The fourth of August, on board of the boat which had just picked him up,
he saw the island of Spitzbergen recede. He lost sight of the great
mountains. He was journeying toward home. A sailor, whose life he had
saved, accompanied him. He had remained nine years on the island. When
he arrived at X and disembarked those who saw his white hair and his
dull eyes did not believe that he was the same sailor whom they had
accompanied to the ship at the age of nineteen years.