a painful effort, not without being obliged to pause on the
way to recover his strength, carries her to the dwelling on the shore.

This shore he finds deserted and in confusion.

Deprived of their daily nourishment during the prolonged absence of
their master, the goats have made a passage through the inclosure, by
gnawing the still green foliage which imprisoned them; the hurricane
of the night has overthrown the rest. Before leaving, they had ravaged
the garden, destroyed the promises of the approaching harvest, and
devoured even the bark of the young trees. The cats have followed the
goats. Selkirk has before his eyes a spectacle of desolation; his
props, his trellises, the remains of his orchard, of his inclosure, of
his shed, a part even of the roof of his cabin, strew the earth in
confusion around him.

But it is not this which occupies him now. He has prepared for
Marimonda a bed beside his own; he takes care of her, he watches over
her, he leaves her only to seek in the woods, or on the mountains, the
herb which may heal her; he brings all sorts, and by armfuls, that she
may choose;--does she not know them better than himself?

As she turns away her head, or repulses with the hand those which he
presents, he thinks he has not yet discovered the one she requires,
and though still suffering, though himself exhausted by so many
varying emotions, he re-commences his search, to summon the entire
island to the assistance of Marimonda. From each of his trees he
borrows a branch; from his bushes, his rocks, his streams--a plant, a
fruit, a leaf, a root! For the first time he ventures across the
_pajonals_--spongy marshes formed by the sea along the cliffs, and
where, beneath the shade of the mangroves, grow those singular
vegetables, those gelatinous plants, endowed with vitality and motion.
At sight of all these remedies, Marimonda closes her eyes, and reopens
them only to address to her friend a look of gratitude.

The only thing she accepts is the water he offers her, the water which
he himself holds to her lips in his cocoa-nut cup.

During a whole week, Selkirk remains constantly absorbed in these
cares, useless cares!--Marimonda cannot be healed! In her breast,
bruised by the folds of the lasso, exists an important lesion of the
organs essential to life, and from time to time a gush of blood
reddens her white teeth.

'What!' said Selkirk to himself, 'she has then accompanied me on this
corner of earth onl