The day passed thus; each moment contained eternity; although when hour after hour had gone by, I wondered at the quick flight of time.  Yet even now I had not drunk the bitter potion to the dregs; I was not yet persuaded of my loss; I did not yet feel in every pulsation, in every nerve, in every thought, that I remained alone of my race,—­that I was the last man.

The day had clouded over, and a drizzling rain set in at sunset.  Even the eternal skies weep, I thought; is there any shame then, that mortal man should spend himself in tears?  I remembered the ancient fables, in which human beings are described as dissolving away through weeping into ever-gushing fountains.  Ah! that so it were; and then my destiny would be in some sort akin to the watery death of Adrian and Clara.  Oh! grief is fantastic; it weaves a web on which to trace the history of its woe from every form and change around; it incorporates itself with all living nature; it finds sustenance in every object; as light, it fills all things, and, like light, it gives its own colours to all.

I had wandered in my search to some distance from the spot on which I had been cast, and came to one of those watch-towers, which at stated distances line the Italian shore.  I was glad of shelter, glad to find a work of human hands, after I had gazed so long on nature’s drear barrenness; so I entered, and ascended the rough winding staircase into the guard-room.  So far was fate kind, that no harrowing vestige remained of its former inhabitants; a few planks laid across two iron tressels, and strewed with the dried leaves of Indian corn, was the bed 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.