nd bowed,
And amid his gold he lay--
Amid iron chests that were bound with brass,
And he watched them night and day.

No word he spoke to any on board,
And his step was heavy and slow,
And all men deemed that an evil life
He had led in Mexico.

But list ye me--on the lone high seas,
As the ship went smoothly on,
It chanced, in the silent second watch,
I sate on the deck alone;
And I heard, from among those iron chests,
A sound like a dying groan.

I started to my feet--and lo!
The captain stood by me,
And he bore a body in his arms,
And dropped it in the sea.

I heard it drop into the sea,
With a heavy splashing sound,
And I saw the captain's bloody hands
As he quickly turned him round;
And he drew in his breath when me he saw
Like one convulsed, whom the withering awe
Of a spectre doth astound.

But I saw his white and palsied lips,
And the stare of his ghastly eye,
When he turned in hurried haste away,
Yet he had no power to fly;
He was chained to the deck with his heavy guilt,
And the blood that was not dry.

'Twas a cursed thing,' said I, 'to kill
That old man in his sleep!
And the plagues of the sea will come from him;
Ten thousand fathoms deep!

And the plagues of the storm will follow us,
For Heaven his groans hath heard!'
Still the captain's eye was fixed on me,
But he answered never a word.

And he slowly lifted his bloody hand
His aching eyes to shade,
But the blood that was wet did freeze his soul,
And he shrinked like one afraid.

And even then--that very hour
The wind dropped, and a spell
Was on the ship, was on the sea,
And we lay for weeks, how wearily,
Where the old man's body fell.

I told no one within the ship
That horrid deed of sin;
For I saw the hand of God at work,
And punishment begin.

And when they spoke of the murdered man,
And the El Dorado hoard,
They all surmised he had walked in dreams,
And had fallen overboard.

But I alone, and the murderer--
That dreadful thing did know,
How he lay in his sin, a murdered man,
A thousand fathom low.

And many days, and many more,
Came on, and lagging sped,
And the heavy waves of that sleeping sea
Were dark, like molten lead.

And not a breeze came, east or west,
And burning was the sky,