"After all that work, after being so sure, to be out here on this wretched shelf like an old cormorant, but without any wings." "I don't care," he said aloud, after again and again convincing himself that there was no possible means of farther descent.

"I won't go back to prison; I'll sit here and starve first.

Not I," he added, after a few moments' thought; "the cutter will be sure to sail by, and they could see me if I made signals from just here." Rather doubtful, as he knew, for he was only at the corner of the chasm or tiny gulf into which the sea rushed, and the chances were that unless he had something big and white to wave, he was not likely to get his signal seen.
For one moment only the recollection of the food he had left behind tempted him to return.
"I might get it, and bring the basket down," he said.

"No, I won't try it again; it's too dangerous.

I don't want another slip.