“In the name of
, who in response to my prayers has saved your life, who created you out of the dust and the ashes, who tore you from the embrace of death and restored health to your shattered body for one sole purpose, in Ins name I charge you: Find my enemy out and put him to death. He is still a young man. He will scarcely be an old man when you have become of age. It is a long time to wait, a long time to defer my vengeance, one-and-twenty years, but so I believe
has willed it. After you have reached the age of one-and-twenty years, let that be the single motive and object of your days: to find him out and put him to death by the most painful mode of death you can devise. Do not strike him down with one blow. Torture him to death. Pluck his flesh from his bones shred by shred. Prolong his agony to the utmost. Thus shall you compensate in some measure for the one-and-twenty years of delay. And again and again as he is writhing under your heel, cry out to him, ‘Remember, remember the friend who loved you and whom you betrayed, whose honey you turned to gall and wormwood.’ But, if meanwhile from other causes death should have overtaken him, then shall you transfer your anger to his next-of-kin; then, I charge you, visit the penalty of his sin upon his children and his children’s children. For has not
decreed that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children even unto the third and fourth generations? The blood of Nicholas must be spilled, whether it courses in his veins or in the veins of his posterity. The race of Nicholas must be exterminated, obliterated from the face of the earth. As you honor the wish of a dying father, as you dread the wrath of
, falter not in this that I command. Search the four corners of the world until you have unearthed my enemy or his kindred. Empty his blood upon the sand as you would the blood of swine. And think, as he is calling out to you for mercy, think, ‘At last my father’s revenge is wreaked! At last my father’s spirit can rest content. Even now my father is in transports of delight as he witnesses this fruition of his hope. At each thrust of my knife into our enemy’s flesh, the heart of my father leaps with satisfaction. At each scream of pain that escapes from our enemy’s throat, the voice of my father waxes great with joy.’
“Ah, my son, at that mighty hour, whether I be confined in the bottom fastnesses of hell or exalted to the mountain tops of paradise, I shall know what is happening, I shall fling myself upon my face and sing a song of praise to