I did not press him further, but to satisfy myself that he lay in ignorance of
the workings of his own mind, deliberately introduced him to Mortimer
Collins's "Transmigration," and gave him a sketch of the plot before he opened
the pages.
"What rot it all is!" he said, frankly, at the end of an hour. "I don't
understand his nonsense about the Red Planet Mars and the King, and the rest
of it. Chuck me the Longfellow again."
I handed him the book and wrote out as much as I could remember of his
description of the sea-fight, appealing to him from time to time for
confirmation of fact or detail. He would answer without raising his eyes from
the book, as assuredly as though all his knowledge lay before flint on the
printed page. I spoke under the normal key of my voice that the current might
not be broken, and I know that he was not aware of what he was saying, for his
thoughts were out on the sea with Longfellow.
"Charlie," I asked, "when the rowers on the galleys mutinied how did they kill
their overseers?"
"Tore up the benches and brained 'em. That happened when a heavy sea was
running. An overseer on the lower deck slipped from the centre plank and fell
among the rowers. They choked him to death against the side of the ship with
their chained hands quite quietly, and it was too dark for the other overseer
to see what had happened.
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