THE SNOWY SHEET AROSE AND DISPERSED IN THE AIR 215
ANOTHER MYSTERY 225
RETURNING FROM A SPORTING EXCURSION 233
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC NEGATIVE 235

THE ABANDONED

CHAPTER I

Conversation on the Subject of the Bullet -- Construction of
a Canoe -- Hunting -- At the Top of a Kauri -- Nothing to
attest the Presence of Man -- Neb and Herbert's Prize --
Turning a Turtle -- The Turtle disappears -- Cyrus Harding's
Explanation.

It was now exactly seven months since the balloon voyagers had been
thrown on Lincoln Island. During that time, notwithstanding the
researches they had made, no human being had been discovered. No smoke
even had betrayed the presence of man on the surface of the island. No
vestiges of his handiwork showed that either at an early or at a late
period had man lived there. Not only did it now appear to be
uninhabited by any but themselves, but the colonists were compelled to
believe that it never had been inhabited. And now, all this
scaffolding of reasonings fell before a simple ball of metal, found in
the body of an inoffensive rodent! In fact, this bullet must have
issued from a firearm, and who but a human being could have used such
a weapon?

When Pencroft had placed the bullet on the table, his companions
looked at it with intense astonishment. All the consequences likely to
result from this incident, notwithstanding its apparent
insignificance, immediately took possession of their minds. The sudden
apparition of a supernatural being could not have startled them more
completely.

Cyrus Harding did not hesitate to give utterance to the suggestions
which this fact, at once surprising and unexpected, could not fail to
raise in his mind. He took the bullet, turned it over and over, rolled
it between his finger and thumb; then, turning to Pencroft, he
asked,--

"Are you sure that the peccary wounded by this bullet was not more
than three months old?"

"Not more, captain," replied Pencroft. "It was still sucking its
mother when I found it in the trap."

"Well," said the engineer, "that proves that within three months a
gun-shot was fired in Lincoln Island."

"And that a bullet," added Gideon Spilett, "wounded, though not
mortally, this little animal."

"That is unquestionable," said Cyrus Harding, "and these are the
deductions which