XIX. MONTGOMERY'S BANK HOLIDAY
XX. ALONE WITH THE BEAST FOLK
XXI. THE REVERSION OF THE BEAST FOLK
XXII. THE MAN ALONE




INTRODUCTION.

ON February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision
with a derelict when about the latitude 1 degree S. and longitude
107 degrees W.

On January the Fifth, 1888--that is eleven months and four days after--my
uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman, who certainly went
aboard the Lady Vain at Callao, and who had been considered drowned,
was picked up in latitude 5 degrees 3' S. and longitude 101 degrees W.
in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is
supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner Ipecacuanha.
He gave such a strange account of himself that he was supposed demented.
Subsequently he alleged that his mind was a blank from the moment
of his escape from the Lady Vain. His case was discussed among
psychologists at the time as a curious instance of the lapse
of memory consequent upon physical and mental stress.
The following narrative was found among his papers by the undersigned,
his nephew and heir, but unaccompanied by any definite request
for publication.

The only island known to exist in the region in which my uncle was