The summer night had fallen upon their deliberations, and the moon arose in splendor, shining over the top of one of the high hills that inclosed the pass, so as fully to illumine the bosom of the other.  During their pause, a man appeared standing upon the line of the hill thus favored by the moonlight, and every eye turned in that direction.  He ran down the abrupt declivity beneath him; he gained the continued sweep of jumbled rocks which immediately walled in the little valley, springing from one to another of them with such agility and certainty that it seemed almost magical; and a general whisper of fear now attested the fact of his being dressed in a straw hat, a short jacket, and loose white trousers.  As he jumped from the last rock upon the sward of the pass, the spectators drew back; but he, not seeming to notice them, walked up to the corpse, which had not yet been touched; took its hand; turned up its face into the moonlight, and attentively regarded the features; let the hand go; pushed his hat upon his forehead; glanced around him; recognized the person in authority; approached, and stood still before him, and said “Here I am, Tom Mills, that killed long Harry Holmes, and there he lies.”

The coroner cried out to secure him, now fearing that the man’s sturdiness meant farther harm.  “No need,” resumed the self-accused; “here’s my bread-and-cheese knife, the only weapon about me;” he threw it on the ground:  “I come back just to ax you, commodore, to order me a cruise after poor Harry, bless his precious eyes, wherever he is bound.”

“You have been pursued hither?”

“No, bless your heart; but I wouldn’t pass such another watch as the last twenty-four hours for all the prize-money won at Trafalgar.  ’Tisn’t in regard of not tasting food or wetting my lips ever since I fell foul of Harry, or of hiding my head like a cursed animal o’ the yearth, and starting if a bird only hopped nigh me:  but I cannot go on living on this tack no longer; that’s it; and the least I can say to you, Harry, my hearty.”

“What caused your quarrel with your comrade?”

“There was no jar or jabber betwixt us, d’you see me.”

“Not at the time, I understand you to mean; but surely you must have long owed him a grudge?”

“No, but long loved him; and he me.”

“Then, in heaven’s name, what put the dreadful thought in your head?”

“The devil, commodore, (the horned lubber!) and another lubber to help him”—­pointing at Jeremiah, who shrank to the skirts of the crowd.  “I’ll tell you every word of it, commodore, as true as a log-book.  For twenty long and merry years, Harry and I sailed together, and worked together, thro’ a hard gale sometimes, and thro’ hot sun another time; and never a squally word came between us till last night, and then it all came of that lubberly swipes-seller, I say again.  I thought as how it was a real awful thing that a strange landsman,