e; and several circumstances now confirmed his suspicion that
he was not the only tenant of the island at that moment. The bough had
been forcibly torn down, and very recently, too; several of the fruits
had been plucked off, the little sprigs to which they had originally
hung still remaining and bearing evidence to the fact. But if additional
proof were wanting of human presence there, it was afforded by the
half-eaten fruits that were strewed about.

Wagner now searched for the traces of footsteps; but such marks were not
likely to remain in the thick rich grass, which if trampled down, would
rise fresh and elastic again with the invigorating dew of a single
night. The grove, where Wagner observed the broken bough and the
scattered fruits, was further from the shore than the spot where he had
found the doublet; and he reasoned that the man, whoever he might be,
had thrown away his garment, when overpowered by the intensity of the
heat, and had then sought the shade and refreshment afforded by the
grove. He therefore concluded that he had gone inland, most probably
toward the mountains, whose rocky pinnacles, of every form, now shone
with every hue in the glorious sunlight.

Overjoyed at the idea of finding a human being in a spot which he had at
first deemed totally uninhabited, and filled with the hope that the
stranger might be able to give him some information relative to the
geographical position of the isle, and even perhaps aid him in forming a
raft by which they might together escape from the oasis of the
Mediterranean, Wagner proceeded toward the mountains. By degrees the
wondrous beauty of the scene became wilder, more imposing, but less
bewitching, and when he reached the acclivities of the hill, the groves
of fruits and copses of myrtles and citrons, of vines and almond shrubs,
were succeeded by woods of mighty trees.

Further on still the forests ceased and Fernand entered on a wild region
of almost universal desolation, yet forming one of the sublimest
spectacles that nature can afford. The sounds of torrents, as yet
concealed from his view, and resembling the murmur of ocean's waves,
inspired feelings of awe; and it was now for the first time since he
entered on the region of desolation, having left the clime of loveliness
nearly a mile behind, that his attention was drawn to the nature of the
soil, which was hard and bituminous in appearance.

The truth almost immediately struck him: there was a volc