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Updated: May 14, 2025
I lived, so I told myself over and over again, but to avenge, to seek Simon Colliver high and low until I held him at my mercy. Thousands of times I rehearsed the scene of our meeting, and always I held the knife which stabbed my father. In my waking thoughts, in my dreams, I was always pursuing, and Colliver for ever fleeing before me.
The clasp had said "four feet six inches," and the pit could not yet be more than three feet in depth. Colliver bent down and drew something out, then examined it intently. As I strained forward to look, he half turned, and I saw between his hands a human skull. Whose?
He saw Colliver for the first time to-day on the quay, and drew me aside at the last moment to warn me against 'that fellow with the devilish eyes. As I stood on deck and watched his stiff little figure waving me farewell until it melted into the crowd, and Bombay sank behind me as the city of a dream, I wondered with sadness on the little chance we had of ever meeting on this earth again.
I guessed that Colliver would come across Polkimbra Beach, so had determined to approach the rock from the northern side, over Ready-Money Cove. Lantrig, my old home, was merrily lit up this Christmas Eve, and the sight of it gave me one swift, sharp pang of anguish as I stole cautiously downwards to the sands. At the cliff's foot I paused and looked across the Cove.
What was that sound again on the other side of the partition? Whatever it was, Colliver had not heard, for he was musing darkly and looking fixedly at me. "No, I will show you no mercy," he answered quietly, "for I have sworn to show no mercy to your race, and you are the last of it.
His path of life has chanced to run side by side with my own for a short space, and the two have now branched off, nor in all likelihood will ever meet again. My life has been a quiet one, and has not lain much in the way of extraordinary men, but I doubt if many such as Simon Colliver exist. He is a perfect enigma to me.
I paid little attention to him, however, but, having the corner seat facing the engine, watched to see that Colliver did not change his compartment. He did not appear again, and in a minute or two the whistle shrieked and we were off. At first the countryman opposite made such a prodigious to-do with his piece of news that I could not help watching him.
As I issued on deck I saw a man standing by the forecastle, whose back seemed familiar to me. Presently he turned, and I saw him to be Simon Colliver. He has most strangely altered his appearance, being dressed now as a common sailor, and wearing rings in his ears as the custom is. Catching sight of me, he came forward with a pleasant smile and explained himself.
Here also was a large crowd bound for Helston, and the coach that waited outside was quickly thronged inside and out. Colliver was outside the station in a moment, and in another had jumped into a carriage waiting there with two horses, and was gone up the hill beneath the shadow of the bridge. In my folly I had forgotten that he might have telegraphed for horses to meet him.
Calm and radiant it lay there, as though no curse lay in its deep hollows, no passion had ever fed its flames with blood; stronger than the centuries, imperishably and triumphantly cruel the Great Ruby of Ceylon! With a short gasp of delight, Colliver was stretching out his hand towards it, when I laid mine heavily on his shoulder, then sprang to my feet. My waiting was over.
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