d presented to me; and an open
chest, containing some half mouldered biscuit, awakened an appetite, which
perhaps existed before, but of which, until now, I was not aware. Thirst
also, violent and parching, the result of the sea-water I had drank, and of
the exhaustion of my frame, tormented me. Kind nature had gifted the supply
of these wants with pleasurable sensations, so that I--even I!--was
refreshed and calmed, as I ate of this sorry fare, and drank a little of
the sour wine which half filled a flask left in this abandoned dwelling.
Then I stretched myself on the bed, not to be disdained by the victim of
shipwreck. The earthy smell of the dried leaves was balm to my sense after
the hateful odour of sea-weed. I forgot my state of loneliness. I neither
looked backward nor forward; my senses were hushed to repose; I fell asleep
and dreamed of all dear inland scenes, of hay-makers, of the shepherd's
whistle to his dog, when he demanded his help to drive the flock to fold;
of sights and sounds peculiar to my boyhood's mountain life, which I had
long forgotten.

I awoke in a painful agony--for I fancied that ocean, breaking its
bounds, carried away the fixed continent and deep rooted mountains,
together with the streams I loved, the woods, and the flocks--it raged
around, with that continued and dreadful roar which had accompanied the
last wreck of surviving humanity. As my waking sense returned, the bare
walls of the guard room closed round me, and the rain pattered against the
single window. How dreadful it is, to emerge from the oblivion of slumber,
and to receive as a good morrow the mute wailing of one's own hapless heart
--to return from the land of deceptive dreams, to the heavy knowledge of
unchanged disaster!--Thus was it with me, now, and for ever! The sting of
other griefs might be blunted by time; and even mine yielded sometimes
during the day, to the pleasure inspired by the imagination or the senses;
but I never look first upon the morning-light but with my fingers pressed
tight on my bursting heart, and my soul deluged with the interminable flood
of hopeless misery. Now I awoke for the first time in the dead world--I
awoke alone--and the dull dirge of the sea, heard even amidst the rain,
recalled me to the reflection of the wretch I had become. The sound came
like a reproach, a scoff--like the sting of remorse in the soul--I
gasped--the veins and muscles of my throat swelled, suffocating me. I put
my finge