"You are not down south now," I said. "Violence won't do. They would
take her away from you in no time. And what was the name of the ship?"

"Borgmester Dahl," he said. "It was no shipwreck."

He seemed to be waking up by degrees from that trance, and waking up
calmed.

"Not a shipwreck? What was it?"

"Break down," he answered, looking more like himself every moment. By
this only I learned that it was a steamer. I had till then supposed they
had been starving in boats or on a raft--or perhaps on a barren rock.

"She did not sink then?" I asked in surprise. He nodded. "We sighted the
southern ice," he pronounced dreamily.

"And you alone survived?"

He sat down. "Yes. It was a terrible misfortune for me. Everything went
wrong. All the men went wrong. I survived."

Remembering the things one reads of it was difficult to realise the true
meaning of his answers. I ought to have seen at once--but I did not; so
difficult is it for our minds, remembering so much, instructed so much,
informed of so much, to get in touch with the real actuality at our
elbow. And with my head full of preconceived notions as to how a case of
"cannibalism and suffering at sea" should be managed I said--"You were
then so lucky in the drawing of lots?"