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.