58 THE SHIPWRECK,

utter a single word of thanksgiving to heaven for his mar-
vellous preservation, and in the madness of his grief he
envied the lot of those who had perished. To be for ever
separated from his fellow beings; never again to hear a
human voice other than his own; to find himself con-
_ demned, in the very meridian of his youth, to drag out a
miserable existence on this barren rock; seemed to him a
curse so heavy and terrible, that he searched into his heart
to know what crime could have brought it upon him.

Conscience sometimes sleeps, but never dies. She now
sternly upbraided him with faults and follies on which he
had never spent a moment’s thought; she reminded him
vividly of the cruelty and injustice of his conduct towards
poor Philip Merville. Bitter remorse now filled his breast ;
he remembered that, merely to glut his unjustifiable hatred,
that unfortunate youth was torn from his humble home,
from his innocent occupation, from his beloved relatives,
and exposed to a continued series of punishments, fatigues
and dangers, till at last a miserable death had delivered him
from a life still more miserable. These thoughts so har-
rowed up his soul, that he could remain no longer in his
dark and gloomy cavern, and passed the ensuing night in
wandering about the island, plunged in the deepest melan-
choly and tempted to self destruction.