to close."

"True," said Spilett, "I remember to have left it open."

"A fine job you have made of it, Mr. Spilett," cried the sailor.

"What is done cannot be undone," replied Cyrus Harding. "We must
consult what it will now be best to do."

Such were the questions and answers which were rapidly exchanged
between Harding and his companions. It was certain that the bridge had
been crossed, that the shore had been invaded by animals, and that
whatever they might be they could by ascending the left bank of the
Mercy reach Prospect Heights. They must therefore be advanced against
quickly and fought with if necessary.

"But what are these beasts?" was asked a second time, as the yelpings
were again heard more loudly than before. These yelps made Herbert
start, and he remembered to have already heard them during his first
visit to the sources of the Red Creek.

"They are culpeux foxes!" he exclaimed.

"Forward!" shouted the sailor.

And all arming themselves with hatchets, carbines, and revolvers,
threw themselves into the lift and soon set foot on the shore.

Culpeux are dangerous animals when in great numbers and irritated by
hunger, nevertheless the colonists did not hesitate to throw
themselves into the midst of the troop, and their first shots vividly
lighting up the darkness made their assailants draw back.

The chief thing was to hinder these plunderers from reaching the
plateau, for the garden and the poultry-yard would then have been at
their mercy, and immense, perhaps irreparable mischief, would
inevitably be the result, especially with regard to the cornfield. But
as the invasion of the plateau could only be made by the left bank of
the Mercy, it was sufficient to oppose the culpeux on the narrow bank
between the river and the cliff of granite.

This was plain to all, and, by Cyrus Harding's orders, they reached
the spot indicated by him, while the culpeux rushed fiercely through
the gloom. Harding, Gideon, Spilett, Herbert, Pencroft, and Neb posted
themselves in impregnable line. Top, his formidable jaws open,
preceded the colonists, and he was followed by Jup, armed with knotty
cudgel, which he brandished like a club.

The night was extremely dark, it was only by the flashes from the
revolvers as each person fired that they could see their assailants,
who were at least a hundred in number, and whose eyes were glowing
like hot coals.

"They must not pass!" shouted Pencroft.

"They shall not pa