d off a blow fell back a pace or
two and stood staring at me.

"Humphrey!" he cried.

"None other, cousin. The dead, you see, sometimes come to life again.
And I am very much alive, Jasper."

He stood still staring at me, and clutching his heart as if his breath
came with difficulty.

"What have you to say, Jasper?" I asked at length.

"We--we thought you were drowned," he gasped out. "There is an
inscription on your father's tombstone."

"Liar!" I said. "You know I was not drowned. You know that you contrived
that I should be carried to Mexico. Tell me no more lies, cousin. Let us
for once have the plain truth. Why did you treat me as you did at
Scarborough?"

"Because you stood 'twixt me and the inheritance," he muttered sullenly.

"And so for the sake of a few acres of land and a goodly heritage you
would condemn one who had never harmed you to horrors such as you cannot
imagine?" I said. "Look at me, Jasper. Even in this light it is not
difficult to see how I am changed. I have gone through such woes and
torments as you would scarcely credit. I have been in the hands of
devils in human shape, and they have so worked their will upon me that
there is hardly an inch of my body that is not marked and scarred. That
was thy doing, Jasper,--thine and thy fellow-villain's. Dost know what
happened to him?"

"No," he whispered, "what of him?"

"I saw him hanged to his own yard-arm in the Pacific Ocean, Jasper, and
he went to his own place with the lives of many an innocent man upon his
black soul. Take care you do not follow him. Shame upon you, cousin,
for the trick you played me!"

"You came between me and the girl I loved," he said fiercely. "All is
fair in love and war."

"Coward!" I said. "And liar, too! I never came between her and thee, for
she had never a word to give such a black-hearted villain as thou hast
proved thyself. And now, what is to prevent me from taking my revenge
upon thee, Jasper?"

"This," he said, very suddenly, whipping out his rapier. "This, Master
Humphrey. Home you have come again, worse luck, and have no doubt done
your best to injure me in more quarters than one, but you shall not live
to enjoy either land, or title, or sweetheart, for you shall die here
and now."

And with that he came pressing upon me with a sudden fury that was full
of murderous intent.

Now I had no weapon by me save a stout cudgel which I had cut from a
coppice by the wayside that morning, and this you