happen there."

"Who knows?"

"And if you are caught in a hurricane?"

"There is no fear of that in the fine season," replied Pencroft.
"But, captain, as we must provide against everything, I shall ask your
permission to take Herbert only with me on this voyage."

"Pencroft," replied the engineer, placing his hand on the sailor's
shoulder, "if any misfortune happens to you, or to this lad, whom
chance has made our child, do you think we could ever cease to blame
ourselves?"

"Captain Harding," replied Pencroft, with unshaken confidence, "we
shall not cause you that sorrow. Besides, we will speak further of this
voyage, when the time comes to make it. And I fancy, when you have seen
our tight-rigged little craft, when you have observed how she behaves at
sea, when we sail round our island, for we will do so together--I fancy,
I say, that you will no longer hesitate to let me go. I don't conceal
from you that your boat will be a masterpiece."

"Say 'our' boat, at least, Pencroft," replied the engineer, disarmed for
the moment. The conversation ended thus, to be resumed later on, without
convincing either the sailor or the engineer.

The first snow fell towards the end of the month of June. The corral had
previously been largely supplied with stores, so that daily visits to
it were not requisite; but it was decided that more than a week should
never be allowed to pass without someone going to it.

Traps were again set, and the machines manufactured by Harding were
tried. The bent whalebones, imprisoned in a case of ice, and covered
with a thick outer layer of fat, were placed on the border of the forest
at a spot where animals usually passed on their way to the lake.

To the engineer's great satisfaction, this invention, copied from the
Aleutian fishermen, succeeded perfectly. A dozen foxes, a few wild
boars, and even a jaguar, were taken in this way, the animals being
found dead, their stomachs pierced by the unbent bones.

An incident must here be related, not only as interesting in itself, but
because it was the first attempt made by the colonists to communicate
with the rest of mankind.

Gideon Spilett had already several times pondered whether to throw into
the sea a letter enclosed in a bottle, which currents might perhaps
carry to an inhabited coast, or to confide it to pigeons.

But how could it be seriously hoped that either pigeons or bottles could
cross the distance of twelve hundred miles which s