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acabal committed Jun 11, 2021
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<body epub:type="frontmatter z3998:fiction">
<section id="introduction" epub:type="introduction">
<h2 epub:type="title">Introduction</h2>
<p>On February the first 1887, the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Lady Vain</i> was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1° <abbr class="compass">S.</abbr> and longitude 107° <abbr class="compass eoc">W.</abbr></p>
<p>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 <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Lady Vain</i> at <span epub:type="z3998:place">Callao</span>, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5° 3′ <abbr class="compass">S.</abbr> and longitude 101° <abbr class="compass">W.</abbr> in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Ipecacuanha</i>. 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 <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Lady Vain</i>. 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.</p>
<p>The only island known to exist in the region in which my uncle was picked up is <span epub:type="z3998:place">Noble’s Isle</span>, a small volcanic islet and uninhabited. It was visited in 1891 by <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">H.M.S.</abbr> <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Scorpion</i>. A party of sailors then landed, but found nothing living thereon except certain curious white moths, some hogs and rabbits, and some rather peculiar rats. So that this narrative is without confirmation in its most essential particular. With that understood, there seems no harm in putting this strange story before the public in accordance, as I believe, with my uncle’s intentions. There is at least this much in its behalf: my uncle passed out of human knowledge about latitude 5° <abbr class="compass">S.</abbr> and longitude 105° <abbr class="compass">E.</abbr>, and reappeared in the same part of the ocean after a space of eleven months. In some way he must have lived during the interval. And it seems that a schooner called the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Ipecacuanha</i> with a drunken captain, John Davies, did start from <span epub:type="z3998:place">Africa</span> with a puma and certain other animals aboard in January, 1887, that the vessel was well known at several ports in the South Pacific, and that it finally disappeared from those seas (with a considerable amount of copra aboard), sailing to its unknown fate from <span epub:type="z3998:place">Bayna</span> in December, 1887, a date that tallies entirely with my uncle’s story.</p>
<p>On February the first 1887, the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Lady Vain</i> was lost by collision with a derelict when about the latitude 1° <abbr epub:type="se:compass">S.</abbr> and longitude 107° <abbr epub:type="se:compass" class="eoc">W.</abbr></p>
<p>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 <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Lady Vain</i> at <span epub:type="z3998:place">Callao</span>, and who had been considered drowned, was picked up in latitude 5° 3′ <abbr epub:type="se:compass">S.</abbr> and longitude 101° <abbr epub:type="se:compass">W.</abbr> in a small open boat of which the name was illegible, but which is supposed to have belonged to the missing schooner <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Ipecacuanha</i>. 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 <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Lady Vain</i>. 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.</p>
<p>The only island known to exist in the region in which my uncle was picked up is <span epub:type="z3998:place">Noble’s Isle</span>, a small volcanic islet and uninhabited. It was visited in 1891 by <abbr epub:type="z3998:initialism">H.M.S.</abbr> <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Scorpion</i>. A party of sailors then landed, but found nothing living thereon except certain curious white moths, some hogs and rabbits, and some rather peculiar rats. So that this narrative is without confirmation in its most essential particular. With that understood, there seems no harm in putting this strange story before the public in accordance, as I believe, with my uncle’s intentions. There is at least this much in its behalf: my uncle passed out of human knowledge about latitude 5° <abbr epub:type="se:compass">S.</abbr> and longitude 105° <abbr epub:type="se:compass">E.</abbr>, and reappeared in the same part of the ocean after a space of eleven months. In some way he must have lived during the interval. And it seems that a schooner called the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Ipecacuanha</i> with a drunken captain, John Davies, did start from <span epub:type="z3998:place">Africa</span> with a puma and certain other animals aboard in January, 1887, that the vessel was well known at several ports in the South Pacific, and that it finally disappeared from those seas (with a considerable amount of copra aboard), sailing to its unknown fate from <span epub:type="z3998:place">Bayna</span> in December, 1887, a date that tallies entirely with my uncle’s story.</p>
<footer>
<p epub:type="z3998:signature">Charles Edward Prendick.</p>
<p>(The Story written by Edward Prendick.)</p>
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