nikola," I cried, "it was more than a dream. To prove it, let me ask you how you received that long scratch that shows upon your neck and throat?"
I pointed my finger at it, but Nikola returned my gaze still without a flicker of his eyelids.
"What if I do admit it?" he began. "What if your dream were correct? What difference would it make?"
I looked at him in amazement. To tell the truth I was more astonished by his admission of the correctness of my suspicions than I should have been had he denied them altogether. As it was, I was too much overcome to be able to answer him for a few moments.
"Come," he said, "answer my question. What if I do admit the truth of all you say?"
"You confess then that the whole business has been one long scheme to entrap this wretched man, and to get him into your power?"
"'Tis," he answered, still keeping his eyes fixed upon me. "You see I am candid! Go on!"
My brain began to reel under the strain placed upon it. Since he had owned to it, what was I to do? What could I say?
"Sir Richard Hatteras," said Nikola, approaching a little nearer to me, resting one hand upon the table and speaking very impressively, "I wonder if it has struck you that you are a brave man to come to me to-day and to say this to me? In the whole circle of the men I know I may declare with truth that I am not aware of one other who would do so much. What is this man to you that you should befriend him? He would have robbed you of your dearest friend without a second thought, as he would rob you of your wife if the idea occurred to him. He is without bowels of compassion; the blood of thousands stains his hands and cries aloud for vengeance. He is a fugitive from justice, a thief, a liar, and a traitor to the country he swore to govern as an honest man. On a certain little island on the other side of the world there is a lonely churchyard, and in that churchyard a still lonelier grave. In it lies the body of a woman—my mother. In this very room that woman was betrayed by his father. So in this room also shall that betrayal be avenged. I have waited all my life; the opportunity has been long in coming. Now, however, it has arrived, and I am decreed by Fate to be the instrument of Vengeance!"