die at last, as the goat he found in the
cave had died, of old age.

At times, when his spirits were more than usually low, when the burden
of the lonely years pressed most heavily upon him, Robinson used to
think that surely if the savages could come to his land, he could go
to theirs. How far did they come? Where was their country? What kind
of boats had they? And so eager to go was he sometimes, that he forgot
to think of what he would do when he got there, or what would become
of him if he fell into the hands of the savages. His mind was utterly
taken up with the one thought of getting to the mainland, and even his
dreams were of little else.

One night, when he had put himself almost into a fever with the
trouble of his mind, he had lain long awake, tossing and moaning, but
at last he had fallen asleep. And he dreamed, not as he had usually
done of late, that he was sailing to the mainland, but that as he was
leaving his castle in the morning he saw on the shore two canoes and
eleven savages landing, and that they had with them another man, whom
they were just about to kill and eat, when suddenly the prisoner
jumped up and ran for his life. And in his dream Robinson fancied that
the man came running to hide in the thicket round the castle, and that
thereupon he went out to help him. Then in the dream, the savage
kneeled down, as if begging for mercy, and Robinson took him over the
ladder into the castle, saying to himself, "Now that I've got this
fellow, I can certainly go to the mainland, for he will show me what
course to steer, and where to go when we land." And he woke, with the
joyful feeling that now at last all was well. But when he was wide
awake, and knew that it was only a dream after all, poor Robinson was
more cast down than ever, and more unhappy than he had been during all
the years he had lived on the island.

The dream had, however, this result; that he saw his only plan to get
away was, if possible, to rescue some day one of the prisoners whom
the cannibals were about to kill, and in time get the man to help him
to navigate his canoe across the sea.

With this idea, he set himself to watch, more closely than ever he had
done before, for the savages to land, and during more than a year and
a half he went nearly every day to his lookout-place, and swept the
sea with his telescope, in the hope of seeing canoes coming. But none
came, and Robinson was getting terribly tired of the constant watch.
S