Overpowered by the tremendous cold, I had the greatest difficulty in rescuing my life from this peril; but as soon as I reached the land, I hurried off to the wastes of Libya to dry myself there in the sun. I had, however, scarcely set out ere the burning heat so oppressed my head, that I reeled back again to the north very ill. I sought relief in rapid movements; and with uncertain and hurried steps I hastened from the west to the east, and from the east to the west. I placed myself in the most rapid vicissitudes of day and night; now in the heats of summer, and now in the winter's cold. I know not how long I thus wandered over the earth. A burning fever glowed through my veins, and with dreadful agony I perceived my intellect abandoning me. Misfortune would have it that I should carelessly tread on a traveller's heel; I must have hurt him, for I received a violent blow; I staggered, and fell. When I recovered my senses I was comfortably stretched on an excellent bed, which stood among many others in a roomy and handsome apartment. Somebody was sitting near my pillow; many persons passed through the hall, going from one bed to another. They stood before mine, and I was the subject of their conversation. They called me _Number Twelve_; and on the wall at the foot of my bed that number certainly stood--it was no illusion, for I could read it most distinctly: there was a black marble slab, on which was inscribed in large golden letters, my name, Peter Schlemihl, quite correctly written. On the slab, and under my name, were two lines of letters, but I was too weak to connect them, and closed my eyes again. I heard something of which Peter Schlemihl was the subject, loudly and distinctly uttered, but I could not collect the meaning. I saw a friendly man and a beautiful woman in black apparel, standing before my bed. Their forms were not strangers to me, though I could not recognize them. Some time passed by, and I gradually gathered strength. I was called No. 12, and No. 12, by virtue of his long beard, passed off for a Jew, but was not the less attended to on that account. Nobody seemed to notice that he had no shadow. My boots were, as I was assured, to be found, with everything else that had been discovered with me, in good and safe keeping, and ready to be delivered to me on my recovery. The place in which I lay ill was called the _Schlemihlium_; and there was a daily exhortation to pray for Peter Schlemihl, as the founder and benefactor of the hospital. The friendly man whom I had seen at my bedside was Bendel; the lovely woman was Mina.