Then I lost consciousness completely.
I came to, to find myself lying in bed, in a little room lit by a lattice window, through which was a view of rolling purple moor. I felt very weak, and when I tried to move, found that my body was heavily bandaged and my head swathed. The movement caused a sharp pain to shoot through me, and again I lost consciousness.
This was nearly six weeks ago. I am now sitting in a little slip of a garden behind the inn, with the moor coming right up to it. I cannot walk yet, for both my legs were broken by the subsidence of the cave, as well as a few other comparatively unimportant bones in my body. But my head has been clear for a long time, and I have employed my enforced leisure in writing this account of what befell me.
I cannot, even now, make out exactly what happened. The kind folk who rescued me, and have looked after me ever since, stoutly aver that the fall of earth happened on this side of the cave, almost directly I and my companion entered it; that he gave the alarm immediately, and I was extricated within an hour.
If this is true, what becomes of Upsidonia?
It cannot be true. But I no longer talk of Upsidonia to them, for when I did so, after I began to mend, they looked askance at me and were obviously hiding something. Even the doctor, who rides over the moors from Eppington on a shaggy pony, told me that I should not get well as long as I clung to such delusions.
Delusions! Is Miriam a delusion, I should like to know? Can a man fall in love with a delusion?
No. These people must know perfectly well of the existence of Upsidonia, but for some reason of their own they wish to keep it dark. Perhaps I shall know why when I get well again.