Starting
round, I beheld the stranger gazing on the couch, his eyeballs almost
bursting from their sockets, and his countenance distorted with horror
and amazement. I ran to him as the light dropped from his grasp;
catching it ere it fell, I perceived his eyes rivetted on the livid and
terrific features of the corpse. My limbs grew stiff with horror;
thoughts of strange import crowded on my mind; I knew not how to shape
them into any definite form, but stood trembling and appalled before the
dark chaos whence they sprung. Scarcely knowing what I said, still I
remember the first inquiry that burst from my lips--"Knowest thou that
murdered man?"
The words were scarcely uttered when the conscience-stricken wretch
exclaimed, in accents which I shall never forget, "Know him!--yesterday
he stood at my helm. I had long borne him an evil grudge, and I brooded
on revenge. The devil prompted it--he was at my elbow. It was dark, and
the fiend's eyes flashed when I aimed the blow. It descended with a
heavy crash, and the body rolled overboard. He spoke not, save once; it
was when his hated carcase rose to the surface. I heard a faint moan; it
rang on my ear like the knell of death; the voice rushed past--a low
sepulchral shout; in my ear it echoed with the cry of 'MURDER!'"
Little remains to be told; he persisted to the last in this horrible
confession.
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