The sailors hurried the water-casks and store of fruit into the boat, and launched her among the breakers. With infinite toil, they got out of the surf with safety, as the wind now blew off the shore; but the furious gusts came every moment with increasing strength; and, at last, a surge rose with such overwhelming violence, that, in spite of all their efforts, the boat upset, and her unhappy crew were engulfed in the roaring waters. Their fate was beheld from the ship; but no aid could be given, as the renewed hurricane had rendered her state more deplorable than ever: she was driven before the wind, and soon lost sight of this fatal island. Some of the boat's crew struggled a little time with the waves; but three of them were old men, and had been exhausted by the fatigues they had lately undergone. These speedily sank; but Lord Robert, being young and robust, strove hard for life, and at length gained the shore, almost exhausted by his contentions with the surfy breakers. When he had a little recovered his breath, he climbed the hill on which the cross was erected, and gazed towards the ship, which he saw driving before the wind, surrounded by foaming billows, and with every appearance of speedily sharing the fate he had so lately escaped. Wholly occupied in the thoughts of the revered friend that ship contained, he forgot his own desolate state, till the last appearance of the ship vanished, and he found himself alone. Oppressed with sad thoughts, he turned himself from the contemplation of the wrathful ocean, now blackening with the sudden night of the torrid zone, and after a little search, found a low arch in the rock, which was the entrance to a natural hollow in its side. Into this place he crept, to shelter himself from the inclemency of the storm, which increased with tenfold fury after sunset. In this situation he passed the night which succeeded this dismal day. It was a night of peculiar horror--tempestuous, dark, and rainy; and Lord Robert, though in a state of complete exhaustion, found that, in his late struggle with the breakers, he had received so many bruises, that to sleep was impossible. At intervals, as the lightning gleamed on the stormy expanse of waters before him, he thought how many of his brave companions, in all probability, slept beneath its roaring waves; and at that moment, instead of returning thanks to Heaven for his own preservation, he felt inclined to envy his comrades. To be entirely shut out from all intercourse with his fellow-creatures, never again to hear the sound of a human voice, and to be condemned, in the very bloom of youth, to pine away existence in that desolate place, far from every friend, appeared a doom so dreadful, that he was insensibly led to reflect for what crime so heavy a punishment could have befallen him.