knocked him unconscious had somehow affected his memory, and he knew no
more about himself than he did about the man in the moon. Something
terrible had happened, something in which he had played a very prominent
part, that much he realised; but beyond that simple fact his
recollection did not extend. He groped about in the grass in the hope
that he might find something that would give him a clue to the
situation. His hand fell on his revolver. That at least was tangible,
but there was nothing enlightening about it. Further search revealed a
small flat piece of wood. He picked it up curiously and stared at it.
Two or three sentences had been hurriedly scratched on its smooth
surface with the point of a sharp knife, but though they were
intelligible enough they did not appear to refer to anything concerning
him. The mere fact that he had been lying almost on top of the wood
struck him as strange, and in a moment of unusual thoughtfulness he
slipped it into his pocket.

It was bright day by then, and the warmth of the sun seemed to revive
him to a marvellous extent. He got on his feet more by sheer will-power
than by any sudden accession of strength. He found that he could stagger
along, though his pace was necessarily slow and his course very erratic.
Some uncharted sense, instinct perhaps, led him along the track to the
creek where he had pitched his camp the previous evening. There was a
dim familiarity about the place that puzzled him. He felt in some absurd
way that he should recognise it, and he was both angry and surprised
that he could not. He found the remains of the parrot that Bradby had
eaten for breakfast, and he wondered vaguely who the man might be who
had been so close to him that morning. His wonder was such an impersonal
thing that he did not connect his own condition with the fact of the
other man's presence. Something had given way inside his head, that
something that controlled rational and consecutive memory. He sat down
on the bank of the creek and gazed into space. It would be incorrect to
say that he was dazed or that he behaved like a man in a dream. Those
are stock terms that in themselves are quite inadequate to convey his
peculiar state of mind and body. It was something more than lassitude,
yet it was not quite fatigue. It was rather as if some integral part of
his brain had been removed.

It is impossible to say just how long he remained on the bank of the
creek. At last his hunger became