CHAPTER XVIII.
My Reason is Restored—Rescue by Dutch Ships—The return to Holland—I settle down there.
OF the great blank that came into my life I can recall but little. I have dim memories of the strange fancies I had during that time, but how long it lasted I cannot say, or at least I had no clue when at last reason reasserted itself. I have cause to believe since that it must have been nearly two years. I do not think I was unhappy during that time, and I suppose I had more than my natural strength and skill for hunting. Often Azolta and Zolca, and sometimes Paul, were with me in my distorted imaginings, but these ghosts never came at the same time; even a madman could not imagine that.
When my senses returned—and they came back suddenly—my first discovery was that I was lying on the sand of a strange shore. I looked around, but all was new to me. I remembered everything of the flood that had happened, but it seemed only yesterday that it had occurred. How then did I come where I was?
I rose and began to pace the beach. I was naked, but beside me, where I had been lying, was the old cutlass covered with rust. The tide was low, and had left many large pools in the rocks; looking into one of these I started with dismay, for I thought I was the victim of magic.
My hair, long and matted, hung down my back; my beard had grown far down my breast, and both hair and beard were white as the foam of the sea! I was burnt a deep brown by the sun, and my eyes seemed to look back at me from the glassy water with an unnatural brightness. This is what Nature’s mirror showed me, and I could scarcely credit my senses.
I walked up and down, and exhausted myself in speculations regarding this wondrous transformation, but could only at last come to the conclusion that I had been wandering about in a demented condition for some time. But for how long? And above all where was I?
It was early in the morning, and the sun was on my right hand as I looked seaward. I was, then, on the northern coast of Terra Australis, and must have made my way up with some mad idea of reaching Java.
I found a pile of shell-fish I had collected, and a smouldering fire; so that I must have been amongst the Papoos and got fire from them, and carried a burning stick with me always, after their fashion.
I roasted the shell-fish on the coals and ate them with satisfaction, for I was hungry. Searching about I came on a spring of fresh water, emerging from the bank where it met the beach. Of this I drank heartily, and then, climbing the bank, looked around at the new country where I found myself. An open plain, with many of the tall, white mounds on it made by the ants, ran back for some distance, and beyond, many miles away, rose a lofty tier of mountain ranges higher than any I had yet seen in Terra Australis. These lay to the south; had I crossed that great barrier during my madness? I know now that I must have done so.