Page:Alerielorvoyaget00lach.djvu/66

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44
A Voyage to Other Worlds.

raged all day; but he did not come till night.

"A ship was being wrecked on our dreadful coast—an event, alas, not very rare. Posela distinguished himself most wonderfully—it almost seemed to me at the time supernaturally—in saving the crew. I did not have any interview with him that night, but next morning he introduced himself to me, and gave me your letter.

"I was charmed with him from the first. He was evidently a person gifted with remarkable intelligence and mental power, and considerable brilliancy; but of that I now feel no wonder.

"The only thing that seems to me marvellous is his wonderful adaptability to circumstances so different from those to which he was born, and his wondrous power of disguising his real nature. We had many and pleasant talks about numbers of subjects, and some of his remarks I remember then struck me as very strange, although I see now everything is capable of explanation. The only thing, beside the wonderful mystery hanging about him, that I did not like was his contemptuous criticism of many of the things of this world. Still he was not conceited in manner, but occasionally