He turns hastily.
It is Marimonda.
Marimonda has no longer her lively and dancing motions; she also seems
languid, sad. At sight of Selkirk, she makes a movement as if to flee;
but almost immediately advances a little, and, sorrowful, with bent
brow, sits down on a bank not far from him.
Has she then remarked that he is without arms?
On his side, Selkirk who had not met her for a long time, seemed to
have forgotten his former aversion.
At all events, is she not the most intelligent being chance has placed
near him? He remembers that, in the ship, she obeyed the voice, the
gesture of the captain, and that her tricks amused the whole crew.
This resemblance to the human form, which he at first disliked, now
awakens in him ideas of indulgence and peace. He reproaches himself
with having treated her so brutally, when the poor animal, who alone
had accompanied him into exile, at first accosted him with a caress.
And now she returns, laying aside all ill-will, forgetting even the
wound which she received from him in an impulse of irritation and
hatred, of which she was not the object, for which she ought not to be
responsible.
He therefore makes to her a little sign with the head.
Marimonda replies by winks of the eye and motions of the shoulders,
which Selkirk thinks not wholly destitute of grace.
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