I asked him what he meant, and suggested the possibility of others having been lost under like circumstances, while admitting the improbability of their having reached such a latitude.
"That is not it at all!" he exclaimed; "Jan von Broekhuysen stands alone, and for this reason. Because he is the only living creature of our race who has been put alone in an uninhabited world, and who has never seen nor communicated with a fellow-creature!"
"You mean since he was twenty years old, for I believe the paper says that was his age," said I.
"No," replied Torrence, "I mean nothing of the kind. I mean that never, for a single instant, has he seen or communicated with a fellow-being until he saw us!"
"I don't understand you. Doesn't the paper say he twenty years old when wrecked?"
"Certainly. But doesn't the paper say that when he struck he lost his memory?"
"But what of that? he's sure to have seen plenty of people in the first part of his life."
"Gurt, that fellow never had any other part to his life. His life began afresh after landing on that island. His past having been wiped out, he was born again. His memory being gone, the past had no existence for him. He knew no more about a previous existence than you or I know about a life before this. Practically he was reincarnated, inasmuch as his brain had lost every picture and every record of the past. He came as a new man to a new world, knowing nothing. The first twenty years of his life was no more his than if it had belonged to another body. I claim that Von Broekhuysen is the most unique creature that ever visited our planet!"
I was impressed, and thought some time before answering. Finally I said:
"It is doubtless a remarkable case, but you must be accurate in your statements, and when you declare that the fellow has never either seen or communicated with a fellow-being since losing his memory, you must not forget his comrades, Niles and Merrick, who were with him for a year afterward; surely he must remember them."