After carrying the things up to the hut, the men salaam’d and returned to the ship, which soon sailed out of sight. Then for the first time did he realize the significance of the word “solitude”: the very voice of nature seemed hushed, and an unearthly silence pervaded the entire scene. Returning to the hut, he lit a lamp and sank into an easy-chair with his gun close at hand. Here he slept for some time, being visited by the most fanciful dreams, and was at length startled into consciousness by the falling of his shot-belt. When he awoke, his usual supper hour was long past; but unable to eat anything, he uncorked a bottle of beer, and the noise seemed terrific in the midst of that deathlike silence—everything frightened him, the cry of a bird, the moaning of a larger wave than usual on the shore. Next morning he busied himself about the hut, and tried fishing; but he could not settle down to any occupation. Above all, he dreaded the lonely evening and the wakeful night. He had food in variety and abundance, but the desire to eat was in abeyance. Another night of nervous anxiety: he kept his door securely fastened, although he knew that nothing was there to enter, even had it been left wide open. His fears now took the form of savages visiting the island to feast, perchance, on prisoners captured in some recent encounter. On the third night, he managed to fortify the hut in some measure; loaded both his guns, and saw to his revolver, which lay under his pillow, and which he grasped many times during the night, as his disordered imagination conjured up some visionary danger. The fourth day, he awoke with the same ideas uppermost in his mind, opened the door of his hut cautiously and stole out on to the shore. In vain he looked all ways for a sail, half expecting to see a canoe full of savages down by the beach. Standing on a lofty ledge of rock and looking down into the clear, deep water, he watched the fish darting to and fro; and a horrible propensity to throw himself in and end his troubles in the bowels of a shark rushed upon him. It was but ephemeral; yet he turned his back on the sea, for fear lest it should grow upon him. The desire often came upon him to shout; but weighed down by the silence of his surroundings, he dared not even speak aloud. But the consciousness of self-control in having resisted that fearful temptation had a good effect upon him, for he soon entered on a more peaceful and contented frame of mind.