s, into an adjoining apartment,
where I ate, when my appetite craved, in moody silence. Dust gathered.
The air in the room became oppressive. I regarded this mournful chamber
as my tomb.

My servants, and those who had called themselves my friends, avoided
me. I heard whispers at my barred and bolted door, saying that I was
mad.

A madhouse I knew to be worse than a prison. I therefore resolved to
leave my home before I was prevented from doing so.

How long I had remained in the state of misery and dejection to which I
had abandoned myself I cannot say. It must have been some considerable
time, for when, at last, I came out into the light, the sun dazzled me.
None offered to stop me when I left the house. Many of my one-time
servants had been discharged by my father-in-law, who had taken upon
himself the management of my estates. The gatekeeper looked at me
curiously when I passed his lodge, and that was all the notice
vouchsafed me by my former dependents.

I knew that Dirk Hartog had returned from the voyage upon which he had
embarked soon after my marriage, and to him I determined to carry my
broken heart. Only upon that mirror of mystery known as the ocean could
I look for peace.

I found my old commander in the cabin of the "Santa Isabel", an ancient
Spanish vessel, reported to have voyaged to the south in 1595, when
Mendana, a Spaniard, was sent out with instructions to establish a
colony at the island of San Christobal, in the Solomon Group, and from
thence to make an attempt to discover the Great Southern Continent.
Mendana's fleet consisted of three large vessels and a frigate, and,
since it was intended to settle a colony, many took their wives with
them, among the emigrants being Mariana, the wife of Lope de Vega, who
commanded the "Santa Isabel". The total number of men in the fleet was
378, of whom 280 were soldiers. The "Santa Isabel" became detached from
the rest of the fleet, and reached the Great South Land, where she
spent five years in a harbour said to be of great beauty and
extent--the finest harbour in the world.

All this we learnt, from the log of the "Santa Isabel", though what
became of the expedition, or of those who composed it, the record did
not disclose. But the reading which interested Hartog most, keen
treasure-hunter that he continued to be, was a paper describing some
curious drawings he had found in one of the lockers of the vessel, of
hands, some with six fingers, some with