One day he said to Pierre:
"What has become of Len's boat?"
"The poor fellow got into a rage one day, during a talk with me. It was in the height of summer, and the dread of the curse was breaking him down. He suddenly left me and hurried away to his boat, which was lying on the beach out of the tide. I saw him go aboard of her, and very soon smoke rose from the little cabin. I suspected what he intended to do when he left me, and went after him, but too late to prevent him setting the fire, which soon spread over the whole boat from the cabin. Len stood by, looking on without a word or movement, till the coming tide washed over the remains of the Marie. He then went away, and I did not see him for weeks, nor did I know where he had gone."
"You wrote to me that he had fallen a victim to the water curse, as the other members of the family had before him."
"Yes, poor boy. He often told me that he did not believe he would be afflicted, as his father was not so bad with it as his grandfather."
"Len was a strange character to me," said Winslow. "There was at times a mad look in his eyes. I think it must be a form of insanity, perhaps a mild type of mental derangement."
"It came on like a fever, and seemed to affect his mind."
"Was it a sudden fever, or did it gradually affect him?" asked Winslow.
"The thirst came with awful suddenness," the old man replied; "but leading up to that time for weeks and months he was a changed man. It was a sad thing to see him avoiding everybody but me, and moving about as if followed by something he did not see, but feared at every step."
"Was there an accompanying sickness of any kind?"