John Stevens was not a reader of romance and poetry, which at his age were in their infancy in Virginia. The hardy pioneers of the New World were kept too busy fighting Indians and building plantations and cities to read romance or history. Consequently he had no similar adventures to compare with his own. John had enough of the sturdy Puritan in his nature to deeply feel the duty incumbent on him, and enough of the cavalier to be a gentleman, unselfish and kind. Throughout the long night he held the half inanimate form of Blanche in his arms. The storm abated and the tide running out left the vessel imbedded in the sands. John watched for the coming morn as a condemned criminal looks for a pardon. He knew no cast nor west in the darkness; but anon the sea and sky in a certain place became brighter and brighter. The clouds rolled away, and he saw the bright morning star fade, as the sable cloak of night was rent to admit the new born day. Blanche sat up and, gazed over the scene as the flashing rays of sunlight gleamed over the sea and shore. "Are we all?" she asked. "Yes." "Was no one saved?" "None but ourselves." "And the ship?" "Is a hopeless wreck on the sands," he answered. As they rose to gaze upon their surroundings, John Stevens thought with regret that if the crew and passengers had remained below hatches, they would have been saved; but he and Blanche were all who remained, and he turned his gaze to the wild shores hoping to discover some sign of civilization. There was not a hamlet, house or wigwam to indicate that Christian or savage inhabited the land. Blanche marked the troubled look on his face and asked: "Do you know where we are?" "No." The shore was wild and rocky, and on their right it was covered with a dense growth of tropical trees. Farther inland rose two towering mountains. The beach directly before them was low and receding. A long, level plain, covered with a dense growth of coarse sea-grass, was between them and the hills, which were covered with palms, maguey and other tropical trees. John feared that they had been wrecked on the coast of some of the Spanish possessions and would be made captives and perhaps slaves by the half-civilized colonists. They could not live long on the wreck, and he began to look about the deck for some means of going ashore. The pinnace which had been stowed away between decks was an almost complete wreck. It would have been useless had it remained whole, for John and his companion could not have launched it. There was a small boat hanging by the davits, which had sustained no other injury than two holes in its side. He was a fair carpenter, and getting some tools from the carpenter's chest, he mended the boat. After no little trouble, he lowered the boat and, assisting Blanche into it, pulled to the shore half a mile away.