The Blue Lagoon by H. De Vere Stacpoole

They knew him upon the Pacific slope as "Mad Lestrange. " He was not mad, but he was a man with a fixed idea. He was pursued by a vision: the vision of two children and an old sailor adrift in a little boat upon a wide blue sea.

When the Arago, bound for Papetee, picked up the boats of the Northumberland, only the people in the longboat were alive. Le Farge, the captain, was mad, and he never recovered his reason. Lestrange was utterly shattered; the awful experience in the boats and the loss of the children had left him a seemingly helpless wreck. The scowbankers, like all their class, had fared better, and in a few days were about the ship and sitting in the sun. Four days after the rescue the Arago spoke the Newcastle, bound for San Francisco, and transhipped the shipwrecked men.