At all hazards he directs himself to this quarter.

What a spectacle awaits him! In a cavity at the foot of the eminence
where Marimonda is, he finds, crouching, still out of breath with her
struggle and her race, his fugitive. She is a mother! and six kittens,
already active, are rolling in the sun around her.

Selkirk, seizing his knife, kills the mother, and carries off the
little ones.

A short time after, the rats have deserted the shore. But their
departure, though it prevents the evil they might yet have done, does
not remedy that already accomplished.

The provisions of the solitary are almost entirely destroyed, and the
little powder which remains is scarcely sufficient for a reserve which
he no longer knows where to renew.

The moment at last comes when he possesses no other ammunition than
the only charge in his gun. This last charge, his last resource, oh!
how preciously he preserves it to-day. While it is there, he can still
believe himself armed, still powerful; he has not entirely exhausted
his resources; it is his last hope. Who knows?--perhaps he may yet
need it to protect his life in circumstances which he cannot foresee.

But since his gun must remain suspended, inactive, to the walls of his
cabin, it is time to think of supplying the place of the services it
has rendered; it is time to realize his dream, and, according to the
usual course of civilization, to substitute the life of a farmer and
shepherd for that of a hunter.