When my worst torture passed, my limbs became cold and rigid as stone; it was the marasmus. I could see, and hear, but I could neither feel nor move. The fierce sun beating on my face threatened to burn out my eyes, but I could not lift my hands to cover them. To seize the horizon and draw it up to the zenith would have been an easier task than to close my eyelids over the burning eyeballs.
Yet, amid all this horrible pain, I had the feeling as if a faint zephyr from fluttering wings were sweeping across my cheek. It was the white dove perched on my shoulder, my beautiful white dove, who was come to me again in my hour of direst need! She tried with her outstretched wings to shield my face from the scorching sun, and the blessed shadow brought such relief that I was at last able to close my eyes in sleep.
How long and whither the dismasted and rudderless boat drifted; whether it touched any shore—I cannot remember. I don't know what happened during my madness.
My comrades in misfortune were lost; some drowned themselves to end their agony; some died a horrible death in the boat. I alone was saved by a heavenly providence for further trials. The drifting boat was found by an Indian merchantman bound for Antwerp, and the noble Christians aboard of her, believing life not yet extinct in my miserable body, worked over me until they brought back the soul to its earthly tenement.
I forgive every enemy I have in the world; but my benefactor on that Indian merchantman, who brought me back to life, I never can forgive. Had he cast me into the waves instead of resuscitating me, I should now be ambergris, for, as the honorable gentlemen know, that valuable substance develops in the stomach of a shark, and I should have been devoured by one of those voracious beasts. Instead of a wretched criminal on trial for his many misdeeds, I should now, had I been allowed to become ambergris, be swinging in a censer perfuming the altar of a church. The care I received on board the Indiaman fully restored my strength, and when we arrived in the harbor in Holland there was no trace about me of the many hardships I had endured.
I could hardly wait until I got back to Nimeguen to see my dear wife and child. The child would be running about now—perhaps the mother had taught it to call me by name!
How happy I should be to be home again!—no captain, no rajah, but a father.
Not the consort of a Begum, but the husband of my wife. I blessed the fate which had delivered me from the land of lions, tigers and serpents. Had not I a tulip garden worth all the wealth of India?
I turned night to day in order to reach home as quickly as possible, and sent mounted estafets in advance to announce my coming. My wife, who had increased in weight fully twenty-five pounds, had a splendid repast prepared for me; and flung her arms around my neck when I alighted from the carriage.
After our first transports of joy were over, my first words were: