Yet I betrayed nothing of my amazement I am convinced, for, after
standing silently for a time and almost in a suppliant attitude before
me, Dr. Englehart departed, and for many days I saw him not again.
An object that looked not unlike a small, solemn owl, stood in the
middle of the floor, regarding me silently when I awoke very early on
the following morning.
At a glance I recognized poor little Ernie, and singularly enough, he
knew and remembered me at once.
"Ernie good boy now," he said as he came toward me with his tiny claw
extended. "Lady got cake in pocket, give Ernie some?" Not only did he
recall me, it was plain, but the incident that saved his life, and the
rebukes he had received on the raft for his refusal to partake of briny
biscuit, which no persuasion, it may be remembered, had availed to make
him taste--even when devoured by the pangs of hunger. I tried in vain,
however, to recall him to some remembrance of his poor mother. On that
point he was invulnerable; the abstract had no charm for him or meaning.
He dealt only in realities and presences.
A new element was infused into my solitude from this time. In this child
I lived, breathed, and had my being, until later events startled my
individuality once more into its old currents of existence. Not that I
merged myself entirely in Ernie, sickly, wayward, fitful, ugly little
mite that he was undeniably.
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