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. He had no wish to live; and the avenging arm of retributive
justice closed the world and its interests for ever on a wretch who had
forfeited all claims to its protection--cast out, and judged unworthy of
a name and a place amongst his fellow-men.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Glazebrook's Southport.

[Illustration: THE BAR-GAIST.]

THE BAR-GAIST.

"From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revelled to and fro;
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Goodfellow.
Fiends, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt the nightes,
The hags and goblins do me know;
And beldames old
My feates have told--
So _vale, vale_; ho, ho, ho!"

--BEN JONSON.

"In the northern parts of England," says Brand, speaking of the popular
superstitions, "ghost is pronounced _gheist_ and _guest_. Hence
_barguest_ or _bargheist_. Many streets are haunted by a _guest_, who
assumes many strange appearances, as a mastiff dog, &c. It is a
corruption of the Anglo-Saxon [Illustration: jart], _spiritus, anima_."

Drake, in his _Eboracum_, says (p. 7, Appendix), "I have been so
frightened with stories of the barguest when I was a child, that I
cannot help throwing away an etymology upon it. I suppose it comes from
A.S. [Illustration: bupp], a town, and [Illustration: jar