feet; for we had been some time seated. "I wish it were the other. I
don't--don't relish going home to Jim with this!"

"See here," said Nares, with ready tact, "I must be getting aboard.
Johnson's in the brig annexing chandlery and canvas, and there's some
things in the Norah that want fixing against we go to sea. Would you
like to be left here in the chicken-ranch? I'll send for you to supper."

I embraced the proposal with delight. Solitude, in my frame of mind, was
not too dearly purchased at the risk of sunstroke or sand-blindness; and
soon I was alone on the ill-omened islet. I should find it hard to tell
of what I thought--of Jim, of Mamie, of our lost fortune, of my lost
hopes, of the doom before me: to turn to at some mechanical occupation
in some subaltern rank, and to toil there, unremarked and unamused,
until the hour of the last deliverance. I was, at least, so sunk in
sadness that I scarce remarked where I was going; and chance (or some
finer sense that lives in us, and only guides us when the mind is in
abeyance) conducted my steps into a quarter of the island where the
birds were few. By some devious route, which I was unable to retrace
for my return, I was thus able to mount, without interruption, to the
highest point of land. And here I was recalled to consciousness by a
last discovery.

The spot on which I stood was level, and commanded a wide view of the
lagoon, the bounding reef, the round horizon. Nearer hand I saw the
sister islet, the wreck, the Norah Creina, and the Norah's boat already
moving shoreward. For the sun was now low, flaming on the sea's verge;
and the galley chimney smoked on board the schooner.

It thus befell that though my discovery was both affecting and