And now to tell of the queerest thing of all. About two years after his cure I dined with the Davidsons, and after dinner a man named Atkins called in. He is a lieutenant¹ in the Royal Navy, and a pleasant, talkative man. He was on friendly terms with my brother-in-law, and was soon on friendly terms with me. It came out that he was engaged to Davidson’s cousin, and incidentally he took out a kind of pocket photograph case to show us a new rendering² of fiancie. “And, by-the-by,” said he, “here’s the old Fulmar.”  
Davidson looked at it casually³. Then suddenly his face lit up. “Good heavens!” said he. “I could almost swear—”
 
“What?” said Atkins.
 
“That I had seen that ship before.”
 
“Don’t see how you can have. She hasn’t been out of the South Seas for six years, and before then—”
 
“But,” began Davidson, and then, “Yes—that’s the ship I dreamt of, I’m sure that’s the ship I dreamt of. She was standing⁴ off an island that swarmed⁵ with penguins⁶, and she fired a gun.”
 
“Good Lord!” said Atkins, who had now heard the particulars of the seizure⁷. “How the deuce could you dream that?”
 
And then, bit by bit, it came out that on the very day Davidson was seized, H.M.S. Fulmar had actually been off a little rock to the south of Antipodes Island. A boat had landed overnight to get penguins’ eggs, had been delayed, and a thunderstorm drifting up, the boat’s crew had waited until the morning before rejoining the ship. Atkins had been one of them, and he corroborated⁸, word for word, the descriptions Davidson had given of the island and the boat. There is not the slightest doubt in any of our minds that Davidson has really seen the place. In some unaccountable way, whil............