Some time elapsed, ere I could realize this terrible conviction. Desperately I toiled through the dense furzy thickets, which were interwoven by tens of thousands of jungly creepers, in the hope that some human creature—some hermit, a shipwrecked wretch like myself—or lonely Carib might meet me; but after a fruitless search, wasted, worn, and hoarse with halloing, I returned to the summit of the cliff, once more to survey the sea, in the hope of beholding a sail. Hunger as yet I did not experience; the time for it was coming.
The noon of day arrived, and the heat and silence were alike oppressive. The fierce sun, hot, clear, and cloudless, was at its zenith: the blue of the sky, amid which it shone, was so deep, that the eye ached on surveying it, or seeking to penetrate its far and wondrous immensity, while from the still, calm, and waveless sea the smoky exhalations arose in columns like thin white haze. The heat was suffocating; to breathe it, was like inhaling the atmosphere of an open furnace. One marvelled that the fiery orb above failed to ignite the voiceless world below; and then there was a silence so solemn in the sea and sky! Everything was hushed, and amid the density of the primeval thickets, the leaves of which hung parched and still, there seemed to be not the smallest insect stirring. Around me there reigned that which a writer has styled, "The dead silence of mid-day, which is deeper and more solemn in tropical climes, than the deepest silence of night."
The whole day passed and evening found me still on the cliff, sweeping the horizon with anxious and aching, keen and haggard eyes; but not a sail appeared in sight.
I imagined that I must have been cast upon an islet somewhere between the Windward Islands and those of the Spanish Main; and such, ultimately proved to be the case; for this new scene of my adventures lay about 63° 40' west longitude, and 11° 40' north latitude, and is now known as the Isle of Tortoises; so that our unfortunate ship must have been driven at tremendous speed before the wind and waves.
Guadaloupe! oh, how I longed to be with my comrades now! I envied even the youngest drum-boy in the Fusiliers.
Ever before me were the familiar features of my friends, with those of poor Stanley, and other ill-fated men, who had perished in the ship. It seemed incredible that all this had passed in a night.
Evening came on. From the lonely cliff I still gazed upon the lonelier sea. The rays of the setting sun gave it the aspect of a mighty sheet of flame, palpitating, rippling, and reflecting every hue of the sky above.
And night was wondrous! The deep calm sea reflected the unnumbered stars so distinctly round the isle, that it seemed to float between two heavens—one above it, and the other below. The night was passed in restlessness and anxiety, or in dreams—uneasy visions; yet I know not that I slept. I had ample time for reflection now, on my own conduct at various times. I often prayed deeply and fervently; but with the knowledge that if I were once out of this confounded island, I would—I very much feared—be no better than before. Yet, it did not seem to me, that I had been a very bad sort of fellow after all.
I might live to be an old man, if food such as I could catch or glean lasted; but what a life would it be? The very thought was all but madness!
I might become ailing—seriously ill, and dying, lie unburied with my bones whitening for years ere some friendly hand interred them—if they were ever interred at all. Then I remembered the skeleton that lay below the cliff, and wondered what terrible tale of sorrow, suffering, or crime, it would reveal.