her, on perceiving her old companion, wagging her head in token of
good-will, she descends towards him from the tree on which she is
perched.

But Marimonda is the captain's monkey; she has been his property, his
favorite, his flatterer! In the disposition of mind in which Selkirk
finds himself, he does not need these thoughts to make him pitiless.
Marimonda reminds him of Stradling; the monkey shall pay for the man!

He lowers his gun, and fires. The monkey has seen the movement and
divined his intentions; she has only time to retreat behind her tree,
which does not prevent her receiving in her side a part of the charge.

This detonation of fire-arms, the first perhaps which has resounded in
this corner of the earth since the creation of the world, as it is
prolonged from echo to echo, even to the highest mountains, awakens in
every part of the island as it were a groan of distress. Instinct,
that sublime prescience, has revealed to all that a great peril has
just been born.

To the cries of affright from birds of every species, to the uneasy
and distant bleating of the goats, succeeds a plaintive moaning, like
the voice of a wailing infant.

It is Marimonda lamenting over her wound.

At nightfall, after an entire day of walks and explorations, Selkirk
is returning to his grotto on the shore, when he sees a stone fall at
his feet, then another.

While he, astonished, is seeking to divine the direction from which
this invisible battery plays, a little date-stone hits him on the
cheek. He immediately hears as it were a joyous whistling in the
foliage, which is agitated at his right, and sees Marimonda leaping
from tree to tree, using for this movement her feet, her tail, and one
hand; for she holds the other to her side. It is a compress on her
wound.

War is already in the island! Selkirk has a declared enemy here! And
this island, is it deserted? He has just traversed it in every
direction without seeing any thing which betokens the existence of a
human being.

His disaster is then complete; henceforth not a doubt of it can exist.
And yet his forehead wears rather the character of hope and fortitude
than of discouragement; it is more than resignation, it is pride.

He has just visited his empire. The island, irregular in form, is from
four to five leagues in length; in breadth it is from one and a half
to two leagues. This abode to which he is condemned, is the most
enchanting retreat he could have chosen