nor Herbert thought of taking an hour's
sleep. They kept a sharp look-out, for either Lincoln Island could not
be far distant and would be sighted at daybreak, or the "Bonadventure,"
carried away by currents, had drifted so much that it would be
impossible to rectify her course. Pencroft, uneasy to the last degree,
yet did not despair, for he had a gallant heart, and grasping the tiller
he anxiously endeavored to pierce the darkness which surrounded them.

About two o'clock in the morning he started forward,--

"A light! a light!" he shouted.

Indeed, a bright light appeared twenty miles to the northeast. Lincoln
Island was there, and this fire, evidently lighted by Cyrus Harding,
showed them the course to be followed. Pencroft, who was bearing too
much to the north, altered his course and steered towards the fire,
which burned brightly above the horizon like a star of the first
magnitude.

Chapter 15

The next day, the 20th of October, at seven o'clock in the morning,
after a voyage of four days, the "Bonadventure" gently glided up to the
beach at the mouth of the Mercy.

Cyrus Harding and Neb, who had become very uneasy at the bad weather and
the prolonged absence of their companions, had climbed at daybreak to
the plateau of Prospect Heights, and they had at last caught sight of
the vessel which had been so long in returning.

"God be praised! there they are!" exclaimed Cyrus Harding.

As to Neb in his joy, he began to dance, to twirl round, clapping his
hands and shouting, "Oh! my master!" A more touching pantomime than the
finest discourse.

The engineer's first idea, on counting the people on the deck of the
"Bonadventure," was that Pencroft had not found the castaway of Tabor
Island, or at any rate that the unfortunate man had refused to leave his
island and change one prison for another.

Indeed Pencroft, Gideon Spilett, and Herbert were alone on the deck of
the "Bonadventure."

The moment the vessel touched, the engineer and Neb were waiting on
the beach, and before the passengers had time to leap on to the sand,
Harding said: "We have been very uneasy at your delay, my friends! Did
you meet with any accident?"

"No," replied Gideon 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 f