Having set up his signal of distress, he sat down beside it, and, drawing part of the sail over his shoulders, leaned on the broken part of the bulwark, and pondered his forlorn condition.
It was a long, sad reverie into which poor Henry Stuart fell that evening.

Hope did not, indeed, forsake his breast; for hope is strong in youth; but he was too well acquainted with the details of a sailor's life and risks to be able to shut his eyes to the real dangers of his position.

He knew full well that if he should be cast on any of the inhabited islands of the South Seas (unless it might be one of the very few that had at that time accepted the gospel) he would certainly be killed by the savages, whose practise it is to slay and eat all unfortunates who chance to be wrecked and cast upon their shores.

But no islands were in sight; and it was possible that he might be left to float on the boundless ocean until the slow and terrible process of starvation did its work, and wore away the life which he felt to be so fresh and strong within him.
When he thought of this he shuddered, and reverted, almost with a feeling of pleasure, to the idea that another storm might spring up ere long, and, by dashing his frail raft to pieces, bring his life to a speedy termination.

His hopes were not very clear even to his own mind.
He did indeed hope, because he could not help it; but what it was that he hoped for would have puzzled him to state.