But the story of his wanderings and adventures over the greater part of the southern hemisphere would fill many books. Months passed, a year passed, two years, and all the while Franker was dogged by the avenger. Ever and again, just when he thought that he had at last shaken off that deadly pursuit, the other twin turned up again. And gradually it was borne in upon him that the other twin might have killed him long since had he wished. He had had numberless opportunities, and had not taken them. This puzzled Franker a bit, and then he hit upon the truth. There is more joy in the hunting than in the killing. There is more cat-like satisfaction in the slow torture of its victim than in the crunching up of its dead bones. He began to think of the other twin as a cat-like creature, exercising a cruelty of the mind far more subtle and devilish than any mere crude cruelty of tooth and claw. When the avenger tired of the sport, then he would strike. And not till then. Meanwhile, Franker was condemned to a daily round of unremitting vigilance, ceaseless watchfulness, unending apprehension.
He had been a big man, strong and fearless, with bold eyes and the voice of a bull. Now he had become a shuffling, whimpering, trembling thing of nerves and tears, who dared look no one in the face lest it should be the face of his enemy. In the old days, with no other resources than his health and vigour, bodily and mental, he had used to take chances with an overbearing recklessness, and thrust and curse his way through the mob of other roustabouts like unto himself, with whom he had fought for the means of existence. And he had been—he realised that now—quite happy then. There were times when he told himself that he would stand fast against his pursuer, force him into the open, then turn upon him and rend him, and so make an end of this long-drawn-out agony. But when the moment came his wits fled, he was distraught and afraid, he could think only of flight.
It was now a full fortnight since he had seen Bibi—or Bobo. But there had been other fortnights during which he had not seen him. And always, inevitably, he had reappeared. So would he reappear again.
Franker gazed out from the shadow of the old seawall across the glittering, limitless sea, and wished that he might drown himself in its depths. But he was not yet quite mad enough for that. Though life had become as a nightmare to him, and death as the awakening to the cool, calm peace of dawn; though life offered nothing but torment, and death offered surcease of pain, he still clung to life. It was in the nature of his being to cling to life. He was not of the stuff that gives in.
But if only he could rest awhile! If only he could lie still in some sheltered place, safe from his enemy, and thus regain his old control over his faculties, recuperate his strength!
At the western end of the Lido, where the coast swept in a wide curve to the lighthouse and the harbour, there was a long white wall. And as he remembered what that wall enclosed, what it signified, Franker had an inspiration. His face was suddenly irradiated. He laughed aloud. What a fool!—God in Heaven!—what a fool he had been not to think of that before! He rose on tremulous legs and began to shamble along the beach towards that far-off haven of refuge.
The prison official, in his gaudy livery of gold and scarlet and his immense cocked hat, conducted him to the chief inspector’s office.
“Yes?”
Franker desired to be sworn. He had a crime to confess: it had troubled his conscience for years.
“Yes?”