True, I was wild with fever and delirium; I was maddened with
the thought that this wretched man would marry Dora; I was horrified at
the idea of sleeping in the same room with him any longer. But still, I
acknowledge it now, face to face with a lonely death upon this frozen
island, it was murder--wilful murder. I meant to poison him, and I did
it. "He has set this powder for me, the villain," I said to myself, "and now
I shall make him take it without knowing it. How do I know that it's
arsenic or anything else to do him any harm? His blood be upon his own
head, for aught I know about it. What I put there was simply quinine. If
anybody has changed it, he has changed it himself. The pit that he dug
for another, he himself shall fall therein." I wouldn't even test it, for fear I should find it was arsenic, and be
unable to give it to him innocently and harmlessly. I rose up and went over to Lemarchant's side. Horror of horrors, he was
sleeping soundly! Yes, the man had tried to poison me; and when he
thought he had seen me swallow his poisonous powder, so callous and
hardened was his nature that he didn't even lie awake to watch the
effect of it. He had dropped off soundly, as if nothing had happened,
and was sleeping now, to all appearance, the sleep of innocence. Being
convalescent, in fact, and therefore in need of rest, he slept with
unusual soundness. I laid the altered powder quietly by his pillow, took away his that I
had laid out in readiness for him, and crept back to my own place
noiselessly. There I lay awake, hot and feverish, wondering to myself
hour after hour when he would ever wake and take it. At last he woke, and looked over towards me with unusual interest. "Hullo, Doctor," he said quite genially, "how are you this morning, eh? getting on well, I hope." It was the first time during all my illness
that he had ever inquired after me. I lied to him deliberately to keep the delusion up. "I have a terrible
grinding pain in my chest," I said, pretending to writhe. I had sunk to
his level, it seems. I was a liar and a murderer. He looked quite gay over it, and laughed. "It's nothing," he said,
grinning horribly. "It's a good symptom. I felt just like that myself,
my dear fellow, when I was beginning to recover." Then I knew he had tried to poison me, and I felt no remorse for my
terrible action. It was a good deed to prevent such a man as that from
ever carrying away Dora--my Dora--into a horrid slavery. Sooner than
that he should marry Dora, I would poison him--I would poison him a
thousand times over. He sat up, took the spoon full of treacle, and poured the powder as
usual into the very middle of it. I watched him take it off at a single
gulp without perceiving the difference, and then I sank back exhausted
upon my roll of sealskins. *       *       *       *       *

All that day I was very ill; and Lemarchant, lying tossing beside me,
groaned and moaned in a fearful fashion. At last the truth seemed to
dawn upon him gradually, and he cried aloud to me: "Doctor, Doctor,
quick, for Heaven's sake! you must get me out an antidote. The powders
must have got mixed up somehow, and you've given me arsenic instead of
quinine, I'm certain." "Not a bit of it, Lemarchant," I said, with some devilish malice; "I've
given you one of my own packets, that was lying here beside my pillow." He turned as white as a sheet the moment he heard that, and gasped out
horribly, "That--that--why, that was arsenic!" But he never explained in
a single word how he knew it, or where it came from. I knew. I needed no
explanation, and I wanted no lies, so I didn't question him. I treated him as well as I could for arsenic poisoning, without saying a
word to the captain and the other men about it; for if he died, I said,
it would be by his own act, and if my skill could still avail, he should
have the benefit of it; but the poison had had full time to work before
I gave him the antidote, and he died by seven o'clock that night in
fearful agonies. Then I knew that I was really a murderer. My fingers are beginning to get horribly numb, and I'm afraid I shan't
be able to write much longer. I must be quick about it, if I want to
finish this confession. *       *       *       *       *

After that came my retribution. I have been punished for it, and
punished terribly. As soon as they all heard Lemarchant was dead--a severe relapse, I
called it--they set to work to carry him out and lay him somewhere. Then
for the first time the idea flashed across my mind that they couldn't
possibly bury him. The ice was too deep everywhere, and underneath it
lay the solid rock of the bare granite islands. There was no snow even,
for the wind swept it away as it fell, and we couldn't so much as
decently cover him. There was nothing for it but to lay him out upon the
icy surface. So we carried the stark frozen body, with its hideous staring eyes wide
open, out by the jutting point of rock behind the hut, and there we
placed it, dressed and upright. We stood it up against the point exactly
as if it were alive, and by-and-by the snow came and froze it to the
rock; and there it stands to this moment, glaring for ever fiercely upon
me. Whenever I went in or out of the hut, for three long months, that
hideous thing stood there staring me in the face with mute indignation. At night, when I tried to sleep, the murdered man stood there still in
the darkness beside me. O God! I dared not say a word to anybody: but I
trembled every time I passed it, and I knew what it was to be a
murderer. In May, the sun came back again, but still no open water for our one
boat. In June, we had the long day, but no open water. The captain began
to get impatient and despondent, as you will read in the log: he was
afraid now we might never get a chance of making the mouth of the Lena. By-and-by, the scurvy came (I have no time now for details, my hands are
so cramped with cold), and then we began to run short of provisions. Soon I had them all down upon my hands, and presently we had to place
Paterson's corpse beside Lemarchant's on the little headland. Then they
sank, one after another--sank of cold and hunger, as you will read in
the log--till I alone, who wanted least to live, was the last left
living. I was left alone with those nine corpses propped up awfully against the
naked rock, and one of the nine the man I had murdered. May Heaven forgive me for that terrible crime; and for pity's sake,
whoever you may be, keep it from Dora--keep it from Dora! My brother's address is in my pocket-book. The fever and remorse alone have given me strength to hold the pen. My
hands are quite numbed now. I can write no longer. *       *       *       *       *

There the manuscript ended.