He walked rapidly away without another word, and I stood for some little time dumfounded. Anyone who could speak in such a manner was surely mad, and I seriously considered it was my business to take counsel with my fellow-passengers, if not with the officers of the ship, for a mad captain ought to be relieved of his responsible duties in the interest of every soul on board. But before I could stir away the man himself came back to me, and said in a most pathetic and appealing way that went to my heart: ‘Pray pardon my rudeness, Mr. Gibling. You don’t know how I’m troubled. I am suffering dreadfully, and if you knew all you would pity rather than blame me.’ ‘Why not place me in possession of the information, then?’ I asked. He put his hand to his eyes for a moment or two and shuddered. ‘It is so dreadful, so horrible,’ he muttered mysteriously, speaking rather to himself than me. ‘All the more reason, then, why you should take me into your confidence,’ I said. ‘Yes--perhaps you are right. I will, I will. Come to my cabin in half an hour and I will tell you the awful story.’ Further conversation was interrupted by the bursting of a squall accompanied by heavy rain, while a long swell that came up from the S.W. was a sure precursor of the coming gales, of which the squalls were only the heralds. I at once descended to the cabin to get out of the rain, but quite half an hour passed before the captain came down. He passed me without speaking, but called the steward and ordered some tea to be taken to his cabin. And when another half-hour had elapsed the steward brought me a message to the effect that Captain Tredegar wished to see me in his room. The weather had now become very bad and the ship was labouring heavily. I found the captain seated at his table with a small Bible open before him, but which he closed and tossed into his bunk as I entered. He looked pale, ill, and careworn. He asked me to sit down, and remarked: ‘You have shown much interest in me, sir, and instinctively I feel I can place confidence in you. The time has now come for me to speak, or be dumb for evermore. I am a doomed man. My fate is sealed, and it is that fearful certainty that weighs upon me like a ton of lead.’ His words and manner seemed to me unmistakably to indicate insanity, and I could not repress a feeling of alarm. He must have guessed my thoughts, for he said quickly: ‘Don’t alarm yourself, and bear with me patiently; my brain is perfectly clear, and I know what I am doing, although a stranger might be disposed to think I was labouring under a distempered imagination. But it is not so. An awful fear takes possession of me and unmans me. It paralyses my faculties and renders life a curse instead of a blessing.’ ‘A fear of what?’ I asked. ‘Of the dead,’ he answered solemnly. I looked hard at him again. That surely was not the answer of a sane man.