I woke up again for a warmth and brightness on my face caused me to open my eyes.  I lifted my hand to shield them from the brightness and noted with a kind of wonder that it was so thin that the light shone through it as it does through parchment, and that the bones were visible beneath the skin.  I let it fall from weakness, and it dropped on to hair which I knew must be that of a beard, which set me wondering, for it had been my fashion to go clean-shaven.  How, then, did I come by a beard?  I looked about me and saw that I was lying on the deck of a ship, yes, of the Blanche itself, for I knew the shape of her stern, also certain knots in one of the uprights of the deck-house that formed a rude resemblance to a human face.  Nothing of this deck-house was left now, except the corner posts between which I lay, and to the tops of these was lashed a piece of canvas as though to keep off the sun and the weather.

With difficulty I lifted my head a little and looked about me.  The bulwarks of the ship had gone, but some of the uprights to which the planks had been nailed remained, and between them I perceived tall-stemmed trees with tufts of great leaves at the top of them, which trees seemed to be within a few yards of me.  Bright-winged birds flew about them and in their crowns I saw apes such as the sailors used to bring home from Barbary.  It would seem, then, that I must be in a river (in fact, it was a little bay or creek, on either side of which these trees appeared).

Noting these and the creeping plants with beautiful flowers, such as I had never seen, that climbed up them, and the sweet scents that floated on the air, and the clear light, now I grew sure that I was dead and had reached Paradise.  Only then how came it that I still lay on the ship, for never had I heard that such things also went to Paradise?  Nay, I must dream; it was nothing but a dream that I wished were true, remembering as I did the terrors of that gale-tossed sea.  Or, if I did not dream, then I was in some new world.

While I mused thus I heard a sound of soft footsteps and presently saw a figure bending over me.  It was Kari, very thin and hollow-eyed, much, indeed, as he had been when I found him on the quay in London, but still Kari without doubt.  He looked at me in his grave fashion, then said softly: 

“Master awake?”

“Yes, Kari,” I said, “but tell me, where am I?”

He did not answer at once but went away and returned presently with a bowl from which he bade me drink, holding it to my lips.  I did so, swallowing what seemed to be broth though I thought it strangely flavoured, after which I felt much stronger, for whatever was in that broth ran through my veins like wine.  At last he spoke in his queer English.