deon Spilett; "on the contrary, everything went
wonderfully well. We will tell you all about it."

"However," returned the engineer, "your search has been unsuccessful,
since you are only three just as you went!"

"Excuse me, captain," replied the sailor, "we are four."

"You have found the castaway?"

"Yes."

"And you have brought him?"

"Yes."

"Living?"

"Yes."

"Where is he? Who is he?"

"He is," replied the reporter, "or rather he was, a man! There, Cyrus,
that is all we can tell you!"

The engineer was then informed of all that had passed during the
voyage, and under what conditions the search had been conducted; how
the only dwelling in the island had long been abandoned; how at last a
castaway had been captured, who appeared no longer to belong to the
human species.

"And that's just the point," added Pencroft, "I don't know if we have
done right to bring him here."

"Certainly you have, Pencroft," replied the engineer quickly.

"But the wretched creature has no sense!"

"That is possible at present," replied Cyrus Harding; "but only a few
months ago the wretched creature was a man like you and me. And who
knows what will become of the survivor of us after a long solitude on
this island? It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it
must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason, since you
have found this poor creature in such a state!"

"But, captain," asked Herbert, "what leads you to think that the
brutishness of the unfortunate man began only a few months back?"

"Because the document we found had been recently written," answered
the engineer, "and the castaway alone can have written it."

"Always supposing," observed Gideon Spilett, "that it had not been
written by a companion of this man, since dead."

"That is impossible, my dear Spilett."

"Why so?" asked the reporter.

"Because the document would then have spoken of two castaways,"
replied Harding, "and it mentioned only one."

Herbert then in a few words related the incidents of the voyage, and
dwelt on the curious fact of the sort of passing gleam in the
prisoner's mind, when for an instant in the height of the storm he had
become a sailor.

"Well, Herbert," replied the engineer, "you are right to attach great
importance to this fact. The unfortunate man cannot be incurable, and
despair has made him what he is; but here he will find his fellow-men,
and since there is still a soul in him, this soul