“Why not?” asked Adrian, astonished.
“If you will be so kind as to move that sword-point a little—it is pricking me—thank you. Now I will tell you why. Because it is not usual for a son to stick his father as though he were a farmyard pig.”
“Son? Father?” said Adrian. “Do you mean——?”
“Yes, I do mean that we have the happiness of filling those sacred relationships to each other.”
“You lie,” said Adrian.
“Let me stand up and give me my sword, young sir, and you shall pay for that. Never yet did a man tell the Count Juan de Montalvo that he lied, and live.”
“Prove it,” said Adrian.
“In this position, to which misfortune, not skill, has reduced me, I can prove nothing. But if you doubt it, ask your mother, or your hosts, or consult the registers of the Groote Kerke, and see whether on a date, which I will give you, Juan de Montalvo was, or was not, married to Lysbeth van Hout, of which marriage was born one Adrian. Man, I will prove it to you. Had I not been your father, would you have been saved from the Inquisition with others, and should I not within the last five minutes had run you through twice over, for though you fought well, your swordsmanship is no match for mine?”
“Even if you are my father, why should I not kill you, who have forced me to your will by threats of death, you who wronged and shamed me, you because of whom I have been hunted through the streets like a mad dog, and made an outcast?” And Adrian looked so fierce, and brought down his sword so close, that hope sank very low in Ramiro’s heart.
“There are reasons which might occur to the religious,” he said, “but I will give you one that will appeal to your own self-interest. If you kill me, the curse which follows the parricide will follow you to your last hour—of the beyond I say nothing.”