I lost all reckoning; I rowed to escape the nightmare and the lake that held me back. The sun got up in mid-heaven, and still I was on that shimmering water. I knew nothing, absolutely, of what I did, except that I rowed to get away from that female Link, who seemed to bite me times without number, and always in that same burning spot. I must have fainted half a dozen times; I rowed toward home between these spells by instinct only. The distance which I could ordinarily compass in a little more than an hour, required no less than seven hours, this fateful day. When I think of the heat, the weight of the boat and my physical condition, I wonder I did not die, and drift to the shore. As it was, I have not the slightest recollection of having reached the bank. I thought that for years and years I strove to get away from that last terrible encounter. When at length my brain was clear and I opened my eyes, in the slow, weak manner of one who has all but passed to the further side of the dark river, I saw a beautiful, worried face above my own—the face of the goddess. “Thank God!” she whispered fervently, when she saw that I was mad no longer, and the poor girl cried as she bathed my head and bade me go to sleep. I had nearly pegged out, and that is the truth. When I was strong enough to hear my own story, I learned of things which will never cease to fill me with wonder, and with many emotions too soft to parade. It was good old Fatty who had seen me coming; and he it was that finally carried me bodily up the hill. Then for a nurse I had never lacked for a moment. The goddess and Fatty, he her slave, she my guardian angel, had done the all that could be done, with the poor facilities at hand, for a man in such desperate straits that he raves night and day for a week. But the goddess really saved me, when all is said, for she knew the properties of certain tropical plants and with the crushed leaves of one she drew the poison from the bite, reduced the swelling and made it possible for proper healing to commence. I had done the worst possible thing, in rowing home through the heat and with such a wound, but if I had not done exactly what I did, and when I did, my doctor and nurse would never have had the opportunity of proving their skill. They were strange days that followed—strange for me, who had never been down on my back with illness before since childhood, for the fever left me thin, weak, and feeling so helpless that I had no desire to move as much as one of my feet. My first poignant thought was about the Blacks, and the danger of their swooping down upon us again. When I knew that for a week there had been no sign of any foe, I thought they had probably undergone too great a fright on the last occasion to require any more for some considerable time.