I said the ocean was glorious; that there was a Byronic sublimity in lighting up the lantern; that standing behind a counter and showing dry-goods to silly, giggling girls couldn't be compared with it; that I hadn't blushed in six months, and that I didn't think I should ever be willing to come back to a world full of grinning snobs and confusing women.
And now, what do you think happened to me?
My fate was too strong even for Buncombe Island.

It was the second of January.

The tug had not left the island, after leaving a nine-weeks' supply, more than twelve hours before a fearful gale began to blow; it rose higher and higher through the night, and in the morning I found that a small sailing-vessel had been wrecked about half a mile from the light-house, where the beach ran out for some distance into the water, and the land was not so high as on the rock.

I ran down there, the wind still roaring enough to blow me away, and the spray dashing into my eyes, and I found the vessel had gone to pieces and every man was drowned.
But what was this that lay at my feet?
A woman, lashed to a spar, and apparently dead.

When I picked her up, though, she opened her eyes and shut them again.