‘Farewell,’ I said to him, ’we may soon meet again.  Fool, why do you labour?  Take your rest, for the plague is on you.  In six hours you will be dead!’

His jaw dropped with terror at my words, and for a moment he stood speechless.  Then he uttered a fearful oath and aimed a blow at me with the hammer he held, which would swiftly have put an end to my sufferings had I not at that moment been lifted from his reach by those who pulled above.

In another second I had fallen on the deck as they slacked the rope.  Near me stood two black men whose office it was to cast us poor wretches into the sea, and behind them, seated in a chair, his face haggard from recent illness, sat de Garcia fanning himself with his sombrero, for the night was very hot.

He recognised me at once in the moonlight, which was brilliant, and said, ’What! are you here and still alive, Cousin?  You are tough indeed; I thought that you must be dead or dying.  Indeed had it not been for this accursed plague, I would have seen to it myself.  Well, it has come right at last, and here is the only lucky thing in all this voyage, that I shall have the pleasure of sending you to the sharks.  It consoles me for much, friend Wingfield.  So you came across the seas to seek vengeance on me?  Well, I hope that your stay has been pleasant.  The accommodation was a little poor, but at least the welcome was hearty.  And now it is time to speed the parting guest.  Good night, Thomas Wingfield; if you should chance to meet your mother presently, tell her from me that I was grieved to have to kill her, for she is the one being whom I have loved.  I did not come to murder her as you may have thought, but she forced me to it to save myself, since had I not done so, I should never have lived to return to Spain.  She had too much of my own blood to suffer me to escape, and it seems that it runs strong in your veins also, else you would scarcely hold so fast by vengeance.  Well, it has not prospered you!’ And he dropped back into the chair and fell to fanning himself again with the broad hat.

Even then, as I stood upon the eve of death, I felt my blood run hot within me at the sting of his coarse taunts.  Truly de Garcia’s triumph was complete.  I had come to hunt him down, and what was the end of it?  He was about to hurl me to the sharks.  Still I answered him with such dignity as I could command.

‘You have me at some disadvantage,’ I said.  ’Now if there is any manhood left in you, give me a sword and let us settle our quarrel once and for all.  You are weak from sickness I know, but what am I who have spent certain days and nights in this hell of yours.  We should be well matched, de Garcia.’