Hector trembled with excitement; he was unstrung, he had suffered much; the chase over the moor, the battle with the hound, the naked flight, hunger, exposure, the fear of being taken, the suspense of the past few days brought on a burning fever. He tried to speak but could not; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; his lips were parched; he held out his hands in a helpless fashion; he staggered, reeled across the deck. Ben gazed at him in wonder. He could not make it out. There was something very mysterious; Brack must have known what he was doing.
Hector groped along the deck like a man walking unsteadily in his sleep; he mumbled to himself, looked from side to side furtively, began to run, stopped, knelt down, put his face close to the deck in a listening attitude. Ben watched him, followed him. Was this a madman Brack had put on board?
Presently Hector came across a coil of rope. He seized it with both hands and wrestled with it in his fierce grasp.
"Strangling some one," thought Ben.
"You beast, you're dead, ha, ha, ha, I've done for you!" and the weird laugh sounded doubly strange on the water.
Hector rose and pulled off his coat, then stripped off his shirt.
"I must stop this," said Ben. He stepped forward and was about to take him by the arm, when Hector whipped round and flung himself on him.
"You'll never take me alive, never, I'll die first! Kill me if you like—I'll never go back!" hissed Hector, as he clenched Ben by the throat. It was an easy matter for the Captain to hold him off at arm's length, a strong man against a weak, and as he did so he saw into his face by the light of the lamp behind him.
Something in the face roused memories in Ben. He looked long and earnestly. The fever-stricken man returned his gaze; the poor tired brain had a glimmering of reason again. Thus they stood, gazing, forging the past, piecing links together in a chain of recollection.
"Ben, Ben, don't you know me?"