"Mine has been a life of little interest," he said, "save to myself alone. Of my birth and parentage I know nothing, and my earliest recollections carry me back to the period when I was a boy on board a Trebizond merchantman, at a time when I was just recovering from what is called the Asia fever, a malady that often attacks those who come from the north of the Black Sea to the Asia coast to live. This fever leaves the invalid deranged for weeks, and when he recovers from it, he is like an infant and obliged from that hour to cultivate his brain as from earliest childhood, and he can recall nothing of the past. Thus I lost the years of my life up to the age of eight or nine.
"I served in that ship until I was its first officer, and by good luck, having been once employed in one of the Sultan's ships as a pilot during a fierce gale, through which I was enabled, by my good luck, to carry the ship safely. I was appointed at once a lieutenant in the service, with good pay, and the means of improvement. The latter my taste led me to take advantage of, and in a short time I found myself in the command, where I was able to serve you."
"But you had no means whereby to learn of your birth and early childhood?" asked Komel's mother.
"None; I have thought much of the subject, but what effort to make in order to discover the truth as it regards this matter, I know not."
"Had you nothing about your person that could indicate your origin?"
"Nothing."
"Nor could the people with whom you sailed account for these things?" asked Aphiz.
"They said that I was taken off from a wreck on the Asia shore, the only survivor of a crew."
"How very strange," repeated all.
"You found nothing then upon you to mark the fact?" asked Komel's mother once more, sadly.