Being in fear lest the matter should be discovered and her secret disclosed, she put him into a little ark and closed it firmly after having suckled the babe. Accompanied by her most trusted servants, she carried it to the seashore early in the night, her heart burning and distracted with love and fear, and then (tenderly kissing him with tearful eyes) she took her last leave of him, sending up this prayer to God:--
“O God! thou didst create this little child, when as yet it was nothing; thou didst cherish and nourish him while he lay confined within the dark closet of my womb; thou didst take great care of him until he formed into perfection and harmony. I, trembling before the haughty, unjust, and violent Prince, commend him unto thy goodness and pray that thou who surpasseth all in mercy wilt be bountiful unto him. Be thou, I pray thee, a guide and assistance unto him; forsake him not, and never leave him destitute of thy care.”
_Hayy is driven by the tide to another Island._
With these words she committed the little ark with the child into the sea, and the waters swelling with the tide carried it in the same night to the shore of another Island whereof we have just made mention.
It so happened that there was such a powerful current of the high water--as it does happen there once a year--that the ark was carried right to the shore, and by its force cast into a shady grove, thick set with trees,--a very pleasant place, well sheltered from wind and rain, and secured from the sun, which at its rising and setting receded from it.
Then when the waters subsided, the ark wherein the infant peacefully slumbered was left stranded, banked up by sands, safely aground, sheltered from blustering wind or in-coming tide. For when the wind blew, the sands were heaped together and obstructed the passage to the grove, and thus prevented the coming of any water into it so that the flood could not reach it.
_Hayy is found by a Roe, which takes care of him._
Now it came to pass that the nails of the ark and its joints became loosened by the violence of the waves. The child, feeling hungry, began to cry bitterly, seeking relief and moving about in the ark. Fortunately it so happened that its cry was heard by a roe that was wandering about in search of her fawn, which, having ventured out of its den, had been carried off by an eagle.