d my God bring us
here safe."

"Yes, Kari, but where are we?"

"Master, I think in that country from which I come; not in my own land
which is still far away, but still in that country. You remember," he
added with a flash of his dark eyes, "I always say that you and I go
there together one day."

"But what is the country, Kari?"

"Master, not know its name. It big and have many names, but you first
white man who ever come here, that why people think you God. Now you go
sleep again; to-morrow we talk."

I shut my eyes, being so very tired, and as I learned afterwards, slept
for twelve hours or more, to awake on the morning of the following day,
feeling wonderfully stronger and able to eat with appetite. Also Kari
brought me water and washed me, and clean clothes which he had found in
the ship that I put on.

Thus it went on for a long while and day by day I recovered strength
till at length I was almost as I had been when I married Blanche Aleys
in the church of St. Margaret at Westminster. Only now sorrow had
changed me within and without my face had grown more serious, while
to it hung a short yellow beard which, when I looked at my reflection,
seemed to become me well enough. That beard puzzled me much, since
such are not grown in a day, although it is true that as yet it was not
over-long. Weeks must have passed since it began to sprout upon my chin
and as we had been but three days in this place when I woke up, those
weeks without doubt were spent upon the sea.

Whither, then, had we come? Driving all the while before a great gale,
that for most of our voyage had blown from the east, as, if Kari were
right, we had done, this country must be very far away from England.
That it was so, indeed there could be no doubt, since here everything
was different. For example, having been a mariner from my childhood, I
had been taught and observed something of the stars, and noted that the
constellations had changed their places in the heavens, also that
some with which I was familiar were missing, while other new ones had
appeared. Further, the heat was great and constant, even at night
being more than that of our hottest summer day, and the air was full of
stinging insects, which at first troubled me much, though afterwards
I grew hardened to them. In short, everything was changed, and I was
indeed in a new world that was not told of in Europe, but what world?
What world? At least the sea joined it to the old, for be