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"Not at all," said Holmes. "Let us hear what you have to say."

"It's soon told, and, by the Lord, every word of it is truth.

I knew Black Peter, and when he pulled out his knife I whipped a harpoon through him sharp, for I knew that it was him or me.

That's how he died.

You can call it murder.

Anyhow, I'd as soon die with a rope round my neck as with Black Peter's knife in my heart."

"How came you there?" asked Holmes.

"I'll tell it you from the beginning.

Just sit me up a little so as I can speak easy.

It was in '83 that it happened - August of that year.

Peter Carey was master of the SEA UNICORN, and I was spare harpooner.

We were coming out of the ice-pack on our way home, with head winds and a week's southerly gale, when we picked up a little craft that had been blown north.

There was one man on her - a landsman.

The crew had thought she would founder, and had made for the Norwegian coast in the dinghy.

I guess they were all drowned.

Well, we took him on board, this man, and he and the skipper had some long talks in the cabin.

All the baggage we took off with him was one tin box.

So far as I know, the man's name was never mentioned, and on the second night he disappeared as if he had never been.

It was given out that he had either thrown himself overboard or fallen overboard in the heavy weather that we were having.

Only one man knew what had happened to him, and that was me, for with my own eyes I saw the skipper tip up his heels and put him over the rail in the middle watch of a dark night, two days before we sighted the Shetland lights.

"Well, I kept my knowledge to myself and waited to see what would come of it.

When we got back to Scotland it was easily hushed up, and nobody asked any questions.

A stranger died by an accident, and it was nobody's business to inquire.

Shortly after Peter Carey gave up the sea, and it was long years before I could find where he was.

I guessed that he had done the deed for the sake of what was in that tin box, and that he could afford now to pay me well for keeping my mouth shut.

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