A New Invasion.--Selkirk joyfully meets an ancient Enemy.--Combat on
a Red Cedar.--A Mother and her Little Ones.--The Flock.--Fête in the
Island; Pacific Combats, Diversions and Swings.--A Sail.--The Burning
Wood.--Presentiments of Marimonda.
The next morning the sun has scarcely touched the horizon, Selkirk is
still asleep, when he is awakened by a sort of tickling at his feet.
Thinking it some caress or trick of Marimonda, risen earlier than
usual, he half opens his eyes, sees nothing, and places himself again
in a posture to continue his nap. The same tickling is renewed, but
with more perseverance, and very soon something sharp and keen
penetrates to the quick the hard envelope of his heel. The tickling
has become a bite.
This time wide awake, he raises his head. His cabin is full of rats!
Near him, a company of them are tranquilly engaged in breakfasting on
his coverings and the rushes of his couch; they are on his table, his
seats, along his pillow and his walls; they are playing before his
door, running hither and thither through the crevices of his roof,
multiplying themselves on his rack and shelf; all biting, gnawing,
nibbling--some his seal-skin hat, his tobacco-pouch, the bark
ornaments of his furniture; others the handles of his tools, his
pipes, his Bible, and even his powder-horn.
Selkirk utters a cry, springs from his couch, and immediately crushes
two under his heels. The rest take flight.
As he is pursuing these new invaders with the shovel and musket, he
perceives at a few paces' distance Marimonda, sorrowful and drooping,
perched on the strong branch of a sapota-tree. By her piteous and
chilly appearance, her tangled and wet hair, he doubts not but she has
passed the whole night exposed to the inclemency of the weather. But
he at first attributes this whim only to her ill-humor the evening
before.
On perceiving him, Marimonda descends, from her tree, sad, but still
gentle and caressing, and with gestures of terror, points to the
grotto. He runs thither.
Here another spectacle of disorder and destruction awaits him; the
rats are collected in it by thousands; his furs, his provisions of
fruit and game, his bottles formerly filled with oil, every thing is
sacked, torn in pieces, afloat; for the water has at last made its way
through the crevices of the mountain. To put the climax to his
misfortune, his reserve of powder, notwithstanding its double envelope
of leather and horn, attacked by the voracious teeth of his
aggressors, is swimming in the midst of an oily slime.
The solitary now possesses, for the purpose of hunting, for the
renewal of these provisions so necessary to his life, only the few
charges contained in his portable powder-horn, and in the barrels of
his guns. The blow which has just struck him is his ruin! and still
the hardest trial appointed for him is yet to come.
In penetrating the ground, the rains of winter have driven the rats
from their holes; hence their invasion of the cabin and the grotto.
Against so many enemies, what can Selkirk do, reduced to his single
strength?
He succeeds, nevertheless, in killing some; Marimonda herself, armed
with the branch of a tree, serves as an ally, and aids him in putting
them to flight; but their combined efforts are ineffectual. An hour
after, the accursed race are multiplying round him, more numerous and
more ravenous than ever.
He comprehends then what an error he has committed in the complete
destruction of the wild cats which peopled the island. With the most
generous intentions, how often is man mistaken in the object he
pursues! We think we are ridding us of an enemy, and we are depriving
ourselves of a protector. God only knows what he does, and he has
admitted apparent evil, as a principle, into the admirable composition
of his universe; he suffers the wicked to live. Selkirk had been more
severe than God, and he repents it. If his poor cats had only been
exiled, he would hasten to proclaim a general amnesty. Alas! there is
no amnesty with death. But has he indeed destroyed all? Perhaps some
still exist in those distant regions which have already served as a
refuge for that other banished race, the seals.
The rains have ceased; the storms of winter, always accompanied by
overpowering heat and dense fogs, no longer sadden the island by
anticipated darkness, or the gloomy mutterings of continual thunder.
The sun, though _garué_[1] absorbs the remainder of the inundation.
Followed by Marimonda, Selkirk, for the first time, has ventured to
the woods and thickets between the hills beyond the shore and the
False Coquimbo, when a sound, sweeter to his ear than would have been
the songs of a siren, makes him pause suddenly in ecstasy: it is the
mewing of a cat.
[Footnote 1: In Peru and Chili, they call _garua_ that mist which
sometimes, and especially after the rainy season, floats around the
disk of the sun.]
This cat, strongly built, with a spotted and glossy coat, white nose,
and brown whiskers, is stationed at a little distance, on a red cedar,
where she is undoubtedly watching her prey.
She is an old settler escaped from the general massacre; the last of
the vanquished; perhaps!
Without hesitation, Selkirk clasps the trunk of the tree, climbs it,
reaches the first branches; Marimonda follows him and quickly goes
beyond. At the aspect of these two aggressors, like herself clad in
skin, the cat recoils, ascending; the monkey follows, pursues her from
branch to branch, quite to the top of the cedar. Struck on the
shoulder with a blow of the claw, she also recoils, but descending,
and declaring herself vanquished in the first skirmish, immediately
gives over the combat, or rather the sport, for she has seen only
sport in the affair.
Selkirk is not so easily discouraged; this cat he must have, he must
have her alive; he wishes to make her the guardian of his cabin, his
protector against the rats. Three times he succeeds in seizing her;
three times the furious animal, struggling, tears his arms or face. It
is a terrible, bloody conflict, mingled with exclamations, growlings,
and frightful mewings. At last Selkirk, forgetting perhaps in the
ardor of combat the object of victory, seizes her vigorously by the
skin of the neck, at the risk of strangling her; with the other hand
he grasps her around the body. The difficulty is now to carry her.
Fortunately he has his game-bag. With one hand he holds her pressed
against the fork of the tree; with the other arm he reaches his
game-bag, opens it; the conquered animal, half dead, has not made,
during this manoeuvre, a single movement of resistance. But when the
hunter is about to close it, suddenly rousing herself with a leap,
distending by a last effort all her muscles at once, she escapes from
his grasp, and precipitates herself from the top of the cedar, to the
great terror of Marimonda, then peaceably crouched under the tree,
whom the cat brushes against in falling, and to the great
disappointment of Selkirk, who thinks he has the captive in his pouch.
Sliding along the trunk, Selkirk descends quickly to the ground; but
the enemy has already disappeared, and left no trace. In vain his eyes
are turned on all sides; he sees nothing, neither his adversary nor
Marimonda, who has undoubtedly fled under the impression of this last
terror.
As he is in despair, a whistling familiar to his ear is heard, and at
two hundred paces distant he perceives, on an eminence of the False
Coquimbo, his monkey, bent double, in an attitude of contemplation,
appearing very attentive to what is passing beneath her, and changing
her posture only to send a repeated summons to her master.
At all hazards he directs himself to this quarter.
What a spectacle awaits him! In a cavity at the foot of the eminence
where Marimonda is, he finds, crouching, still out of breath with her
struggle and her race, his fugitive. She is a mother! and six kittens,
already active, are rolling in the sun around her.
Selkirk, seizing his knife, kills the mother, and carries off the
little ones.
A short time after, the rats have deserted the shore. But their
departure, though it prevents the evil they might yet have done, does
not remedy that already accomplished.
The provisions of the solitary are almost entirely destroyed, and the
little powder which remains is scarcely sufficient for a reserve which
he no longer knows where to renew.
The moment at last comes when he possesses no other ammunition than
the only charge in his gun. This last charge, his last resource, oh!
how preciously he preserves it to-day. While it is there, he can still
believe himself armed, still powerful; he has not entirely exhausted
his resources; it is his last hope. Who knows?--perhaps he may yet
need it to protect his life in circumstances which he cannot foresee.
But since his gun must remain suspended, inactive, to the walls of his
cabin, it is time to think of supplying the place of the services it
has rendered; it is time to realize his dream, and, according to the
usual course of civilization, to substitute the life of a farmer and
shepherd for that of a hunter.
Already is his colony augmented by six new guests, domesticated in his
house; already, on every side, his seeds are peeping out of the ground
under the most favorable auspices; his young trees, firmly rooted, are
growing rapidly beneath the double influence of heat and moisture; at
the axil of some of their leaves, he sees a bud, an earnest of the
harvest. He must now occupy himself with the means of surprising,
seizing and retaining the ancestors of his future flock.
Here, patience, address or stratagem can alone avail.
Notwithstanding his natural agility, he does not dream of reaching
them by pursuit. Since his last hunts, goats and kids keep themselves
usually in the steep and mountainous parts of the island. To leap from
rock to rock, to attempt to vie with them in celerity and lightness
appears to him, with reason, a foolish and impracticable enterprise.
Later, perhaps,... Who knows?
He manufactures snares, traps; but suspicion is now the order of the
day around him; each holds himself on the _qui vive_. After long
waiting without any result, he finds in his snares a coati, some
little Guinea pigs; here is one resource, undoubtedly, but he aims at
higher game, and the kids will not allow themselves to be taken by his
baits.
He remembers then, that in certain parts of America, the hunters, in
order to seize their prey living, have recourse to the lasso, a long
cord terminated by a slip-noose, which they know how to throw at great
distances, and almost always with certainty.
With a thread which he obtains from the fibres of the aloe, with
narrow strips of skin, closely woven, he composes a lasso more than
fifty feet long; he tries it; he exercises it now against a tuft of
leaves detached from a bush, now against some projecting rock;
afterwards he tries it upon Marimonda, who often enough, by her
agility and swiftness, puts her master at fault.
In the interval of these preparatory exercises, Selkirk occupies
himself with the construction of a latticed inclosure, destined to
contain the flock which he hopes to possess; he makes it large and
spacious, that his young cattle may bound and sport at their ease;
high, that they may respect the limits he assigns them. In one corner,
supported by solid posts, he builds a shed, simply covered with
branches; that his flock may there be sheltered from the heat of the
day. The inclosure and the shed, together with his garden, form a new
addition to his great settlement.
When, his kids shall have become goats, when the epoch of domesticity
shall have arrived for them, when they shall have contracted habits of
tameness, when they have learned to recognize his voice, then, and
then only, will he permit them to wander and browse on the neighboring
hills, under the direction of a vigilant guardian. This guardian,
where shall he find? Why may it not be Marimonda? Marimonda, to whose
intelligence he knows not where to affix bounds!
Dreams, dreams, perhaps! and yet but for dreams, but for those gentle
phantoms which he creates, and by which he surrounds himself, what
would sustain the courage of the solitary?
When Selkirk thinks he has acquired skill in the use of the lasso, he
buries himself among the high mountains situated towards the central
part of his island. Several days pass amid fruitless attempts, and
when the delicately-carved foliage of the mimosa announces, by its
folding, that night is approaching, he regains his cabin, gloomy,
care-worn, and despairing of the future.
Meanwhile, by his very failures, he has acquired experience. One
evening, he returns to his dwelling, bringing with him two young kids,
with scarcely perceptible horns, and reddish skin, varied with large
brown spots. Marimonda welcomes her new guests, and this evening all
in the habitation breathes joy and tranquillity.
The week has not rolled away, when the number of Selkirk's goats
exceeds that of his cats; and he takes pleasure in seeing them leap
and play together in his inclosure; his mind has recovered its
serenity.
'Yes,' said he, with pride, 'man can suffice for himself, can depend
on himself only for subsistence and welfare! Am I not a striking
proof? Did not all seem lost for me, when an unforeseen catastrophe
destroyed the remnant of the provision of powder which I owed to the
pity of that miserable captain? Ah! undoubtedly according to his
hateful calculations, he had limited the term of my life to the last
charge which my gun should contain; this last charge is still there!
Of what use will it be to me? Why do I need it? Are not my resources
for subsistence more certain and numerous to-day than before? What
then is wanting? The society of a Stradling and his fellows? God keep
me from them! The best member of the crew of the brig Swordfish came
away when I did. I have received from Marimonda more proofs of
devotion than from all the companions I have had on land and on sea.
What have I to regret? I am well off here; may God keep me in repose
and health!'
After this sally, he thought of his hives, which were still wanting,
and of the methods to be employed to seize a swarm of bees.
A month after, Selkirk, who religiously kept his reckoning on the
margin of his Bible, resolved to celebrate the New Year. It was now
the first of January, 1706.
On this day he dined, not in his cabin, nor under his tree, but in the
middle of the inclosure, surrounded by his family; fruits and good
cheer were more abundant than usual; Marimonda, as was her custom,
dined at the same table with himself: the cats shared in the feast;
the goats roved around, stretching up to gaze with their blue eyes on
the baskets of fruits, and returning to browse on the grass beneath
the feet of the guests. Selkirk, as the master of the house, and chief
of the family, generously distributed the provisions to his young and
frolicksome republic, and Marimonda assisted him as well as she could,
in doing the honors.
After the repasts, there were races and combats; the remains of the
baskets were thrown to the most skilful and the most adroit; then
came, diversions and swings.
Lying in his hammock, where he smoked his most excellent tobacco in
his best pipe, Selkirk smilingly contemplated the capricious bounds,
the riotous sports of his cats and kids, their graceful postures,
their fraternal combats, in which sheathed claws and the inoffensive
horn were the only weapons used on either side.
To give more variety to the fête, Marimonda developes all the
resources of her daring suppleness; she leaps from right to left,
clearing large spaces with inconceivable dexterity. Attaining the
summit of a tree, she whistles to attract her master's attention,
then, with her two fore-paws clasped in her hind ones, she rolls
herself up like a ball and drops on the ground; the foliage crackles
beneath her fall, which seems as if it must be mortal; for her, this
is only sport. Without altering the position of her limbs, she
suddenly stops in her rapid descent, by means of her prehensile tail,
that fifth hand, so powerful, with which nature has endowed the
monkeys of America. Then, suspended by this organ alone, she
accelerates her motions to and fro with incredible rapidity, quickly
unwinds her tail from the branch by which she is suspended, and with a
dart, traversing the air as if winged, alights at a hundred paces
distance on a vine, which she instantly uses as a swing.
Selkirk is astonished; he applauds the tricks of Marimonda, the sports
and combats of his other subjects. Meanwhile, his eyes having turned
towards the sea, his brow is suddenly overclouded. At the expiration
of a few moments of an uneasy and agitated observation, he utters an
exclamation, springs from his hammock, runs to his cabin, then to the
shore, where he prostrates himself with his hands clasped and raised
towards heaven.
He has just perceived a sail.
Provided with his glass, he seeks the sail upon the waves, he finds
it. 'It is without doubt a barque,' said he to himself; 'a barque from
the neighboring island, or some point of the continent!' And looking
again through his copper tube, he clearly distinguishes three masts
well rigged, decorated with white sails, which are swelling in the
east wind, and gilded by the oblique rays of the declining sun.
'It is a brig! The Swordfish, perhaps! Yes, Stradling has prolonged
his voyage in these regions. The time which he had fixed for my exile
has rolled away! He is coming to seek me. May he be blessed!'
The movement which the brig made to double the island, had increased
more and more the hopes of Selkirk, when the Spanish flag, hoisted at
the stern, suddenly unfolded itself to his eyes.
'The enemy!' exclaimed he; 'woe is me! If they land on this coast,
whither shall I fly, where conceal myself? In the mountains! Yes, I
can there succeed in escaping them! But, the wretches! they will
destroy my cabin, my inclosure, my garden! the fruit of so much
anxiety and labor!'
And, with palpitating heart, he again watches the manoeuvres of the
brig. The latter, having tacked several times, as if to get before the
wind, hastily changed her course and stood out to sea.
Selkirk remains stupefied, overwhelmed. 'These are Spaniards,'
murmured he, after a moment's hesitation; 'what matters it! Am I now
their enemy? I am only a colonist, an exile, a deserter from the
English navy. They owe me protection, assistance, as a Christian. If
they required it, I would serve on board their vessel! But they have
gone; what method shall I employ to recall them, to signalize my
presence?'
There was but one; it was to kindle a large fire on the shore or on
the hill. He needs hewn wood, and his supplies are exhausted; what is
to be done?
For an instant, in his disturbed mind, the idea arises to tear the
lattice-work from his inclosure, the pillars and the roof from his
shed, to pile them around his cabin, and set fire to the whole.
This idea he quickly repulses, but it suffices to show what passed in
the inner folds of the heart of this man, who had just now forced
himself to believe that happiness was yet possible for him.
On farther reflection, he remembers that behind his grotto, on one of
the first terraces of the mountain, there is a dense thicket, where
the trees, embarrassed with vines and dry briers, closely interwoven,
calcined by the burning reflections of the sun on the rock which
surrounds them, present a collection of dead branches and mouldy
trunks, scarcely masked by the semblance of vegetation.
Thither he transports all the brands preserved under the ashes of his
hearth; he makes a pile of them; throws upon it armfuls of chips, bark
and leaves. The flame soon runs along the bushes which encircle the
thicket; and, when the sun goes down, an immense column of fire
illuminates all this part of the island, and throws its light far over
the ocean.
Standing on the shore, Selkirk passes the night with his eyes fixed on
the sea, his ear listening attentively to catch the distant sound of a
vessel; but nothing presents itself to his glance upon the luminous
and sparkling waves, and amid their dashing he hears no other sound
but that of the trees and vines crackling in the flames.
At morning all has disappeared. The fire has exhausted itself without
going beyond its bounds, and the sea, calm and tranquil, shows nothing
upon its surface but a few flocks of gulls.
A week passes away, during which Selkirk remains thoughtful and
taciturn; he rarely leaves the shore; he still beholds the sports of
his cats and his kids, but no longer smiles at them; Marimonda, by way
of amusing him, renews in his presence her surprising feats, but the
attention of the master is elsewhere.
Nevertheless, he cannot allow himself time to dream long with
impunity; his reserve of smoked beef is nearly exhausted; to save it,
he has again resorted to the shell-fish, which his stomach loathes; to
the sea-crabs, of which he is tired; he needs other nourishment to
restore his strength. He shakes off his lethargy, takes his lasso, his
game-bag. His plan now is, not to hunt the kids, but the goats
themselves.
As he is about to set out, Marimonda approaches, preparing to
accompany him. In his present frame of mind, Selkirk wishes to be
alone, and makes her comprehend, by signs, that she must remain at
home and watch the flock; but this time, contrary to her custom, she
does not seem disposed to obey. Notwithstanding his orders, she
follows him, stops when he turns, recommences to follow him, and, by
her supplicating looks and expressive gestures, seeks to obtain the
permission which he persists in refusing. At last Selkirk speaks
severely, and she submits, still protesting against it by her air of
sadness and depression. Was this, on her part, caprice or foresight?
No one has the secret of these inexplicable instincts, which sometimes
reveal to animals the presence of an invisible enemy, or the approach
of a disaster.
At evening, Selkirk had not returned! Marimonda passed the night in
awaiting him, uttering plaintive cries.
On the morrow the morning rolled away, then the day, then the night,
and the cabin remained deserted, and Marimonda in vain scaled the
trees and hills in the neighborhood to recover traces of her master.
What had become of him?