if his
arm or his leg had had to be amputated?

"No," said Spilett more than once, "I have never thought of such a
contingency without shuddering!"

"And yet, if it had been necessary to operate," said Harding one day to
him, "you would not have hesitated?"

"No, Cyrus!" said Gideon Spilett, "but thank God that we have been
spared this complication!"

As in so many other conjectures, the colonists had appealed to the logic
of that simple good sense of which they had made use so often, and once
more, thanks to their general knowledge, it had succeeded! But might
not a time come when all their science would be at fault? They were
alone on the island. Now, men in all states of society are necessary to
each other. Cyrus Harding knew this well, and sometimes he asked
himself if some circumstance might not occur which they would be
powerless to surmount. It appeared to him besides, that he and his
companions, till then so fortunate, had entered into an unlucky period.
During the three years and a half which had elapsed since their escape
from Richmond, it might be said that they had had everything their own
way. The island had abundantly supplied them with minerals, vegetables,
animals, and as Nature had constantly loaded them, their science had
known how to take advantage of what she offered them.

The well-being of the colony was therefore complete. Moreover, in
certain occurrences an inexplicable influence had come to their aid! ...
But all that could only be for a time.

In short, Cyrus Harding believed that fortune had turned against them.

In fact, the convicts' ship had appeared in the waters of the island,
and if the pirates had been, so to speak, miraculously destroyed, six of
them, at least, had escaped the catastrophe. They had disembarked on
the island, and it was almost impossible to get at the five who
survived. Ayrton had no doubt been murdered by these wretches, who
possessed fire-arms, and at the first use that they had made of them,
Herbert had fallen, wounded almost mortally. Were these the first blows
aimed by adverse fortune at the colonists? This was often asked by
Harding. This was often repeated by the reporter; and it appeared to
him also that the intervention, so strange, yet so efficacious, which
till then had served them so well, had now failed them. Had this
mysterious being, whatever he was, whose existence could not be denied,
abandoned the island? Had he in his turn succu