ered. Between
the islet and the coast there only remained a narrow channel which would
no doubt be easy to cross.

About ten o'clock, Gideon Spilett and his companions stripped themselves
of their clothes, which they placed in bundles on their heads, and
then ventured into the water, which was not more than five feet deep.
Herbert, for whom it was too deep, swam like a fish, and got through
capitally. All three arrived without difficulty on the opposite shore.
Quickly drying themselves in the sun, they put on their clothes, which
they had preserved from contact with the water, and sat down to take
counsel together what to do next.

Chapter 4

All at once the reporter sprang up, and telling the sailor that he would
rejoin them at that same place, he climbed the cliff in the direction
which the Negro Neb had taken a few hours before. Anxiety hastened
his steps, for he longed to obtain news of his friend, and he soon
disappeared round an angle of the cliff. Herbert wished to accompany
him.

"Stop here, my boy," said the sailor; "we have to prepare an encampment,
and to try and find rather better grub than these shell-fish. Our
friends will want something when they come back. There is work for
everybody."

"I am ready," replied Herbert.

"All right," said the sailor; "that will do. We must set about it
regularly. We are tired, cold, and hungry; therefore we must have
shelter, fire, and food. There is wood in the forest, and eggs in nests;
we have only to find a house."

"Very well," returned Herbert, "I will look for a cave among the rocks,
and I shall be sure to discover some hole into which we can creep."

"All right," said Pencroft; "go on, my boy."

They both walked to the foot of the enormous wall over the beach, far
from which the tide had now retreated; but instead of going towards the
north, they went southward. Pencroft had remarked, several hundred feet
from the place at which they landed, a narrow cutting, out of which
he thought a river or stream might issue. Now, on the one hand it was
important to settle themselves in the neighborhood of a good stream
of water, and on the other it was possible that the current had thrown
Cyrus Harding on the shore there.

The cliff, as has been said, rose to a height of three hundred feet, but
the mass was unbroken throughout, and even at its base, scarcely washed
by the sea, it did not offer the smallest fissure which would serve as
a dwelling. It was a perp