Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 19, 2025
Evidently there was nothing to be done, for the time at least, but to take him on board the "Bonadventure." This was done, and he remained there in Pencroft's charge. Herbert and Spilett returned to finish their work; and some hours after they came back to the shore, carrying the utensils and guns, a store of vegetables, of seeds, some game, and two couple of pigs.
This occupied them nearly forty minutes, and it was ten o'clock when they returned to Cyrus Harding whom Spilett had not left. The engineer was just awaking from the sleep, or rather from the drowsiness, in which they had found him. The color was returning to his cheeks, which till now had been as pale as death. He raised himself a little, looked around him, and appeared to ask where he was.
Cold water has, moreover, the advantage of leaving the wound in absolute rest, and preserving it from all premature dressing, a considerable advantage, since it has been found by experience that contact with the air is dangerous during the first days. Gideon Spilett and Cyrus Harding reasoned thus with their simple good sense, and they acted as the best surgeon would have done.
"Thanks, my friend," replied the engineer; "wait another hour or two, and then we will set out. And now speak, Spilett." The reporter then told him all that had occurred. "But," asked Harding, in a still feeble voice, "you did not, then, pick me up on the beach?" "No," replied the reporter. "And did you not bring me to this cave?" "No." "At what distance is this cave from the sea?"
But the colonists were too much occupied with their task to pay any attention to even the most formidable of these animals. They had abandoned Granite House, and would not even take shelter at the Chimneys, but encamped under a tent, near the mouth of the Mercy. Each day Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett ascended the plateau of Prospect Heights.
But just as they were shoving off, an observation from Gideon Spilett arrested them. "What about those six convicts who disembarked on the right bank of the Mercy?" said he. In fact, it would not do to forget that the six men whose boat had gone to pieces on the rocks had landed at Flotsam Point. They looked in that direction. None of the fugitives were visible.
And the sailor pointed to a great white rag, caught in the top of the pine, a fallen scrap of which the dog had brought to them. "But that is not a wreck!" cried Gideon Spilett. "I beg your pardon!" returned Pencroft. "Why? is it ?" "It is all that remains of our airy boat, of our balloon, which has been caught up aloft there, at the top of that tree!"
"Ah, it must be acknowledged, my dear Cyrus, that this time his protection was wanting at the very moment when it was most necessary to us!" "Who knows?" replied the engineer. "What do you mean?" asked the reporter. "That we are not at the end of our trouble yet, my dear Spilett, and that his powerful invention may, perhaps, have another opportunity of exercising itself.
Several times Gideon Spilett and Herbert searched the forest in the neighborhood of Granite House, without meeting or finding any trace of him. They became seriously uneasy at this prolonged absence.
The proposal was accepted, and in a few minutes Herbert and Neb were on the upper plateau. Cyrus Harding, Gideon Spilett, and Pencroft followed with more sedate steps. The beautiful sheet of water glittered through the trees under the rays of the sun. In this direction the country was charming. The eye feasted on the groups of trees.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking