ir surprise to the highest degree.

"'Pon my word," said Pencroft at last, "you are right, captain, and it
is difficult to explain all these things!"

"Well, my friends," resumed the engineer, "a last fact has just been
added to these, and it is no less incomprehensible than the others!"

"What is it, captain?" asked Herbert quickly.

"When you were returning from Tabor Island, Pencroft," continued the
engineer, "you said that a fire appeared on Lincoln Island?"

"Certainly," answered the sailor.

"And you are quite certain of having seen this fire?"

"As sure as I see you now."

"You also, Herbert?"

"Why, captain," cried Herbert, "that fire was blazing like a star of
the first magnitude!"

"But was it not a star?" urged the engineer.

"No," replied Pencroft, "for the sky was covered with thick clouds,
and at any rate a star would not have been so low on the horizon. But
Mr. Spilett saw it as well as we, and he will confirm our words."

"I will add," said the reporter, "that the fire was very bright, and
that it shot up like a sheet of lightning."

"Yes, yes! exactly," added Herbert, "and it was certainly placed on
the heights of Granite House."

"Well, my friends," replied Cyrus Harding, "during the night of the
19th of October, neither Neb nor I lighted any fire on the coast."

"You did not!" exclaimed Pencroft, in the height of his astonishment,
not being able to finish his sentence.

"We did not leave Granite House," answered Cyrus Harding, "and if a
fire appeared on the coast, it was lighted by another hand than ours!"

Pencraft, Herbert, and Neb were stupefied. No illusion could be
possible, and a fire had actually met their eyes during the night of
the 19th of October.

Yes! they were obliged to acknowledge it, a mystery existed! An
inexplicable influence, evidently favourable to the colonists, but
very irritating to their curiosity, was executed always in the nick of
time on Lincoln Island. Could there be some being hidden in its
profoundest recesses? It was necessary at any cost to ascertain this.

Harding also reminded his companions of the singular behaviour of Top
and Jup when they prowled round the mouth of the well, which placed
Granite House in communication with the sea, and he told them that he
had explored the well, without discovering anything suspicious. The
final resolve taken, in consequence of this conversation, by all the
members of the colony, was that as soon as the fine