From the center all round to the sea
We are lords of the bird and the brute.’
“But how much happier we are than was poor, solitary Robinson Crusoe, or his prototype, old Alexander Selkirk!” said Justin, placing the telescope in her hands, as she arose and stood beside him. “Rest the glass upon my shoulder to steady it, and then look,” he added, placing himself in a convenient position as a telescope-stand.
She adjusted the instrument according to his advice, pointing it toward the wreck, which she saw distinctly wedged in the cleft of the rock at the end of the causeway.
“Poor ship! I lament her fate almost as if she were a human being doomed to death. For, of course, she is doomed. She must break up sooner or later,” said Britomarte.
“Yes, sooner or later,” replied Justin, contemplatively; “and it seems even the greater pity, because, as she lays now, she is really not injured beyond repair, were the means of repairing her at hand. However, she will hold together the longer for being hurt no worse.”
Britomarte now lifted the end of the telescope from Justin’s shoulder, and, taking it in both her own hands, supported it thus while she made a survey of the whole circle of the horizon. Some minutes passed in this review, during which no one spoke. Britomarte was the first to break silence.
“A wilderness surrounded by the sea; a desert in the midst of the ocean! It is magnificent—it is sublime in its utter isolation and perfect solitude!” she said, lowering her glass.
“It is,” answered Justin, relieving her of the telescope. “Yet let Providence give me the time, strength, and opportunity and this wilderness shall bloom and blossom as the rose, this desert become a beautiful home. This island shall be a new Eden, of which we shall be the new Adam and Eve. Yes! for all that has come and gone, we shall be very happy here—Sister!”
He brought himself up with a jerk by this last word. His fancy had been running away with him, until he saw the clouds gathering upon the man-hater’s brow, when he suddenly pulled up with—“Sister!”