To this poor request, the iron-souled commander of the vessel, at last consented; and in the course of some weeks after, Laonce was landed on the coast of Kamschatka. His secret intent was to lie in wait for the possibility of some ship touching at the port where he was set ashore, that might be bound to the track of his beloved islands; but not uttering a word of this, to the reprobate wretch who had torn him thence, he simply bade him "farewell! and to use his next pilot better;" so saying, they parted for ever. But weeks and months passed away, and no vessel bound for the South Seas, showed itself in that distant latitude; and its gloomy fogs, and chilling atmosphere, its pale sky, where the sun never shone for more than three or four hours in the day, seemed to wither up his life with his waning hopes! In no way did it resemble the land he had left; the warm, and the genial heavens of the home he was yet bent to find again;--and he left Kamschatka for some more propitious port; but, like _Sinbad the Sailor_, he wandered in vain. A cruel spell seemed set on him, or on the spirit of adventure; for in no place could he hear of a vessel going the way of his prayers. At last he arrived, by a most tedious and circuitous journey at Moscow, with a design to lay his case before the young and ardent Alexander, the then Emperor of Russia; with the hope that his benevolence, and a sense of what he had done for the vessel which had betrayed him, would incline his majesty to make some effort to return him to his island, and his family.