Gun on shoulder, and dog at heel, I started slowly along, but had not gone more than two hundred yards—­in fact, had only just got in sight of the boathouse—­when I was startled by its changed appearance.  The roof was completely gone, and so were huge masses of the walls, the stones of which were scattered thickly about the pathway along which I was walking.  I was so excited by the curious appearance that I actually ran towards the building, as if the remaining portion had made up its mind to take its flight after the part which was missing.

When I arrived at the ruins I soon discerned what had taken place.  The lightning had struck it last night, and what felt to me like an earthquake was the explosion of my large cask of gunpowder.  The boathouse was a complete ruin, and the ruin involved the loss of many things of great value to me, among them being my canoe, most of my lamp oil, paints, and above all, tools.

I was like the prophet Jeremiah weeping over Jerusalem, for I sat down on a rock, and viewing the desolation around me, wept also.  Then I dried my wet cheeks, and there and then set about clearing the ruin.  But it was a great task, and would take several days before I could clear the debris and recover such goods and chattels as were not totally destroyed.  I dug, I heaved over great masses of granite wall which had been tumbled inward and outward by the explosion, I sawed through beams and hacked through rafters with an axe, but my thoughts were not altogether with my work.

Every man has a skeleton in his cupboard, but I had more; I had a whole carcase lying near my house, and this occupied my mind as much as my labour.  As I thought of it, so the harder I worked, but to no purpose, and presently, for a spell of breathing, I sat down, axe in hand, upon a beam, and resolved to decide there and then what to do.

During the daylight I did not so much mind my dread visitor, but it was the approaching night I did not like.  Why are we so much more in fear of unseen things at night than during the day?  Whence comes the spell of dread that night brings beneath its black wing?  Does darkness affect the nerves of a blind man as it does that of one with his full visual powers?  I think not.  Probably day and night are but as one to the blind.  Then why does darkness bring a certain awe to ordinary mortals?

But to resume the thread of my narrative.

It appeared to me that there were three courses open to me.  I could fire the cannon (I had a few pounds of powder in the store near the house) and summon aid; I could dig a grave and bury the body; or I could hitch on my donkey and drag it down to the water at low tide, and let it be washed whithersoever the sea should take it.

I did not like either of these plans.  If I fired the cannon it would bring a posse of curious, prying people to the island, and probably I should be taken away to St. Peter Port upon a coroner’s quest.  If I buried the man I should always shun that part of the island, and should have a constant memorial of my “night of horror” to depress me; while if I committed the body to the waves I should for ever have it on my conscience that I refused burial to a christian.