prosperous, he had married into a
respectable family, and his wife was popular. His children were
beautiful and healthy; but his wife was extravagant and foolish and had
swept away his fortune faster than he could accumulate it. Then his
voyage and shipwreck seemed the hand of fate. His father had been a
sailor by profession and had never been shipwrecked, while he, on his
first voyage, was cast away upon an unknown island. Fate gave him at
first a companion and, just as he began to appreciate her, snatched
her away.

At last he became reconciled even to live and die alone on that
island--to die without a friend to close his eyes, or to soothe his
pillow. Horrible as the fate might seem, he was reconciled. No human
hand would give him Christian burial, and the vultures which soared
about the island might pluck out his eyes even before life was extinct.
With this dread on his mind, he shot the vultures whenever he saw them,
and almost drove them from the island.

Three years had lapsed since poor Blanche had been laid in her grave,
and John was morose, silent and moody, but reconciled. It was eighteen
years since he had been cast away, and he had about abandoned all
thought of again seeing any other land save this.

Among other things saved from the wreck was a quantity of tobacco seed,
and, as tobacco was then thought to be an indispensable article, he
planted some and grew his own. He fashioned pipes from the roots of
trees, as the Indians did, and his pipe became his greatest solace
in solitude.

One night, a little more than three years after he had been left alone,
he was lying on his well-worn mattress, smoking his evening pipe, when
there came on the air far out to sea a heavy "Boom!"

The trumpet of doom would not have astonished him more. At first he
could scarcely believe his ears. Starting up, he sat on the side of his
bed listening.

"Boom!"

A second report, more heavy than the first, shook the air.

"God in heaven! can it be cannon?" cried Stevens. He leaped to his feet,
pulled on his rude shoes and seized his musket.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Three more shots from the sea rang on the air, and there could now be no
doubt that a ship was near the island. The hope which suddenly started
up in his heart almost overcame him, and he clung to the door
for support.

Only for an instant did he linger thus, then he rushed to the headland
from whence his tattered flag had floated all these years. The moon