ne long before my prognostications were verified; the
wind began to rise. I went to the beach and beckoned him to return, but
he was busy hauling up fish and did not see me, or observe the altered
state of the weather; I shouted, but my voice did not reach him. He had
already drifted out farther than usual; suddenly the movement of the
boat as she got into rough water made him look up. By some carelessness
one of his oars slipped overboard, and before he could recover it the
squall had caught the boat, and whirling it round had sent her far from
it. I saw his frantic gestures as he endeavoured to scull the boat back
toward the island. Now he tried to paddle her with his remaining oar as
an Indian does a canoe, but in vain. Every instant the gale was
increasing and driving her farther and farther away.

"I watched her with a sinking heart growing less and less to my sight,
till she was lost among the foaming seas in the distance. I then for
the first time felt with full force my lonely position; I wrung my hands
like a child; I burst into tears; I bemoaned my hard fate, and thought
that I was forsaken of God and man. Not only was my companion taken
from me, but the only means that I saw by which I could effect my
escape. He might possibly reach some other shore; I should never leave
that on which I was drawing out my weary existence. I see now, from
what you tell me, how short-sighted I was; that our kind Father in
heaven chooses His own way in carrying out plans for our benefit, and
that what I thought was my ruin would ultimately prove the means of my
rescue.

"For several days after King had gone I could neither eat nor sleep, or
if I slept I dreamed that I saw him floating away, and tried to follow
and could not. By degrees I recovered a portion of my tranquillity.
Still I watched more eagerly for any passing ship. It might have been
nearly a year afterwards, one morning as I arose a sail hove in sight.
My heart leaped within me: I thought in my folly that those on board
were coming to look for me. Oh how eagerly I watched her as her masts
rose out of the water! On she came; I could see that she was a ship, a
large ship, a man-of-war by her square yards. She must have sighted the
island, and I thought that she would approach to survey it more
carefully, when suddenly--perhaps some reef unknown to me intervened--
she turned aside, and after hovering in the distance to tantalise me the
more, she slowly