ially as he could think of nothing else while
at work. He ended by longing for it, like a child for a thing which it
has been denied. At night he talked about it in his sleep, and
certainly if he had had the means of attacking it, if the sloop had
been in a fit state to put to sea, he would not have hesitated to set
out in pursuit.

But what the colonists could not do for themselves, chance did for
them, and on the 3rd of May, shouts from Neb, who had stationed
himself at the kitchen window, announced that the whale was stranded
on the beach of the island.

Herbert and Gideon Spilett, who were just about to set out hunting,
left their guns, Pencroft threw down his axe, and Harding and Neb
joining their companions, all rushed towards the scene of action.

The stranding had taken place on the beach of Flotsam Point, three
miles from Granite House, and at high tide. It was therefore probable
that the cetacean would not be able to extricate itself easily, at any
rate it was best to hasten, so as to cut off its retreat if necessary.
They ran with pick-axes and iron-tipped poles in their hands, passed
over the Mercy bridge, descended the right bank of the river, along
the beach, and in less than twenty minutes the settlers were close to
the enormous animal, above which flocks of birds already hovered.

"What a monster!" cried Neb.

And the exclamation was natural, for it was a southern whale, eighty
feet long, a giant of the species, probably not weighing less than a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds!

In the meanwhile, the monster thus stranded did not move, nor attempt
by struggling to regain the water whilst the tide was still high.

It was dead, and a harpoon was sticking out of its left side.

"There are whalers in these quarters, then?" said Gideon Spilett
directly.

[Illustration: A VALUABLE PRIZE]

"Oh, Mr Spilett, that doesn't prove anything!" replied Pencroft.
"Whales have been known to go thousands of miles with a harpoon in the
side, and this one might even have been struck in the north of the
Atlantic and come to die in the south of the Pacific, and it would be
nothing astonishing."

Pencroft, having torn the harpoon from the animal's side, read this
inscription on it:--

"'MARIA STELLA,'
"VINEYARD."

"A vessel from the Vineyard! A ship from my country!" he cried. "The
_Maria Stella_! A fine whaler, 'pon my word; I know her well! Oh, my