"No! no!" screamed a voice near me. It was not Eli's guttural cry, it was a repetition of the words we had heard in the "Devil's Church" at Kynance Cove.
On starting up I saw the same ghastly-looking creature, the same long beard, the same wild eyes, the same long, lean hands.
"No! no! no! I tell you no!" cried the thing again.
"Why?" I asked, half in anger, half in terror, for I could but realise what such an apparition meant to us.
"Because the thing is accursed!" he cried—"because it is red with the blood of innocence, black with sin, heavy with the cries of orphans' tears and widows' moans. It is the price of crime, red crime, black crime! Come away."
I jumped from the rock and caught the strange thing in my hands. It was flesh and blood, and all fear departed. I turned his face to the light, then I burst into a loud laugh.
"Ho! ho!" I cried, "the madman of Bedruthan Steps. Well, well, you saved my life, you fed me when I was hungry, you clothed me when I was naked. I forgive you. But let me be now. I must take this away."
"No, no, Jasper Pennington," he cried again, "your hands are yet unstained with blood. The moment you were to use such gains the curse of a hundred Cains would be upon you. I know, I have felt."
"Why?" I said; "I do no harm in getting it; I hurt no man. It is mine as much as any other man's—nay, it is more. Eli Fraddam really owns it, and he has given it to me."
"Look you, Jasper Pennington," he cried, "you would get back your birthright. If you got it back in such a way you would lose the better birthright, the birthright of God. I know of this treasure, I have heard its history. It is red with blood, I tell you, and black with crime."