At twenty years of age, however, when we are full of health and ardor, the case is very different.  Then we are at the threshold of hope and happiness; our illusions have not had time to fade, the future is a brilliant meteor sparkling in sunshine.  At that age our seas are always calm, and the rocks and shoals are all concealed.  Our barks glide jauntily along, the sailors sing merrily, the perils are shrouded in romance, and the flag flutters gaily in the breeze.  Then life is not abandoned without a tear of regret.

To die in the midst of one’s friends is not to quit them entirely.  They come to see us through the marble or stone in which we are shrouded.  It is another thing to have no other sepulchre than the aesophagus of a cannibal.  How the recollections of the past darted into Jack’s mind!  He felt that he loved those whom he was on the point of leaving a thousand times more than he did before.  What would he not have given for the power to bid them one last adieu?  The idea of quitting life thus was horrible.

It was in vain that he tried to shake off his assailants; his adolescent strength was as nothing in the arms of steel that bound him.  He saw that he was powerless in their hands, and at length ceased making any further attempts to escape.

The savages, finding that he had relaxed his struggles, commenced to rifle and strip him.  They tore off his upper garments, and discovered a small locket, containing a medallion of his mother, which the unfortunate youth wore round his neck.  This prize, which the savages no doubt regarded as a talisman of some sort, they both desired to possess.  They quarrelled about it, and commenced fighting over it.  Jack’s hands were left at liberty.  In an instant he had seized his rifle.  He ran a few paces back, turned, took deliberate aim at the most powerful of his adversaries, who, with a shriek, fell to the ground.  The other savage, scared by the report of the shot and its effects upon his companion, took to flight, but he carried off the locket with him.

Jack had now regained his courage.  He felt, like Telemachus in the midst of his battles, that God was with him, and he flew, perhaps imprudently, after the fugitive.  Seeing, however, that he had no chance with him as regards speed, he discharged his second rifle.  The shot did not take effect, but the report brought the savage to his knees.  The frightened wretch pressed his hands together in an attitude of supplication.  Jack stopped at a little distance, and, by an imperious gesture, gave him to understand that he wanted the locket.  The sign was comprehended, for the savage laid the talisman on the ground.

“Now,” said Jack, “in the name of my mother I give you your life.”

By another sign, he signified to the man that he was at liberty, which he no sooner understood than he vanished like an arrow.

Great was the consternation of Fritz when he heard the reports; he feared that the whole island was in commotion, and that both his brother and the Pilot were surrounded by a legion of copper-colored devils.  From the conformation of the coast he could see nothing, and, like Sisiphus on his rock, he was tied by imperious necessity to his post.