the Adriatic, changing the grey to a roseate hue, and then flooding sky and

sea with aerial gold.

A kind of stupor followed my fainting; my senses were alive, but memory was

extinct. The blessed respite was short--a snake lurked near me to sting

me into life--on the first retrospective emotion I would have started up,

but my limbs refused to obey me; my knees trembled, the muscles had lost

all power. I still believed that I might find one of my beloved companions

cast like me, half alive, on the beach; and I strove in every way to

restore my frame to the use of its animal functions. I wrung the brine from

my hair; and the rays of the risen sun soon visited me with genial warmth.

With the restoration of my bodily powers, my mind became in some degree

aware of the universe of misery, henceforth to be its dwelling. I ran to

the water's edge, calling on the beloved names. Ocean drank in, and

absorbed my feeble voice, replying with pitiless roar. I climbed a near

tree: the level sands bounded by a pine forest, and the sea clipped round

by the horizon, was all that I could discern. In vain I extended my

researches along the beach; the mast we had thrown overboard, with tangled

cordage, and remnants of a sail, was the sole relic land received of our

wreck. Sometimes I stood still, and wrung my hands. I accused earth and sky

--the universal machine and the Almighty power that misdirected it. Again

I threw myself on the sands, and then the sighing wind, mimicking a human

cry, roused me to bitter, fallacious hope. Assuredly if any little bark or

smallest canoe had been near, I should have sought the savage plains of

ocean, found the dear remains of my lost ones, and clinging round them,

have shared their grave.

583

The Last Man