At last one night, when, having eaten, Kari and I were seated together in the moonshine before we slept, I turned on him suddenly, hoping thus to surprise the truth out of his secret heart, and said: 

“What is your plan, Kari?  For, know, I weary of this life.”

“I was waiting for the Master to ask that question,” he replied with his gentle smile. (Again, I give not the very words he spoke in his bad English, but the substance of them.) “Now will the Master be pleased to listen?  As I have told the Master, I believe that the gods, his God and my God, have brought me back to that part of the world which is unknown to the Master, where I was born.  I believed this from the first hour that my eyes opened on it after our swoon, for I knew the trees and the flowers and the smell of the earth, and saw that the stars in the heavens stood where I used to see them.  When I went ashore and mingled with the natives, I discovered that this belief was right, since I could understand something of their talk and they could understand something of mine.  Moreover, among them was a man who came from far away, who said that he had seen me in past years, wandering like one mad, only that this man whom he had seen wore the image of a certain god about his neck, whose name was too high for him to mention.  Then I opened my robe and showed him that which I wear about my neck, and he fell down and worshipped it, crying out that I was the very man.”

“If so, it is marvellous,” I said.  “But what shall we do?”

“The Master can do one of two things.  He can stop here, where these simple people will make him their king and give him wives and all that he desires, and so live out his life, since of return to the land whence he came there is no hope.”

“And if there were I would not go,” I interrupted.

“Or,” went on Kari, “he can try to travel to my country.  But that is very far away.  Something of the journey which I made when I was mad comes back and tells me that it is very, very far away.  First, yonder mountains must be crossed till another sea is reached, which is no great journey, though rough.  Then the coast of that sea must be followed southward, for I know not how far, but, as I think, for months or years of journeying, till at length the country of my people is reached.  Moreover, that journeying is hard and terrible, since the road runs through forests and deserts where dwell savage tribes and huge snakes and wild beasts, like those planted on the flag of your country, and where famine and sicknesses are common.  Therefore my counsel to the Master is that he should leave it unattempted.”

Now I thought awhile, and asked what he meant to do if I took this counsel of his.  To which he replied: 

“I shall wait here awhile till I see the Master made a king among these people and established in his rule.  Then I shall start on that journey alone, hoping that what I could do when I was mad I shall be able to do again when I am not mad.”