. He tried to knock some over with an arrow, but without result,
for they seldom perched, and he could not hit them on the wing.

This led the sailor to repeat to the engineer,--

"You see, captain, so long as we have not one or two fowling-pieces, we
shall never get anything!"

"Doubtless, Pencroft," replied the reporter, "but it depends on you.
Procure us some iron for the barrels, steel for the hammers, saltpeter.
coal and sulphur for powder, mercury and nitric acid for the fulminate,
and lead for the shot, and the captain will make us first-rate guns."

"Oh!" replied the engineer, "we might, no doubt, find all these
substances on the island, but a gun is a delicate instrument, and needs
very particular tools. However, we shall see later!"

"Why," cried Pencroft, "were we obliged to throw overboard all the
weapons we had with us in the car, all our implements, even our
pocket-knives?"

"But if we had not thrown them away, Pencroft, the balloon would have
thrown us to the bottom of the sea!" said Herbert.

"What you say is true, my boy," replied the sailor.

Then passing to another idea,--"Think," said he, "how astounded Jonathan
Forster and his companions must have been when, next morning, they found
the place empty, and the machine flown away!"

"I am utterly indifferent about knowing what they may have thought,"
said the reporter.

"It was all my idea, that!" said Pencroft, with a satisfied air.

"A splendid idea, Pencroft!" replied Gideon Spilett, laughing, "and
which has placed us where we are."

"I would rather be here than in the hands of the Southerners," cried the
sailor, "especially since the captain has been kind enough to come and
join us again."

"So would I, truly!" replied the reporter. "Besides, what do we want?
Nothing."

"If that is not--everything!" replied Pencroft, laughing and shrugging
his shoulders. "But, some day or other, we shall find means of going
away!"

"Sooner, perhaps, than you imagine, my friends," remarked the engineer,
"if Lincoln Island is but a medium distance from an inhabited island,
or from a continent. We shall know in an hour. I have not a map of the
Pacific, but my memory has preserved a very clear recollection of
its southern part. The latitude which I obtained yesterday placed New
Zealand to the west of Lincoln Island, and the coast of Chile to the
east. But between these two countries, there is a distance of at least
six thousand miles. It has, therefor