Towards the morning of the fourth day his fever has ceased; the
tortures of hunger and thirst are no longer felt; the complete
annihilation of his strength is to him a kind of relief; sleep seizes
him, and with sleep he thinks death must come.
Soon, in his dream, in a hallucination springing undoubtedly from the
weakness of his brain, plaints, confused and distant groans, reach him
from different points of the island. These sorrowful cries, almost
uninterrupted, afterwards approach, and are repeated with increasing
strength. He awakes, he listens; the bushes around him crackle and
rustle; even the earth emits a dull sound, as beneath the bounding of
a goat; the cries are renewed and become more and more distinct, like
the sobs of a child. Selkirk puts his hand to his forehead. These
plaints, these sobs, he thinks he recognizes, and, suddenly raising
himself with a convulsive effort, he exclaims:
'Marimonda!'
And Marimonda runs at her master's voice, changes, on seeing him, her
cries of distress for cries of joy, leaps and gambols on the edge of
the cavity, and, quickly finding a way to join him, suspends herself
by her tail to one of the branches on the verge, and springs to his
side.
Then contortions, caresses, winks of the eyes, motions of the head,
whining, whistling, succeed each other; she rolls before him, embraces
him closely, seeking by every method to supply the place of that
speech which alone is wanting, and which she almost seems to have.
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