myrtles of various heights; but among their glossy branches, he in
vain seeks traces of the pruning-knife or shears; nature alone has
thus disposed in spheroids or umbels the extremities of this rich
vegetation.

The same disappointment awaits him in the underwood. The only pruners
have been goats, or other animals, daintily cropping the green shoots.

Then only does the complete and terrible certainty of his disaster
fall on him and crush him. Behold him blotted from the number of men,
perhaps condemned to die of misery and of hunger! more securely
imprisoned, more entirely forgotten by the world than the most
hardened criminal plunged in the lowest depths of the Bastile! He at
least, has a jailor! Miserable Stradling!

At this moment he hears a noise above his head: it is the monkey.

Marimonda, on her side, has also inspected the island; she has already
tasted its productions. Whether she is satisfied with her discoveries,
or whether forgiveness and forgetfulness of injuries are natural to
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