pression was concentrated, meditative, under the inspecting light of
the lamp I held up to his face; such as a man thinking hard in solitude
might wear. My sleeping suit was just right for his size. A well-knit
young fellow of twenty-five at most. He caught his lower lip with the
edge of white, even teeth.

"Yes," I said, replacing the lamp in the binnacle. The warm, heavy
tropical night closed upon his head again.

"There's a ship over there," he murmured.

"Yes, I know. The Sephora. Did you know of us?"

"Hadn't the slightest idea. I am the mate of her--" He paused and
corrected himself. "I should say I _was_."

"Aha! Something wrong?"

"Yes. Very wrong indeed. I've killed a man."

"What do you mean? Just now?"

"No, on the passage. Weeks ago. Thirty-nine south. When I say a man--"

"Fit of temper," I suggested, confidently.

The shadowy, dark head, like mine, seemed to nod imperceptibly above the
ghostly gray of my sleeping suit. It was, in the night, as though I had
been faced by my own reflection in the depths of a somber and immense
mirror.

"A pretty thing to have to own up to for a Conway boy," murmured my
double, distinctly.

"You're a Conway boy?"

"I am," he said, as if startled. Then, slowly... "Perhaps you too--"

It was so; but being a couple of years older I had left before he
joined. After a quick interchange of dates a silence fell; and I thought
suddenly of my absurd mate with his terrific whiskers and the "Bless my
soul--you don't say so" type of intellect. My double gave me an inkling
of his thoughts by saying: "My father's a parson in Norfolk. Do you see
me before a judge and jury on that charge? For myself I can't see the
necessity. There are fellows that an angel from heaven--And I am not
that. He was one of those creatures that are just simmering all the time
with a silly sort of wickedness. Miserable devils that have no business
to live at all. He wouldn't do his duty and wouldn't let anybody else do
theirs. But what's the good of talking! You know well enough the sort of
ill-conditioned snarling cur--"

He appealed to me as if our experiences had been as identical as
our clothes. And I knew well enough the pestiferous danger of such a
character where there are no means of legal repression. And I knew well
enough also that my double there was no homicidal ruffian. I did not
think of asking him for details, and he told me the story roughly in
brusque, disconnected sentences. I