“He tells the truth, Pearl; I am not your father. Listen and he will tell you all.”
The hermit spoke with difficulty.
“Yes, I tell the truth, as you shall all hear,” said Red Hand. “Many years ago, in a New England State, I was living with my widowed mother; my father, a naval officer, having died when I was a mere lad. My mother had wealth, and, being youthful and handsome, had many admirers.
“When I was fifteen years of age I first saw this man—Carter Bainbridge—known to you all as the Hermit of the Black Hills. This man became, as I believed, the husband of my mother. She loved him dearly, and so did I; but his was a black heart, for already he had a wife living in a Southern State—the mother of a son whom this man brought to our house after his marriage with my mother, and passed off as his nephew.
“From the day of that son’s arrival, there began a plot for my mother’s and my wealth, for the pretended nephew was as bad as his professed uncle. At length I entered the navy as a midshipman, and after an absence of three years returned to find my mother dead.
“Even then I suspected no evil, but long afterward an investigation proved that this man had cruelly taken my mother’s life. Again I went to sea, and I left this man and his son at my house, as I believed, but the son, as a common seaman, shipped on my vessel, and as I was pacing the deck one night in a hard blow, I was thrown overboard by a sailor who approached me unawares.
“The vessel went on, for none had seen the act, and I would have been lost had not a schooner picked me up not twenty minutes after I was hurled into the sea. Returning home again, I found the father and son there. Their fright at my appearance I took for surprise and joy, for all believed me lost, and the man who had thrown me into the sea had left the vessel at the first port and returned to report his success.
“Dwelling in the same town where was my home was a physician and his daughter, an only child. That girl I loved with my whole heart, and before I again went to sea she became my wife.
“With perfect trust, I left her at home with my supposed stepfather and his son, while her father, the doctor, accompanied me to sea as my guest, for his health was in a precarious condition, and he believed a sea voyage would benefit him.
“When in Spain, a year after my marriage, word came from my wife of the birth of a little daughter. Then my father-in-law, who was still with me, urged that I should resign and return home. I followed his advice, and together we were to sail for London. The night before we sailed from Spain, when my father-in-law and I were returning to the hotel late in the evening, an assassin sprang from a dark corner and struck him to the heart with a knife.