Two hours later Waldo Emerson stood alone upon the beach, watching the diminishing hull of a great ship as it dropped over the rim of the world far to the north.
A vague hint of tears dimmed his vision; then he threw back his shoulders, swallowed the thing that had risen into his throat, and with high held head turned back into the forest.
In one hand he carried a razor and a plug of tobacco—the sole mementos of his recent brief contact with the world of civilization. The kindly sailors had urged him to reconsider his decision, but when he remained obdurate they had insisted that they be permitted to leave some of the comforts of life with him.
The only thing that he could think of that he wanted very badly was a razor—firearms he would not accept, for he had worked out a rather fine chivalry of his own here in this savage world—a chivalry which would not permit him to take any advantage over the primeval inhabitants he had found here other than what his own hands and head might give him.
At the last moment one of the seamen, prompted by a generous heart and a keen realization of what life must be without even bare necessities, had thrust upon Waldo the plug of tobacco. As he looked at it now the young man smiled.
"That would indeed be the last step, according to mother's ideas," he soliloquized. "No lower could I sink."
The ship that bore away Waldo's chance of escape carried also a long letter to Waldo's mother. In portions it was rather vague and rambling. It mentioned, among other things, that he had an obligation to fulfil before he could leave his present habitat; but that the moment he was free he should "take the first steamer for Boston."
The skipper of the ship which had just sailed away had told Waldo that in so far as he knew there might never be another ship touch his island, which was so far out of the beaten course that only the shoreline of it had ever been explored, and scarce a score of vessels had reported it since Captain Cook discovered it in 1773.
Yet it was in the face of this that Waldo had refused to leave. As he walked slowly through the wood on his way back toward his cave he tried to convince himself that he had acted purely from motives of gratitude and fairness—that as a gentleman he could do no less than see Nadara and thank her for the friendly services she had rendered him; but for some reason this seemed a very futile and childish excuse for relinquishing what might easily be his only opportunity to return to civilization.
His final decision was that he had acted the part of a fool; yet as he walked he hummed a joyous tune, and his heart was full of happiness and pleasant expectations of what he could not have told.