Traditional dagger on the centre of the chest

It belonged to Tobias Crake, who had it from a chandler in Wapping for a shilling and a promise to pay the other shilling in Valparaiso. He kept it in his belt the whole first month, honing the edge on the grindstone each Sunday while the rest of us played cards for tobacco. The blade was short and mean, with a crossguard that swept up like folded wings and a grip wrapped in black twine he swore came off a French frigate.

We lost the main topmast off the Falklands in a sou'westerly that wouldn't quit. Tobias was up in the rigging with a sheet gone wild, and when the canvas cracked loose he cut it free with that dagger, one hand on the ratlines and the other gripping the hilt. The blade snagged on a block and flew, and it came down through the deck planking by the wheel, point first, the way you see it on the wall now. Nobody could pull it out until the weather eased, so we left it standing. Tobias called it a good omen. The captain called it the devil's own pin.

Tobias went over the side in the Pacific three weeks later, through no fault of his own, with nothing in his pockets but a folded letter to his mother. The knife came up out of the planking the day we made port, and I have kept it since. Look at the edge on it, boy. Still keen as the morning he sharpened it, and still pointing at the floor.