"REVENGE-BITTER! ERE LONG BACK ON ITSELF RECOILS!"
The night was close at hand as those two men came together, they being brought so by the slow, heavy approach of Desparre towards where the other sat his horse watching him. The dark had almost come. But, still, there was a sufficiency of dusky light left beneath the stars which began to twinkle above in the deep, sapphire sky for the features of each to be recognised by the other.
"Yet," Clarges asked himself, as he dismounted and left his tired horse standing unheld in the deserted street, "did Desparre recognise his features?" He could hardly decide.
The man had stopped in that halting, dragging walk up the long, deserted street which rose slightly on a hill; he had stopped and was looking--yes, looking--staring--at him, yet saying nothing either with his lips or by the expression of those glassy eyes. He was standing still before him, mute and rigid.
And Clarges noted, all unimportant as it was, that far down the street, a hundred yards away, the galley slave who was the only other living creature about besides themselves, had halted too--had halted and was looking up towards them as though wondering curiously what these men might have to do with one another.
"Desparre!" exclaimed Walter Clarges now, abandoning all title, all form of ceremony. "Desparre, how it is that you have been delivered into my hands here to-night in this loathsome, plague-stricken spot, I know not. Yet I know one thing. We have met. Met for me to kill you, or for you to kill me!"
To his astonishment, to his utter amazement, the other was silent--silent as if stricken dumb, as if turned to stone. But still the glassy eyes regarded him and seemed to glisten in the light that was almost darkness now.
Clarges paused a moment while observing that figure before him and wondering if this might be some devilish ruse, some scheme concocted in Desparre's mind for either saving himself or perpetrating some act of treachery. The villain might, he thought, have a pistol in his breast or pocket which he would suddenly draw forth and discharge full at him. Then, seeing that the other still remained mute and motionless, he said:
"No silence on your part can save you. Be dumb if you will, but act. Draw your sword at once or stand there to be slain, to be righteously executed. I have to avenge to-night the wrongs of myself and of my wife--your daughter. Ha! you know that!"
As he mentioned "my wife--your daughter," he saw that he had moved the man. His face became contorted with a horrible spasm; one part of it seemed to be drawn down suddenly, the mouth, by the process, assuming a hideous, one-sided grin.