e's the fellow to die, then!" said I, roughly.

"He has a small family, unprovided for."

"They have the inheritance of his virtues," said I, scoffingly.

"Can you have the heart for such cruelty?" cried he, almost sobbing.

"Come with me when I land at Houston, and see,--that's all!" said I.
"A few minutes back, I was hesitating whether I would not land at this
island and abandon my purpose. The weakness is now over; I feel a kind
of fiendish spirit growing up within me already; I cannot think of the
fellow without a sense of loathing and hatred!"

"Lie down, my son, and compose yourself for an hour or two; sleep and
rest will calm your agitated brain, and you will then listen to my
counsels with profit: your present excitement overmasters your reason,
and my words would be of no effect."

"I know it--I feel it here, across my temples--that it is a kind of
paroxysm; but I never close my eyes that I do not fancy I see the
fellow, now in one shape, now in another, for he can assume a thousand
disguises; while in my ears his accursed name is always ringing."

"I pity you from my heart!" said the other; and certainly a sadder
expression I never saw in any human face before. "But go down below; go
down, I beseech you."

"I have only taken a deck-passage," said I, doggedly; "I determined that
I would see no one, speak to no one."

"Nor need you, my son," said he, coaxingly. "They are all sound asleep
in the after-cabin; take _my_ berth,--I do not want it; I am always
better upon deck."

"If you will have it so," said I, yielding; "but, for your life, not a
word of what I have said to you! Do not deceive yourself by any false
idea of humanity. Were you to shoot me where I stand, you could not save
him,--_his_ doom is spoken. If _I_ fail, there is Broughton, and, after
him, a score of others, sworn to do the work."

"Lie down and calm yourself," said he, leading me to the
companion-ladder; "we must speak of this to-morrow."

I squeezed his hand, and slowly descended to the cabin. At first the
thought occurred to me that he might give the alarm and have me seized;
but then this would expose him so palpably to my recognition, should I
chance to escape, it was unlikely he would do so. The stillness on deck
showed me I was correct in this latter estimate, and so I turned into
his comfortable berth, and, while I drew the counterpane over me,
thought I had made a capital exchange for the hard ribs of the
"long-boat."