"When?"
"Not many hours ago."
"And where?"
"Not very far from here."
John Coram rose up slowly from his seat, and so stood staring at me for a moment in a hungry fashion; then said he:
"I would with all my heart it had been me instead of you, friend; for with these hands of mine I would have wrung his wicked skinny neck."
"Ah, so you have a grudge against him, eh?" I asked, as carelessly as wellnigh throttling eagerness would let me.
"A grudge!" growled Coram. "Aye, friend, that doth not name the tithe of it. I would account it heaven itself to kill the fellow; for, verily, there's not a blacker villain on God's earth than Israel Stark, and well I know it."
"Ah, and how so?"
"Why, hearken. He came to me in sore distress--half-starved--a thing of skin and bones. He told me tales of savages and shipwrecks. I listened to those tales, had pity on him, took him in, fed, clothed him. And in the end he robbed me vilely; moreover, would have murdered me had not a friend come in the nick of time and saved my life. That friend he slew, and so escaped."