“Why am I here?....  By what right have you dragged me from my islet?....  Do you think there could be any tie between you and me?....  Do you know who I am—­what I have done—­why I was there—­alone?  And who told you that I was not abandoned there—­that I was not condemned to die there?....  Do you know my past?....  How do you know that I have not stolen, murdered—­that I am not a wretch—­an accursed being—­only fit to live like a wild beast, far from all—­speak—­do you know it?”

The colonists listened without interrupting the miserable creature, from whom these broken confessions escaped, as it were, in spite of himself.  Harding wishing to calm him, approached him, but he hastily drew back.

“No! no!” he exclaimed; “one word only—­am I free?”

“You are free,” answered the engineer.

“Farewell, then!” he cried, and fled like a madman.

Neb, Pencroft, and Herbert ran also towards the edge of the wood—­but they returned alone.

“We must let him alone!” said Cyrus Harding.

“He will never come back!” exclaimed Pencroft.

“He will come back,” replied the engineer.

Many days passed; but Harding—­was it a sort of presentiment? —­presentiment in the fixed idea that sooner or later the unhappy man would return.

“It is the last revolt of his wild nature,” said he, “which remorse has touched, and which renewed solitude will terrify.”

In the meanwhile, works of all sorts were continued, as well on Prospect Heights as at the corral, where Harding intended to build a farm.  It is unnecessary to say that the seeds collected by Herbert on Tabor Island had been carefully sown.  The plateau thus formed one immense kitchen-garden, well laid out and carefully tended, so that the arms of the settlers were never in want of work.  There was always something to be done.  As the esculents increased in number, it became necessary to enlarge the simple beds, which threatened to grow into regular fields and replace the meadows.  But grass abounded in other parts of the island, and there was no fear of the onagers being obliged to go on short allowance.  It was well worth while, besides, to turn Prospect Heights into a kitchen-garden, defended by its deep belt of creeks, and to remove them to the meadows, which had no need of protection against the depredations of quadrumana and quadrapeds.

On the 15th of November, the third harvest was gathered in.  How wonderfully had the field increased in extent, since eighteen months ago, when the first grain of wheat was sown!  The second crop of six hundred thousand grains produced this time four thousand bushels, or five hundred millions of grains!