was as though I read of a new world,
as, uncomprehending, I glanced through this first newspaper that I had
seen for forty years.

The Consul had sat watching me in silence. He saw my agitation, and
realized something of what I felt, for putting out his hand and
grasping mine he said, kindly: "It must be a blow . . . friends all
dead, eh? Well, I'm your friend, anyhow . . . and you'll remember
later. Why, man, you must get that forty years out of your mind you are
surely younger than myself, and will be as strong as a bull in a week
or two. Try and sleep, my friend; you'll remember better to-morrow!"

But well I knew that the memory of those lost years would never return
to me. "Eat and forget forget!" The words were ringing in my ears even
now, as though spoken but yesterday. I had but to close my eyes and the
scene of deluge and destruction, there beneath the Snake, came as a
vivid picture before them and the eyes and voice of the woman that had
bade me forget were with me always. Those burning eyes! They blotted
out every other vision even that of the woman that had waited. God help
me, I could not even remember the semblance of her face always those
eyes of flame came between us. And God help her! If she had waited all
these years she would be an old, old woman but forty years! Surely she
was dead!

When had it been, that awful sleep of mine that had blotted out nearly
half a century, and left me, an anachronism, an outcast a "young,
strong man" still, whilst my schoolmates must be old, toothless gossips
or long since dead and forgotten? It must have been in the crater where
I had fallen that all these years had passed!

The strange berries, mayhap they had robbed me of these years the
berries that stupefied me and gave me pleasant dreams.

What then had the priestess bidden me forget . . . the path? Yes, the
path; and truly my wanderings had been but as a confused dream, a long
weary search it had seemed, hopeless and endless, yet it could have
taken but a few months from that long total of years.

And the thought came to me that though I knew nothing of this way of my
return, yet the spell had not been perfect, for I forgot little of that
other path I had trod with Inyati, and after; and I could, and would,
return!

For as my strength came back, and grew till it was the wonder of all,
so did my longing to return increase.

The eyes the voice that had bidden me go, now seemed to call for me
incessantly .