Once in safety, he turns
to contemplate that immense sea which, for an instant, he had wished
might be his tomb.
By the moonlight, he perceives as it were a long and slender chain,
which, gliding upon the crest of the waves, directs itself towards the
shore. By its form, by its copper color, by the multiplicity of its
rings, unfolding in the distance, Selkirk recognizes the sea-serpent,
that terror of navigators, as he has often heard it described.
The mind of the solitary is a perpetual mirage.
Filled with terror, he flies again; he conceals himself, trembling, in
the caverns of his mountains; he has become a coward; why should he
affect a courage he does not feel? No one is looking at him!
The next day, instead of the sea-serpent, he finds on the beach an
immense cryptogamia, a gigantic alga, of a single piece, divided into
a thousand cylindrical branches, and much superior to all those he has
observed in the Straits of Sunda. The rising tide had thrown it on the
shore.
While he examines it, he sees with surprise all sorts of birds come to
peck at it; coatis, agoutis, and even rats, come out of their holes,
boldly carrying away before his eyes fragments, whence issues a thick
and brown sap. Emboldened by their example, and especially by the
balsamic odor of the plant, he tastes it.
Pages:
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128