But
although I admired Sylvia, I had no desire to spend the rest of my days
at Engano, not even as King of the Amazons. I therefore answered that
my comrades were no doubt looking for me, nor would they continue their
voyage home until all hope of my rescue had been abandoned, and I
reminded the wise-ones of the promise they had made me of safe conduct
back to my vessel, in case I should succeed in ridding the island of
their enemy. The justice of my claim was not to be denied, and with the
dawn of the morrow the wise-ones undertook to ascertain the direction
in which the ship lay and to send me aboard her.
That evening a feast was held in my honour; some of the men from the
Male Island came over, by special permission of the wise-ones, in order
to be present, and to see the man who had slain the monster against
which they had been unable to prevail.
The men from the Male Island I found to be as free from ill-will toward
one another as were the women on the Female Island. Since they had
neither wife nor child, they associated in pairs, and mutually rendered
each other all the services a master could reasonably expect from a
servant, being together in so perfect a community that the survivor
always succeeded his dead partner to any property he may have had.
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