[ILLUSTRATION] My strength was quite exhausted by the excitement of the combat, by my wound, and by my desperate efforts at the time of the wreck; for I was for many long days a prey to burning fever and wild delirium from which I was restored to health by the excellent care of the doctor whom Falmouth had left behind. I was so dangerously ill that I had to be carried to Marsa-Siroco, a little Maltese suburb, near the coast where the yacht had gone ashore. I remained in that village until my complete recovery, when the fever left me, and I was able to converse; the doctor told me the circumstances I have just recorded, and handed me a letter from Falmouth, which I copy in this journal. "After all, my dear count, I prefer having saved you from drowning, to having put a bullet in your head, or perhaps having received from you a similar proof of friendship. "I hope that the vigorous _douche_ that you have received will have a good effect on you, and save you from another fit of insanity. "My plans are changed, or rather become what they were at first. I desire more than ever to satisfy my fancy about that incendiary, Canaris; but as that diabolical piratical pilot (May he come to the gallows!) has wrecked my poor yacht, I have chartered a vessel at Malta, and am off for Hydra. "Good-bye. If we ever meet again we will laugh at all this. H. FALMOUTH." "P. S. I leave you the doctor, for the Maltese doctors are said to be detestable. He will hand you a letter of recommendation to the lord governor of the island. "Send me the doctor when you have no further need of his services." I have become so stupid from the life of pleasure I have been leading, that I scarcely remember the effect this sarcastic letter had on me. When I arrived at Malta I called on Lord P----, who showed me great courtesy. He caused active search to be made for the pretended pilot. That wretch had actually been at one time a member of the Royal Navy, but, for two years past, he had given up his position as pilot in the island of Malta. A description of him was sent throughout the whole Archipelago, where he was supposed to be engaged in piracy. At Lord P----'s I met a certain Marquis Justiniani, a descendant of that ancient and illustrious family, the Justiniani of Genoa, which had given dukes to Venice and sovereigns to some of the Grecian islands. The marquis owned many country places in the island of Khios, which had just been ravaged by the Turks. He spoke to me about a palace called the Carina Palace, built towards the end of the sixteenth century by the Cardinal Angelo Justiniani. The marquis had for a long time rented the palace to an aga. The description of the palace and the climate seduced me, so I proposed to go to Khios, to visit the palace and the park, and to rent or buy the place if it suited me.