"The Tresidder family."
"The Tresidder family—ah!" He said this with great bitterness and passion. After a few seconds he grew calm again. "And have you sought to be revenged?"
"I have sought rather to win back my own. But what do you know of the Tresidders?"
"Nothing—oh, nothing, nothing, nothing! What could I, a poor shipwrecked sailor, know about a great family?" This he said hurriedly, almost fearfully, I thought. Presently he continued, "And you have done no rash deeds, Jasper Pennington?"
"No."
"You have not killed any of their men, their women?"
"No; not yet."
"Oh, be careful. Do you know"—and he heaped some driftwood on the fire—"that one moment of madness drives a man to hell? I've been in hell now for—oh, nigh upon twenty years. Hell, Jasper Pennington, a burning hell! Suffer anything, anything rather than—than—oh, it's nothing. I'm only imagining still; but there—" And he became silent again.
In spite of my many doubts and fears I became interested in the man, and I watched him closely.
"Look, Jasper Pennington," he said presently, "anything got through evil, through bloodshed, through murder carries a curse with it. I've had the curse of Cain upon me now for many a year. I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth, but I have kept my eyes open. Everywhere it has been the same. Blood money, hate money, money evilly got, always carries a curse. Don't touch it, don't touch it! It does not burn the hands—oh, but it burns the heart, the soul! Oh, I have seen! I know!"