im.

"'Yes,' I kept saying to myself, 'he _is_ afeard of his own mind with
his old shipmate.' 'Twas a darker night than this, and when I looked
ahead, the devil (for I know 'twas _he_ that boarded me!) made me take
notice what a good spot it was for Harry to fall foul of me. And then I
watched him making way before me, in the dark, and couldn't help
thinking he was the better man of the two--a head and shoulders over me,
and a match for any two of my inches. And then again, I brought to mind
that Harry would be a heavy purse the better of sending me to Davy's
locker, seeing we had both been just paid off, and got a lot of
prize-money to boot;--and at last (the real red devil having fairly got
me helm a-larboard) I argufied with myself that Tom Mills would be as
well alive, with Harry Holmes's luck in his pocket, as he could be dead,
and _his_ in Harry Holmes's; not to say nothing of taking one's own
part, just to keep one's self afloat, if so be Harry let his mind run as
mine was running.

"All this time Harry never gave me no hail, but kept tacking through
these cursed rocks; and that, and his last words, made me doubt him more
and more. At last he stopped nigh where he now lies, and sitting with
his back to that high stone, he calls for my blade to cut the bread and
cheese he had got at the village; and while he spoke I believed he
looked glummer and glummer, and that he wanted the blade, the only one
between us, for some'at else than to cut bread and cheese; though now I
don't believe no such thing howsumdever; but then I did: and so, d'you
see me, commodore, I lost ballast all of a sudden, and when he stretched
out his hand for the blade (hell's fire blazing up in my lubberly
heart!)--'Here it is, Harry,' says I, and I gives it to him in the
side!--once, twice, in the right place!" (the sailor's voice, hitherto
calm, though broken and rugged, now rose into a high, wild
cadence)--"and then how we did grapple! and sing out one to another!
ahoy! yeho! aye; till I thought the whole crew of devils answered our
hail from the hill-tops!--But I hit you again and again, Harry! before
you could master me," continued the sailor, returning to the corpse, and
once more taking its hand--"until at last you struck,--my old
messmate!--And now--nothing remains for Tom Mills--but to man the
yard-arm!"

The narrator stood his trial at the ensuing assizes, and was executed
for this avowed murder of his shipmate; Jeremiah appearing as