The mate replied that his leaving the vessel while out of the sight of any land was impossible.  He advised, that if the captain apprehended any bad consequences from what had happened, he should run for the west of France or Ireland, and there go ashore, and leave him, the mate, to carry the vessel into Liverpool.  The captain only shook his head gloomily, and reiterated his determination to leave the ship.  At this moment the mate was called to the deck for some purpose or other, and the instant he got up the companion-ladder he heard a splash in the water, and looking over the ship’s side, saw that the captain had thrown himself into the sea from the quarter-gallery, and was running astern at the rate of six knots an hour.  When just about to sink he seemed to make a last exertion, sprung half out of the water, and clasped his hands towards the mate, calling, “By——­, Bill is with me now!” and then sunk, to be seen no more.

After hearing this singular story Mr. Clerk asked some questions about the captain, and whether his companion considered him as at all times rational.  The sailor seemed struck with the question, and answered, after a moment’s delay, that in general he conversationed well enough.

It would have been desirable to have been able to ascertain how far this extraordinary tale was founded on fact; but want of time and other circumstances prevented Mr. Clerk from learning the names and dates, that might to a certain degree have verified the events.  Granting the murder to have taken place, and the tale to have been truly told, there was nothing more likely to arise among the ship’s company than the belief in the apparition; as the captain was a man of a passionate and irritable disposition, it was nowise improbable that he, the victim of remorse, should participate in the horrible visions of those less concerned, especially as he was compelled to avoid communicating his sentiments with any one else; and the catastrophe would in such a case be but the natural consequence of that superstitious remorse which has conducted so many criminals to suicide or the gallows.  If the fellow-traveller of Mr. Clerk be not allowed this degree of credit, he must at least be admitted to have displayed a singular talent for the composition of the horrible in fiction.  The tale, properly detailed, might have made the fortune of a romancer.

I cannot forbear giving you, as congenial to this story, another instance of a guilt-formed phantom, which made considerable noise about twenty years ago or more.  I am, I think, tolerably correct in the details, though I have lost the account of the trial.  Jarvis Matcham—­such, if I am not mistaken, was the name of my hero—­was pay-sergeant in a regiment, where he was so highly esteemed as a steady and accurate man that he was permitted opportunity to embezzle a considerable part of the money lodged in his hands for pay of soldiers, bounty of recruits (then a large sum), and other charges which fell within