But suddenly he stopped short, for on the ground before him lay the doublet of a man--a doublet of the fashion then prevalent in Italy. He lifted it up, examined it, but found nothing in the pockets; then, throwing it on the ground, he stood contemplating it for some minutes. Could it be possible that he was in some part of Italy? that the ship had been carried back to the European Continent during the tempest of the night? No; it was impossible that so lovely a tract of land would remain uninhabited, if known to men. The longer he reflected the more he became convinced that he was on some island hitherto unknown to navigators, and on which some other shipwrecked individual had probably been cast. Why the doublet should have been discarded he could well understand, as it was thick and heavy, and the heat of the sun was already intense, although it was not yet near the meridian. Raising his eyes from the doublet which had occasioned these reflections, he happened to glance toward a knot of fruit trees at a little distance; and his attention was drawn to a large bough which hung down as if almost broken away from the main stem. He approached the little grove; and several circumstances now confirmed his suspicion that he was not the only tenant of the island at that moment. The bough had been forcibly torn down, and very recently, too; several of the fruits had been plucked off, the little sprigs to which they had originally hung still remaining and bearing evidence to the fact. But if additional proof were wanting of human presence there, it was afforded by the half-eaten fruits that were strewed about. Wagner now searched for the traces of footsteps; but such marks were not likely to remain in the thick rich grass, which if trampled down, would rise fresh and elastic again with the invigorating dew of a single night. The grove, where Wagner observed the broken bough and the scattered fruits, was further from the shore than the spot where he had found the doublet; and he reasoned that the man, whoever he might be, had thrown away his garment, when overpowered by the intensity of the heat, and had then sought the shade and refreshment afforded by the grove. He therefore concluded that he had gone inland, most probably toward the mountains, whose rocky pinnacles, of every form, now shone with every hue in the glorious sunlight.