All soon gained the spot, a narrow pass between slanting piles of displaced rocks; the hills from which they had tumbled rising brown and barren and to a great height above and beyond them. And there, indeed, upon the strip of verdure which formed the winding road through the defile, lay the corpse of one of the sailors who had visited the publican's house the evening before.
Again Jeremiah dropt on his knees, at some distance from the body, exclaiming, "Lord save us!--yes! oh, yes, neighbors, this is the very place!--only--the saints be good to us again!--'twas the tall sailor I seen killing the little sailor, and here's the tall sailor murthered by the little sailor."
"Dhrames go by conthraries, some way or another," observed one of his neighbors; and Jeremiah's puzzle was resolved.
Two steps were now indispensable to be taken; the county coroner should be summoned, and the murderer sought after. The crowd parted to engage in both matters simultaneously. Evening drew on when they again met in the pass: and the first, who had gone for the coroner, returned with him, a distance of near twenty miles; but the second party did not prove so successful. In fact they had discovered no clue to the present retreat of the supposed assassin.
The coroner impaneled his jury, and held his inquest under a large upright rock, bedded in the middle of the pass, such as Jeremiah said he had seen in his dream. A verdict of willful murder against the absent sailor was quickly agreed upon; but ere it could be recorded, all hesitated, not knowing how to individualize a man of whose name they were ignorant.
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?"