Manley has been listening with that feline stillness of hers, chin tilted, eyes half‑lidded but sharp. When
Selkirk pauses, she leans forward just a little.
Manley: “You’ve spoken of goats and figs and plums… but what of the other creatures? An island is never empty.”
Selkirk gives a low laugh — the kind that comes from remembering something half‑terrible, half‑comic.
Selkirk: “Empty? No, mistress. The beach was alive. Sealions — great roaring beasts — thick as driftwood along the shore. You could hear them half a mile inland. A man couldn’t sleep for their bellowing.”
Defoe raises an eyebrow, amused.
Defoe: “And yet you hunted them.”
Selkirk nods, matter‑of‑fact.
Selkirk: “Aye. They’re fierce in the water, but on land they’re slow and clumsy. Can’t turn quick. If you come up behind with a club, you can take one down clean. Meat for days. Oil for lamps. But the noise… Lord, the noise. I moved inland just to get away from it.”
Manley smiles, a small, knowing curve of the mouth.
Manley: “And inland was quieter?”
Selkirk shakes his head.
Selkirk: “Quieter, aye — but not peaceful. The first nights I slept near the beach, the rats plagued me. Bold devils. They’d run over me as I slept, gnaw at anything soft. I thought they’d eat me alive.”
Manley’s eyes widen slightly.
Manley: “And how did you rid yourself of them?”
Selkirk’s expression softens into something almost fond.
Selkirk: “Cats. Wild ones. Sailors had loosed them years before. I found a few near the rocks — half‑starved, half‑feral. I tossed them scraps. In three days I had kittens sleeping at my feet. They kept the rats off. Best company I had.”
Defoe chuckles.
Defoe: “So the island had its own little parliament — goats, cats, rats, sealions.”
Selkirk nods.
Selkirk: “Aye. And Spaniards.”
Manley straightens, intrigued.
Manley: “Spaniards?”
Selkirk’s voice drops, the memory sharpening.
Selkirk: “Once — only once — a Spanish ship landed. I saw them from a ridge. They saw me too. I ran. They chased. But I was in such condition by then — lean, quick, strong — they couldn’t catch me.”
He gestures upward, describing the moment.
Selkirk: “I climbed my hideout tree — a great old thing with branches like ladders. I went up fast. The Spaniards came right under me. One of them made water against the trunk. I could have spat on his hat. They never looked up.”
Manley lets out a soft breath, half laughter, half awe.
Manley: “And when they left?”
Selkirk’s face darkens.
Selkirk: “They found one of my huts. Tore it apart. Burned my spare clothes. And my books. Three Bibles. All gone. No more reading.”
Defoe’s expression turns solemn.
Defoe: “That must have been a hard blow.”
Selkirk nods slowly.
Selkirk: “Aye. After that, I had only the days. So I marked them — notches on a tree. One for each sunrise. Four years and four months. A man can count his life in notches when he has nothing else.”
He looks at the two writers — the satirist and the chronicler — and for a moment the firelight catches the quiet pride in his face.
Selkirk: “The island took much from me. But it gave me strength. And silence. And time. More time than any man ever asks for.”
Manley studies him with a soft, perceptive gaze, and Defoe with a thoughtful one — both seeing, in the sailor before them, the strange mixture of hardship and clarity that solitude can carve into a human being.
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