your having been brought again among your
fellow-creatures. Ayrton, you are forgiven! And now you will be our
companion?"

Ayrton drew back.

"Here is my hand!" said the engineer.

Ayrton grasped the hand which Harding extended to him, and great tears
fell from his eyes.

"Will you live with us?" asked Cyrus Harding.

"Captain Harding, leave me some time longer," replied Ayrton, "leave me
alone in the hut in the corral!"

"As you like, Ayrton," answered Cyrus Harding. Ayrton was going to
withdraw, when the engineer addressed one more question to him:--

"One word more, my friend. Since it was your intention to live alone,
why did you throw into the sea the document which put us on your track?"

"A document?" repeated Ayrton, who did not appear to know what he meant.

"Yes, the document which we found enclosed in a bottle, giving us the
exact position of Tabor Island!"

Ayrton passed his hand over his brow, then after having thought, "I
never threw any document into the sea!" he answered.

"Never?" exclaimed Pencroft.

"Never!"

And Ayrton, bowing, reached the door and departed.

Chapter 18

"Poor man!" said Herbert, who had rushed to the door, but returned,
having seen Ayrton slide down the rope on the lift and disappear in the
darkness.

"He will come back," said Cyrus Harding.

"Come, now, captain," exclaimed Pencroft, "what does that mean? What!
wasn't it Ayrton who threw that bottle into the sea? Who was it then?"

Certainly, if ever a question was necessary to be made, it was that one!

"It was he," answered Neb, "only the unhappy man was half-mad."

"Yes!" said Herbert, "and he was no longer conscious of what he was
doing."

"It can only be explained in that way, my friends," replied Harding
quickly, "and I understand now how Ayrton was able to point out exactly
the situation of Tabor Island, since the events which had preceded his
being left on the island had made it known to him."

"However," observed Pencroft, "if he was not yet a brute when he wrote
that document, and if he threw it into the sea seven or eight years ago,
how is it that the paper has not been injured by damp?"

"That proves," answered Cyrus Harding, "that Ayrton was deprived of
intelligence at a more recent time than he thinks."

"Of course it must be so," replied Pencroft, "without that the fact
would be unaccountable."

"Unaccountable indeed," answered the engineer, who did not appear
desirous to prolong t