An immediate search was resolved upon. Lots were cast for the one who was to remain behind to guard our property, and the duty fell upon me.
Armed with the boat stretchers, or with clubs which they had carefully selected and cut from the trees, Hislop departed with all my companions; and after proceeding over the grassy plain, they soon disappeared in the woods that covered all the lower slope of the great mountain.
I cannot describe the sensations of loneliness that came over me on finding myself for the first time single, alone, and left entirely to my own reflections and resources.
The carpenter's hatchet was my only weapon; and armed with it I sat on a grassy slope mid-way between the hut and sea, gazing anxiously inland, listening for any passing sound; but all remained still save the chafing of the waves on one hand, and the loud buzz of tropical insect life in the thickets or among the long grass on the other.
What, I asked myself, if savages were actually lurking in the woods, and on seeing that all my companions were gone, they should come tumultuously down upon the hut and boat? I would at once become their victim.
Or what would be my fate if my friends fell into an ambush, or perished in detail?
Could any human beings be lurking in the two adjacent isles? was my next surmise.
We had never seen any thing alive on them—not even wild goats or boars; and if there were other inhabitants, the steepness of the rocks, which rose sheer from the water, and the fury of the surf that rolled between, forbade any attempt to cross.
So in such painful surmises, and in keen watching, I passed the most of the day alone.
In the afternoon, one by one, all my shipmates returned to our little headquarters on the shore, weary and jaded—torn by briars and brambles in the thickets—and all had the same tale to tell. They had seen and heard of nothing save wild boars, wild goats, and sea-birds.