"What caused your quarrel with your comrade?" "There was no jar or jabber betwixt us, d'you see me." "Not at the time, I understand you to mean; but surely you must have long owed him a grudge?" "No, but long loved him; and he me." "Then, in heaven's name, what put the dreadful thought in your head?" "The devil, commodore, (the horned lubber!) and another lubber to help him"--pointing at Jeremiah, who shrank to the skirts of the crowd. "I'll tell you every word of it, commodore, as true as a log-book. For twenty long and merry years, Harry and I sailed together, and worked together, thro' a hard gale sometimes, and thro' hot sun another time; and never a squally word came between us till last night, and then it all came of that lubberly swipes-seller, I say again. I thought as how it was a real awful thing that a strange landsman, before ever he laid eyes on either of us, should come to have this here dream about us. After falling in with Harry, when the lubber and I parted company, my old mate saw I was cast down, and he told me as much in his own gruff, well-meaning way; upon which I gave him the story, laughing at it. _He_ didn't laugh in return, but grew glum--glummer than I ever seed him; and I wondered, and fell to boxing about my thoughts, more and more (deep sea sink that cursed thinking and thinking, say I!--it sends many an honest fellow out of his course); and 'It's hard to know the best man's mind,' I thought to myself. Well, we came on the tack into these rocky parts, and Harry says to me all on a sudden, 'Tom, try the soundings here, ahead, by yourself--or let me, by myself.' I axed him why? 'No matter,' says Harry again, 'but after what you chawed about, I don't like your company any farther, till we fall in again at the next village.' 'What, Harry,' I cries, laughing heartier than ever, 'are you afeard of your own mind with Tom Mills?' 'Pho,' he made answer, walking on before me, and I followed him. "'Yes,' I kept saying to myself, 'he _is_ afeard of his own mind with his old shipmate.' 'Twas a darker night than this, and when I looked ahead, the devil (for I know 'twas _he_ that boarded me!) made me take notice what a good spot it was for Harry to fall foul of me. And then I watched him making way before me, in the dark, and couldn't help thinking he was the better man of the two--a head and shoulders over me, and a match for any two of my inches. And then again, I brought to mind that Harry would be a heavy purse the better of sending me to Davy's locker, seeing we had both been just paid off, and got a lot of prize-money to boot;--and at last (the real red devil having fairly got me helm a-larboard) I argufied with myself that Tom Mills would be as well alive, with Harry Holmes's luck in his pocket, as he could be dead, and _his_ in Harry Holmes's; not to say nothing of taking one's own part, just to keep one's self afloat, if so be Harry let his mind run as mine was running.