Concerning the Mark of a Bloody Hand and How I Lay in the Bilboes On Suspicion of Murder

Laying by the useless weapon (for I had neither powder nor ball) I fell to profound meditation. And now indeed many things were plain; here (methought) had been the ghost, here had lain the murderer of three men, here in the one and only safe place for him in the whole ship, viz., beneath my bed, the while I lay there in drugged sleep. It would be simple matter to steal hither in my absence and drug my food, and would explain the strange nausea had so afflicted me of late. Here then I had the secret of my day-long sleeping, my vapours and black humours, here the explanation of my evil dreams and ghastly visions while Death, in human guise, crept about my couch or stooped above my unconscious form. But (I reasoned) I was not to be murdered, since I was of more use to him alive than dead and for three reasons (as I judged). First, that in his stealthy comings and goings he might be mistaken for me and thus left alone; secondly, that dressed in my habit he might haply father his crimes on me; and thirdly, that I (lying here drugged and asleep) might afford him the one and only escape from pursuit and capture. And yet (thinks I) what manner of man (or rather devil) should this be who, clad in my doublet, could make away with three lusty fellows and no one the wiser? Hereupon (and all in a flash) I seemed to see again the great black ship drifting down on us in the river and the man who rowed the skiff with the misshapen bundle in the stern-sheets--the bundle that had vanished so inexplicably.