Cyrus Harding and his companions were astounded on seeing that,
overcome by some terrible emotion, his teeth chattered like those of a
person in a fever. What was the matter with him? Was the sight of his
fellow-creatures insupportable to him? Was he weary of this return to
a civilised mode of existence? Was he pining for his former savage
life? It appeared so, as soon he was heard to express himself in these
incoherent sentences:--

"Why am I here?... By what right have you dragged me from my islet?...
Do you think there could be any tie between you and me?... Do you know
who I am--what I have done--why I was there--alone? And who told you
that I was not abandoned there--that I was not condemned to die
there?... Do you know my past?... How do you know that I have not
stolen, murdered--that I am not a wretch--an accursed being--only fit
to live like a wild beast far from all--speak--do you know it?"

The colonists listened without interrupting the miserable creature,
from whom these broken confessions escaped, as it were, in spite of
himself. Harding wishing to calm him, approached him, but he hastily
drew back.

"No! no!" he exclaimed; "one word only--am I free?"

"You are free," answered the engineer.

"Farewell then!" he cried, and fled like a madman.

Neb, Pencroft, and Herbert ran also towards the edge of the wood--but
they returned alone.

"We must let him alone!" said Cyrus Harding.

"He will never come back!" exclaimed Pencroft.

"He will come back," replied the engineer.

Many days passed; but Harding--was it a sort of
presentiment?--persisted in the fixed idea that sooner or later the
unhappy man would return.

"It is the last revolt of his wild nature," said he, "which remorse
has touched, and which renewed solitude will terrify."

In the meanwhile, works of all sorts were continued, as well on
Prospect Heights as at the corral, where Harding intended to build a
farm. It is unnecessary to say that the seeds collected by Herbert on
Tabor Island had been carefully sown. The plateau thus formed one
immense kitchen-garden, well laid out and carefully tended, so that
the arms of the settlers were never in want of work. There was always
something to be done. As the esculents increased in number, it became
necessary to enlarge the simple beds, which threatened to grow into
regular fields and replace the meadows. But grass abounded in other
parts of the island, and there was no fear of the onagas bein