Poor young sailor, already condemned to isolation, separated from the
rest of mankind, could he have foreseen that one day his captivity was
to be still closer! that his steps would be chained, that the sight
even of his island would be interdicted! and that in this desert,
where he had neither persecutor nor jailer to fear, he would find a
prison, a dungeon!
After three days of anguish and tortures, after new and ineffectual
attempts,--exhausted by fatigue, by thirst, by hunger,--consumed by
fever, supervened in consequence of all his sufferings of body and
soul, he resigns himself to his fate; with his foot, he prepares his
last couch, composed of sand and dried leaves shaken from above by the
neighboring trees; he lies down, folds his arms, closes his eyes, and
prepares to die, thinking of his eternal salvation.
Although he tries not to allow himself to be distracted by other
thoughts, from time to time sounds from the outer world disturb his
pious meditations. First it is the joyous song of a bird. To these
vibrating notes another song replies from afar, on a more simple and
almost plaintive key. It is doubtless the female, who, with a sort of
modest and repressed tenderness, thus announces her retreat to him who
calls; then a rapid rustling is heard above the head of the prisoner.
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