And so I beat him that time, and got out of the room, quite willing to live in the desert of Sahara, if by it I could get rid of such females. Well, I went to Buncombe Island. I retired from the world to a light-house in the first bloom of my youth. I did not want to be a monk--I could not be a man--and so I did what fate and my father laid out for me to do. Through the fine autumn weather I enjoyed my retirement. I had taken plenty of books and magazines with me to while away the time; there was a lovely promenade along the sea-wall on which the tall tower stood, and I could walk there for hours without my pulse being disturbed by visions of parasols, loves of bonnets, and pretty faces under them. I communed with the sea. I told it my rations were too salt; that I didn't like the odor of the oil in filling the lamps; that my legs got tired going up to the lantern, and that my arms gave out polishing the lenses. I also confided to it that I would not mind these little trifles if I only had one being to share my solitude--a modest, shy little creature that I wouldn't be afraid to ask to be my wife. "Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean far off and alone." I'd forget the curse of my life and be happy in spite of it. When winter shut down, however, I didn't talk quite so much to the sea; it was ugly and boisterous, and the windy promenade was dangerous, and I shut myself up and pined like the "Prisoner of Chillon." I have lots of spunk and pride, if I am bashful; and so I never let on to those at home--when I sent them a letter once in two months by the little tug that brought my oil and provisions--that I was homesick. I said the ocean was glorious; that there was a Byronic sublimity in lighting up the lantern; that standing behind a counter and showing dry-goods to silly, giggling girls couldn't be compared with it; that I hadn't blushed in six months, and that I didn't think I should ever be willing to come back to a world full of grinning snobs and confusing women. And now, what do you think happened to me? My fate was too strong even for Buncombe Island. It was the second of January. The tug had not left the island, after leaving a nine-weeks' supply, more than twelve hours before a fearful gale began to blow; it rose higher and higher through the night, and in the morning I found that a small sailing-vessel had been wrecked about half a mile from the light-house, where the beach ran out for some distance into the water, and the land was not so high as on the rock. I ran down there, the wind still roaring enough to blow me away, and the spray dashing into my eyes, and I found the vessel had gone to pieces and every man was drowned.