The Island San Ambrosio.--Selkirk at last knows what Friendship is.--The
Raft.--Visits to the Tomb of Marimonda.--The Departure.--The two
Islands.--Shipwreck.--The Port of Safety.
As he read this, Selkirk was seized with intense pity for the
unfortunate shipwrecked. What! on this same ocean, undoubtedly on
these same shores, lives another unhappy being, like himself exiled
from the world, enduring the same sufferings, subject to the same
wants, experiencing the same _ennui_, the same anguish as himself!
this man has confided to the sea his cry of distress, his complaint,
and the sea, a faithful messenger, has just deposited it at the feet
of Selkirk!
Suddenly he remembers that rock, that island, discerned by him, on the
day when at the Oasis, he was reconciled to Marimonda.
That is the island of San Ambrosio; it is there, he does not doubt it
for an instant, that his new friend lives; yes, his friend! for, from
this moment he experiences for him an emotion of sympathetic
affection. He loves him, he is so much to be pitied! Poor father, he
has lost his sons, he has lost his fortune and the hope of returning
to his country; and yet there reigns in his letter a tone of dignified
calmness, of religious resignation which can come only from a noble
heart. He is a Spaniard and a Roman Catholic; Selkirk is a Scotchman
and a Presbyterian; what matters it?
To-day his friend demands assistance, and he has resolved to dare all,
to undertake all to respond to his appeal. Like a lamp deprived of
air, his mind has revived at this idea, that he can at last be useful
to others than himself. The inhabitant of San Ambrosio shall be
indebted to him for an alleviation of his sorrows; for companionship
in them. What is there visionary about this hope? Had he not already
conceived the project of preparing a barque to explore that unknown
coast? God seems to encourage his design, by sending him at once this
double manna for the body and soul, the _porro_, which will suffice
for his nourishment, and this writing, which the wave has just
brought, to impose on him a duty.
He immediately sets himself to the work, and obstacles are powerless
to chill his generous excitement. Of the vegetable productions of the
island, the red cedar and myrtle are those which grow of the largest
size;[1] but yet their trunks are not large enough to serve when
hollowed out for a barque. Well! he will construct a raft.
[Footnote 1: The _myrtus maximus_ attains 13 metres (a little more
than 42 feet) in height.]
He fells young trees, cuts off their branches, rolls them to the
shore, on a platform of sand, which the waves reach at certain
periods; he fastens them solidly together with a triple net-work of
plaited leather, cords woven of the fibre of the aloe, supple and
tough vines; he chooses another with diverging and horizontal roots,
the habitual direction taken by all the large vegetables of this
island, the sand of which is covered only by two feet of earth. This
shall be the mast. He plants it in the middle of the raft, where it is
kept upright by its roots, knotted and interwoven with the various
pieces which compose the floor. For a sail, has he not that which was
left him by the Swordfish? and will not his seal-skin hammock serve as
a spare sail?
He afterwards constructs a helm, then two strong oars, that he may
neglect no chance of success. He fastens his structure still more
firmly by all that remains to him of his nails and bolts, and awaits
the high tide to launch his skiff upon the sea.
He has never felt calmer, happier, than during the long time occupied
in these labors; their object has doubled his strength. The moments of
indispensable repose, he has passed at the Oasis, beside the tomb of
Marimonda, of that Marimonda, who by her example, opened to him the
life of devotedness in which he has just engaged. Thence, with his eye
turned upon that island where dwells the unknown friend from whom he
has received a summons, he talks to him, encourages him, consoles him;
he imparts to him his resolution to join him soon, and it seems as if
the same waves which had brought the message will also undertake to
transmit the reply.
At present, Selkirk finds some sweetness in pitying evils which are
not his own; he no longer dreams of wrapping himself in a cloak of
selfishness; that disdainful heart, hitherto invincibly closed, at
last experiences friendship, or at least aspires to do so.
At last, the day arrives when the sea, inundating the marshes, bending
the mangroves, reaches, on the sandy platform, one of the corners of
his raft.
Selkirk hastens to transport thither his hatchets, his guns, his
seal-skins and goat-skins, his Bible, his spy-glass, his pipes, his
ladder, his stools, even his traps; all his riches! it is a complete
removal.
On taking possession of the island, he had engraved on the bark of
several trees the date of his arrival; he now inscribes upon them the
day of his departure. For many months his reckoning has been
interrupted; to determine the date is impossible; he knows only the
day of the week.
When the wave had entirely raised his barque, aiding himself with one
of the long oars to propel it over the rocky bottom, he gained the
sea. Then, after having adjusted his sail, with his hand on the helm,
he turned towards his island to address to it an adieu, laden with
maledictions rather than regrets.
Swelled by a south-east wind, the sail pursues its course towards that
other land, the object of his new desires. At the expiration of some
hours, by the aid of his glass, what from the summit of his mountains
had appeared to him only a dark point, a rock beaten by the waves,
seems already enlarged, allowing him to see high hills covered with
verdure. He has not then deceived himself! There exists a habitable
land,--habitable for two! It has served as a refuge to the shipwrecked
man, to his friend! Ah! how impatient he is to reach this shore where
he is to meet him!
Several hours more of a slow but peaceful navigation roll away. He has
arrived at a distance almost midway between the point of departure and
that of arrival. Looking alternately at the islands Selkirk and San
Ambrosio, both illuminated by the sunset, with their indefinite forms,
their bases buried in the waves, their terraced summits, veiled with a
light fog, they appear like the reflection of each other. But for the
discovery which he had previously made of the second, he would have
believed this was his own island, or rather its image, represented in
the waters of the sea.
But in proportion as he advances towards his new conquest, it
increases to his eyes, as if to testify the reality of its existence,
now by a mountain peak, now by a cape. He had seen only the profile,
it now presents its face, ready to develope all its graces, all its
fascinations; while its rival, disdained, abandoned, becomes by
degrees effaced, and seems to wish to conceal its humiliation beneath
the wave of the great ocean.
Suddenly, without any apparent jar, without any flaw of wind, on a
calm sea, the stem of the tree serving as a mast vacillates, bends
forward, then on one side; the roots, which fasten it to the floor of
the raft, are wrenched from their hold; the sail, diverging in the
same direction, still extended, drags it entirely down, and it is
borne away by the wave.
Struck with astonishment, Selkirk puts his foot on the helm, and
seizes his oars; but oars are powerless to move so heavy a machine.
What is to be done?
He who has not been able to endure isolation in the midst of a
terrestrial paradise, from which he has just voluntarily exiled
himself, must he then he reduced to have for an asylum, on the
immensity of the ocean, only a few trunks of trees scarcely lashed
together?
The situation is frightful, terrific; Selkirk dares not contemplate
it, lest his reason should give way. He must have a sail; a mast! He
has his spare sail; for the mast, his only resource is to detach one
of the timbers which compose the frame-work of his raft. Perhaps this
will destroy its solidity; but he has no choice.
He takes the best of his hatchets, chooses among the straight stems of
which his floating dwelling is composed, that which seems most
suitable; he cuts away with a thousand precautions, the bonds which
fasten it; he frees it, not without difficulty, from the contact of
other logs to which it has been attached. But while he devotes himself
to this task, the raft, obedient to a mysterious motion of the sea,
has slowly drifted on; the surface is covered with foam, as if
sub-marine waves are lashing it. Selkirk springs to the helm; the
tiller breaks in his hands; he seizes the oars, they also break. An
unknown force hurries him on. He has just fallen into one of those
rapid currents which, from north to south, traverse the waters of the
Pacific Ocean.
Borne away in a contrary direction from that which he has hitherto
pursued, the land of which he had come in search seems to fly before
him. Whither is he going? Into what regions, into what solitudes of
the sea is he to be carried, far from islands and continents?
To add to his terror, in these latitudes, where day suddenly succeeds
to night and night to day, where twilight is unknown, the sun, just
now shining brightly, suddenly sinks below the horizon.
In the midst of profound darkness, the unhappy man pursues this fatal
race, leading to inevitable destruction. During a part of this
terrible night, he hears the frail frame-work which supports him
cracking beneath his feet. How long must his sufferings last? He knows
not. At last, jostled by adverse waves, shaken to its centre, the raft
begins to whirl around, and something heavier than the shock of the
wave comes repeatedly to give it new and rude blows. The first rays of
the rising moon, far from calming the terrors of the unhappy mariner,
increase them. In his dizzy brain, these wan rays which silver the
surface of the sea, seem so many phantoms coming to be present at his
last moments. Pale, bent double, with his hair standing upright,
clinging to some projection of his barque, he in vain attempts to fix
his glance on certain strange objects which he sees ascending,
descending, and rolling around him.
They are the trunks of the trees which formed a part of his raft,
limbs detached from its body, and which, now drawn into the same
whirlpool, are by their repeated shocks, aiding in his complete
destruction.
In face of this imminent, implacable death, Selkirk ceases to struggle
against it. He has now but one resource; the belief in another life.
The religious instinct, which has already come to his assistance,
revives with force. Clinging with his hands and feet to these wavering
timbers, which are almost disjoined, half inundated by the wave, which
is encroaching more and more upon his last asylum, he directs his
steps towards the spot where he had deposited his arms and furs; he
takes from among them his Bible, not to read it, but to clasp it to
his heart, whose agitation and terror seem to grow calm beneath its
sacred contact.
He then attempts to absorb his thoughts in God; he blames himself for
not having been contented with the gifts he had received from Him; he
might have lived happily in Scotland, or in the royal navy. It is this
perpetual desire for change, these aspirations after the unknown,
which have occasioned his ruin.
At this moment, raising his eyes towards heaven, he sees, beneath the
pale rays of the moon, a mass of rocks rising at a little distance,
which he immediately recognizes. There is the bay of the Seals, the
peak of the Discovery. That hollow, lying in the shadow, is the valley
of the Oasis! As on the first day of his arrival, on one of the
steepest summits of the mountain, he perceives stationed there,
immovable, like a sentinel, a goat, between whose delicate limbs
shines a group of stars, celestial eyes, whose golden lids seem to
vibrate as if in appeal. It is his island! He does not hesitate;
suddenly recovering all his energies, he springs from the raft,
struggles with vigor, with perseverance against the current, triumphs
over it, and, after prolonged efforts, at last reaches this haven of
deliverance, this port of safety; he lands, fatigued, exhausted, but
overcome with joy and gratitude. Profoundly thanking God from his
heart, he prostrates himself, and kisses with transport the hospitable
soil of this island,--which, on the morning of the same day, he had
cursed.
Alas! does not reflection quickly diminish this lively joy at his
return and safety? From this shipwreck, poor sailor, thou hast saved
only thyself: thy tools, thy instruments of labor, even thy Bible, are
a prey to the sea!
It is now, Selkirk, that thou must suffice for thyself! It is the last
trial to which thou canst be subjected!