We did not know who you were and so have not been able to communicate
with any of your friends. We guessed you were a man of social position
by your hands and teeth, and we knew your name began with a T because
of the monogram on the signet ring on your finger."

"Pick me up?" he echoed. "Where did they pick me up? What has
happened? Was it an accident?"

"You were found unconscious, drifting in the ocean, clinging to a spar,
and were brought here by a sailing vessel. You had a fracture of the
skull and you were half drowned. It is supposed that you were one of
the passengers of the _Abyssinia_, which took fire and went down two
days after leaving Cape Town, but as several passengers and officers
whose bodies were never found also had names beginning with T, it was
impossible to identify you."

As he listened, the vacant, stupid expression on his face gradually
gave place to a more alert, intelligent look. Indistinctly, vaguely,
he recalled things that had happened. Slowly his brain cells began to
work.

He remembered cabling to Helen from Cape Town telling her of his
sailing on the _Abyssinia_. He recalled the incidents of the first day
at sea. The weather was beautiful. Everything pointed to a good
voyage. Who was traveling with him? He could not remember. Oh, yes,
now he knew. Francois, his valet, and that other queer fellow he had
picked up at the diamond mines--his twin brother. Yes, it all came
back to him now.

Why had he gone to the diamond mines? Yes, now he knew--to take back
to New York the two big stones found on the Company's land. He had
them safe in a belt he wore round his waist next to his skin. The
second night out he went to bed about midnight and was fast asleep when
suddenly he heard shouts of "Fire! Fire!" Jumping up and looking out
of his cabin he saw stewards and passengers running excitedly about.
There was a reddish glare and a suffocating smell of smoke. Quickly he
buckled on the belt with the diamonds, and, slipping on his trousers,
went out. The electric lights had gone out. The ship was in complete
darkness. From all sides came shouts of men and screams of frightened
women. It was a scene of utter demoralization and horror. He was
groping his way along the narrow passage, when, suddenly, out of the
gloom a man sprang upon him, and, taken entirely by surprise, he was
borne to the deck before he had time to defend himself. He could not
see the man's face an