Horrible as the fate might seem, he was reconciled.

No human hand would give him Christian burial, and the vultures which soared about the island might pluck out his eyes even before life was extinct.
With this dread on his mind, he shot the vultures whenever he saw them, and almost drove them from the island.
Three years had lapsed since poor Blanche had been laid in her grave, and John was morose, silent and moody, but reconciled.

It was eighteen years since he had been cast away, and he had about abandoned all thought of again seeing any other land save this.
Among other things saved from the wreck was a quantity of tobacco seed, and, as tobacco was then thought to be an indispensable article, he planted some and grew his own.

He fashioned pipes from the roots of trees, as the Indians did, and his pipe became his greatest solace in solitude.
One night, a little more than three years after he had been left alone, he was lying on his well-worn mattress, smoking his evening pipe, when there came on the air far out to sea a heavy "Boom!" The trumpet of doom would not have astonished him more.

At first he could scarcely believe his ears.