"So do you, Jack; and he tells me Ulama is the same--and it's all his doing, you know. He _is_ a wizard; and that's all there is to be said about it."
"The question is," Jack went on, "what was it he gave us? Here it has made us sleep nearly forty-eight hours; and it seems, has done us, in that time, as much good as one would have thought would have taken a week or two to accomplish, and yet it has left no dull, drowsy, listless feeling, such as opiates generally do. I can't make it out." And, shaking his head gravely, Templemore went to take his morning plunge.
When they sought Monella, he bade Leonard give him the particulars of all that had occurred to him. Leonard recounted them.
"It seemed very terrible to me," he said when he had finished, "at the time; and truly I thought I should never get over it. Yet--now--it seems such a long while ago--so far off."
"That is well, my son," returned Monella. "For it has been a sore trial. I have heard about _you_," he continued, turning to Templemore, "from the lady Zonella and from Ergalon."
"I owe a great debt to her--to him--to both," Templemore replied. "Without their aid I fear things would have gone badly with Leonard, and myself too."
"Yes, Coryon had ably laid his treacherous schemes, and we all have reason to be thankful for their failure," said Monella solemnly. "Things came to a crisis just then. I had just matured certain plans that Sanaima and I had laid out; and only the day before my long-lost memory returned to me, and I remembered, all in a flash, as it were, the whole of my former life."
"That you were--that is--are----" Templemore began; but stopped and looked confused.
"Yes, that I am indeed Mellenda," was the reply, given with an air of grave conviction. "I know the statement sounds incredible to you; you are of that nature, have been brought up in that kind of school, that makes such a thing sound impossible. But if _I_ myself feel and know that it is true, and if my people around me know it and not only admit it but rejoice in it, then, for me, that is sufficient."
"Certainly," Templemore assented, feeling very uncomfortable under the other's gaze.
"Still--to you--let me be, while you remain here, simply what I have been before--your friend Monella. I am the same being to-day that you have known and, I hope, liked--that you have joined with in facing danger and adventure--I am the same! The mere fact that I remember things now that I had forgotten before makes no difference to me or to our friendship."