"Bad as I am, fallen though I be, you would not, I am assured, trifle with the agonies of a dying wretch," said Pedro, in a low, moaning voice.
"No," replied Tom Bartelot, gravely; "neither of us are capable of doing so."
"But tell me how you came by the knowledge of these things?'
"Landing on that solitary isle by chance, we found an old recluse at the point of death, and discovered his name by means of a written confession which he left behind him."
"And—and this confession, senores," said Pedro, raising himself on his elbow, and looking at Morley and Bartelot alternately, as if he would read their very souls; "this confession—where is it?"
"It was written on the blank leaves of a Spanish missal, and was lost when my ship foundered at sea. By that confession, however, we learned his name and history, and also that he was a knight of the Military Order of Santiago de Compostella," added Tom Bartelot, as Morley drew from his pocket-book the red enamelled cross of that famous old Spanish confraternity, and gave it to Pedro, who pressed it to his lips again and again with his only remaining hand.
"I feel now, senores, that you speak truth," said, he, while the tears that flowed down his cheek relieved his emotion, and cleared his utterance. "When I am dead, senores, you will bury this cross with me. And he died in your hands?"
"Yes; and we buried him near his hut, setting up a little wooden cross to mark his grave."
"Ave Madre de Dios! no cross will ever mark mine; no prayer, or blessing, can accompany the departure of me!" groaned Pedro, in a low voice, as if communing with himself.
"From that written confession, taken in connection with the revelations of Hawkshaw" (at this name something of the old devilish gleam passed over Pedro's features) "we recognised both you and your brother; and we learned that your mother, Mariquita Escudero, had marked each of you, in infancy, with a cross on the left shoulder."