Often he climbed his peak of observation and studied the circling horizon through the glasses, only to find nothing, but he was never discouraged.

There was never any fall of the spirits.

No ship showed, but the ship that was coming might even then be on the way.

She had left some port, probably one in England, not dreaming that it was a most important destiny and duty of hers to pick up a lone lad cast away on an island in the Gulf or the Caribbean--at least it was most important to him.
Now came a time of storms that seemed to him to portend a change in the seasons.

The island was swept by wind and rain, but he liked to be lashed by both.