‘Begone!’ said this ghost-like figure of Captain Manton. ‘This is no place for you. Begone, and leave me in peace! I harm no one. I am quite alone--alone in a world of my own, peopled with the ghosts of the drowned!’
Edgar stepped forward, and, looking him straight in the eyes, said:
‘Do you not know me, Captain Manton? I am Edgar Foster. I was saved from the wreck with your daughter Eva.’
At the mention of Eva’s name a momentary light of intelligence came into the man’s eyes, but it quickly died away, and left them dull and vacant.
‘Poor fellow!’ said Edgar sorrowfully; ‘his brain has given way under the strain. He must have suffered severely.’
‘Not a dangerous form of madness,’ replied Edgar; ‘but I have no doubt he is not in his right mind. We must humour him, and question him. He has a strange story to relate, if he can be persuaded to tell it, and if he remembers all he has gone through.’
Edgar took the unfortunate man by the hand, and persuaded him to sit down.
Meri looked on, his curiosity evidently being excited.
Edgar tried as gently and simply as possible to lead the wandering mind of the captain back to the wreck of the _Distant Shore_, and found, to his delight, that he succeeded in rousing his dormant memory.
Captain Manton began to talk in a strange, monotonous way. He was evidently recapitulating what had happened to him after the wreck of the _Distant Shore_, and he seemed almost unconscious of anyone being present.
From time to time during the course of the strange tale he related Edgar refreshed his weak memory.
‘If we can lead him on to tell us everything,’ said Edgar, ‘he may recognise us in the end.’
‘I hope so,’ said Wal; ‘it is terrible to see him like this, but it may be caused through not having any white men to converse with.’
Captain Manton--for, indeed, it was that unfortunate seaman--commenced by telling them, in a somewhat incoherent way, that he was on a big ship when it went on to the rocks and crashed to pieces.
‘It was the captain’s fault,’ he said; ‘he ought to have made for a harbour; he is responsible for all our deaths.’
‘You were saved,’ said Edgar. ‘You are not dead, and you ought to be thankful. It was not the captain’s fault, for he was a brave man, and a good seaman. I knew him well, and he was incapable of a cowardly action.’