Herbert accordingly took the path which led towards the cultivated part of the islet, while the sailor and the reporter entered the forest.

Many specimens of the porcine race fled before them, and these animals, which were singularly active, did not appear to be in a humor to allow themselves to be approached.

However, after an hour’s chase, the hunters had just managed to get hold of a couple lying in a thicket, when cries were heard resounding from the north part of the island, With the cries were mingled terrible yells, in which there was nothing human.

Pencroft and Gideon Spilett were at once on their feet, and the pigs by this movement began to run away, at the moment when the sailor was getting ready the rope to bind them.

“That’s Herbert’s voice,” said the reporter.

“Run!” exclaimed Pencroft.

And the sailor and Spilett immediately ran at full speed towards the spot from whence the cries proceeded.

They did well to hasten, for at a turn of the path near a clearing they saw the lad thrown on the ground and in the grasp of a savage being, apparently a gigantic ape, who was about to do him some great harm.

To rush on this monster, throw him on the ground in his turn, snatch Herbert from him, then bind him securely, was the work of a minute for Pencroft and Gideon Spilett.  The sailor was of Herculean strength, the reporter also very powerful, and in spite of the monster’s resistance he was firmly tied so that he could not even move.

“You are not hurt, Herbert?” asked Spilett.

“No, no!”

“Oh, if this ape had wounded him!” exclaimed Pencroft.

“But he is not an ape,” answered Herbert.

At these words Pencroft and Gideon Spilett looked at the singular being who lay on the ground.  Indeed it was not an ape; it was a human being, a man.  But what a man!  A savage in all the horrible acceptation of the word, and so much the more frightful that he seemed fallen to the lowest degree of brutishness!

Shaggy hair, untrimmed beard descending to the chest, the body almost naked except a rag round the waist, wild eyes, enormous hands with immensely long nails, skin the color of mahogany, feet as hard as if made of horn, such was the miserable creature who yet had a claim to be called a man.  But it might justly be asked if there were yet a soul in this body, or if the brute instinct alone survived in it!

“Are you quite sure that this is a man, or that he has ever been one?” said Pencroft to the reporter.

“Alas! there is no doubt about it,” replied Spilett.

“Then this must be the castaway?” asked Herbert.

“Yes,” replied Gideon Spilett, “but the unfortunate man has no longer anything human about him!”

The reporter spoke the truth.  It was evident that if the castaway had ever been a civilized being, solitude had made him a savage, or worse, perhaps a regular man of the woods.  Hoarse sounds issued from his throat between his teeth, which were sharp as the teeth of a wild beast made to tear raw flesh.