twice, in a fit
of desperation, he had almost plunged in to attempt it, and take his
chance. Fortunately his courage failed. Had he taken the plunge his
fate would no doubt have been sealed.

Returning to the inner end of the cave he searched among the wreckage
for wood, with which to make a raft, but it was so shattered that he
found no pieces large enough to be thus used. He found, however, a
barrel of pork and another of pease jammed into a crevice. These proved
an immense relief to his feelings, for they secured him against absolute
starvation, which he had begun to think stared him in the face.

From that time forward the unfortunate man made incessant and wild
efforts to get out of the cave. He climbed and scrambled about until
his clothes were almost torn off his back. He gathered the largest
masses of wood he could find and tied them together in bundles, until he
had made something like a raft; but John was not a handy workman; his
raft overturned the first time he tried it, and went to pieces, and he
would have been drowned at that time if he had not been within grasping
distance of the rocks. As it was, he got a fright which made him
finally turn from that method of escape in despair.

Then the raw pork and hard pease tried him severely, and brought on a
complaint which lasted a considerable time and greatly reduced his
strength, but John was tough, and recovered--though not much more than
the skeleton of his former self remained.

Thus he continued to exist in that cavern, during all the time that his
wife and friends were mourning him as dead; and in this condition was he
there seated, on the morning in which this chapter opens.

"Weary, weary--desolation!" moaned the unfortunate man, lifting his head
and gazing round, with the air of one from whom all hope has long since
departed.

It is said, or supposed, that when a spoke in Fortune's wheel is at the
lowest, there must needs be a rise. Mitford's experience at this time
would seem to give ground for belief in the saying; for the word
"desolation" had scarcely passed his lips, when distant voices of men
were heard, causing his heart to bound violently. Next moment a boat
glided in front of the cave's mouth.

John Mitford sprang up and gave vent to a yell!

Hope raised to strong life after being long deferred; despair suddenly
trampled in the dust; joy bounding as from the tomb into rampant being--
and a host of indescribable sentiments and