In that sterile and mountainous quarter of the island to which he has given the name of Stradling,—­that name, importing to him misfortune,—­Selkirk, venturing in pursuit of a goat, has fallen from a precipice.

Fortunately the cavity is not deep.  After a transient swoon, recovering his footing, experiencing only a general numbness, and some pain caused by the contusions resulting from his fall, he bethinks himself of the means of escape.

But a circle of sharp rocks, contracting from the base to the summit, forms a tunnel over his head; no crevice, no precipitous ledge, interrupts their fatal uniformity.  Only around him some platforms of sandy earth appear; he digs them with his knife, to form steps.  Some fragments of roots project here and there through the interstices of the stones; he hopes to find a point of support by which to scale these abrupt walls.  The little solidity of the roots, which give way in his grasp; his sufferings, which become more intense at every effort; these thousand rocky heads bending at once over him; all tell him plainly that it will be impossible for him to emerge from this hole—­that it is destined to be his tomb.

Poor young sailor, already condemned to isolation, separated from the rest of mankind, could he have foreseen that one day his captivity was to be still closer! that his steps would be chained, that the sight even of his island would be interdicted! and that in this desert, where he had neither persecutor nor jailer to fear, he would find a prison, a dungeon!

After three days of anguish and tortures, after new and ineffectual attempts,—­exhausted by fatigue, by thirst, by hunger,—­consumed by fever, supervened in consequence of all his sufferings of body and soul, he resigns himself to his fate; with his foot, he prepares his last couch, composed of sand and dried leaves shaken from above by the neighboring trees; he lies down, folds his arms, closes his eyes, and prepares to die, thinking of his eternal salvation.

Although he tries not to allow himself to be distracted by other thoughts, from time to time sounds from the outer world disturb his pious meditations.  First it is the joyous song of a bird.  To these vibrating notes another song replies from afar, on a more simple and almost plaintive key.  It is doubtless the female, who, with a sort of modest and repressed tenderness, thus announces her retreat to him who calls; then a rapid rustling is heard above the head of the prisoner.  It is the songster, hastening to rejoin his companion.

Selkirk has never known love.  Once perhaps,—­in a fit of youth and delirium; and it was this false love which tore him from his studies, from his country!

Ah! why did he not remain at Largo, with his father?  To-day he also would have had a companion!  In that smiling country where coolness dwells, where labor is so easy, life so sweet and calm, the paternal roof would have sheltered his happiness!  Oh! the joys of his infancy! his green and sunny Scotland.