Then, under the risen moon, by the scarcely
audible plash of the beach, he told me quite a lot about himself and
his early days, as he fashioned a coffin for the woman into whose
arms I had driven him, as I had driven him with her corpse to this
lost isle.
"In the midst of it I said, 'You know, I suppose, that she saved your
life?'
"He checked his hammer midway in a stroke, and stared at me, the
moonlight white on his face.
"'You know,' I repeated, 'that she gave her life to save yours?' and
I told him how. At the end of the tale, if ever hatred shone in a
man's eyes, it shone in Farrell's; and yet there was incredulity in
them too.
"'What!" he gasped. 'And you let her do it, there in front of you,
when with a turn of the hand--O my God!' he broke off. 'I've thought
at times you must be the Devil himself, you Foe: but I never reckoned
you for as bad as all that! The wonder to me is I don't kill you
where you sit.' He clenched the hammer, and twice again he called on
his God. The dog growled.
"'Steady!' said I, showing him the revolver.
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