"Yes; I suppose Monella won't object? We ought not to do it without his consent. But for that awful forest, we might even go farther; we might make an expedition for a week or two, and get to 'Monella Lodge' and leave a letter there; or even to Daranato, and leave letters to be taken to the coast by the first Indians going that way." "No, we can't manage that, nor would Monella like us to be away so long. You never know what trouble might turn up here with these priests and their vile crew. And that reminds me of that letter Monella read to-day. What did you think of it?" "An extraordinary letter! Really, I feel almost inclined to go back to my former idea that Monella and his friends were all mad together!" Leonard stared aghast. "What! You speak of that again?" he exclaimed, real indignation in his tones. "After the way everything has come out--after all Monella's kindness----" Jack stopped him with a smile and a touch of his hand on the other's arm. "Put the brake on, old man," he said. "I don't mean anything disrespectful. But if Monella, who already seems to have been about the world and to have seen as much as three ordinary men of three score years and ten--if the point to which his memory reaches is only a portion of his life--why, you see, he must be Methuselah, or the Wandering Jew himself, or some other mythical being. Already, he has puzzled me, times enough, with his extraordinary tales; at the same time you cannot doubt his absolute sincerity. So that if his 'complete' memory is to go back farther still, why--Heaven help us!--we sha'n't know whether we are on our heads or our heels." After a short silence Leonard spoke. "But, if they had this 'Plant of Life' with them--those he was with--would that not in part account for it?" "It might; but it is making large demands on one's credulity. But what I really mean is this. I am inclined, at times, to think Monella a bit mad. He has a religious mania; he has persuaded himself--and evidently, from that letter, has been encouraged by others to believe it--that he has a religious mission to these people. Well, no harm in _that_, you say. No; and that he is honourable, upright, sincere, I feel very certain. Still, he may be self-deceived. He seems to me to be one of those fervidly religious mystics who can persuade themselves into almost anything." "Yet he is no fanatic. See how mild and gentle he can be; how slow to anger, how just in his discrimination between right and wrong!" "I admit all that. Still, I repeat, he might easily deceive himself." That afternoon Leonard sought out Ulama and asked to be allowed to row her on the lake; and to this she smiled a glad assent. When he had rowed the boat out a long distance from the shore, he laid down the oars, and let her drift. A gentle breeze was blowing, and this served to temper the ardour of the waning sun. "Do you remember the last time we were thus alone, Ulama?" presently he asked her.