"Who are you?" he asked Cyrus Harding.
"Castaways, like you," replied the engineer, whose emotion was deep. "We have brought you here, among your fellow-men."
"My fellow-men!... I have none!"
"You are in the midst of friends."
"Friends!—for me! friends!" exclaimed the stranger, hiding his face in his hands. "No—never—leave me! leave me!"
Then he rushed to the side of the plateau which overlooked the sea, and remained there a long time motionless.
Harding rejoined his companions and related to them what had just happened.
"Yes! there is some mystery in that man's life," said Gideon Spilett, "and it appears as if he had only re-entered society by the path of remorse."
"I don't know what sort of a man we have brought here," said the sailor. "He has secrets—"
"Which we will respect," interrupted Cyrus Harding quickly. "If he has committed any crime, he has most fearfully expiated it, and in our eyes he is absolved."