“That’s capital!” cried the sailor.

“I feel dreadfully weak,” replied Harding.  “Give me something to eat, my friends, and it will soon go off.  You have fire, haven’t you?”

This question was not immediately replied to.  But, in a few seconds—­

“Alas! we have no fire,” said Pencroft, “or rather, captain, we have it no longer!”

And the sailor recounted all that had passed the day before.  He amused the engineer by the history of the single match, then his abortive attempt to procure fire in the savages’ way.

“We shall consider,” replied the engineer, “and if we do not find some substance similar to tinder—­”

“Well?” asked the sailor.

“Well, we will make matches.

“Chemicals?”

“Chemicals!”

“It is not more difficult than that,” cried the reporter, striking the sailor on the shoulder.

The latter did not think it so simple, but he did not protest.  All went out.  The weather had become very fine.  The sun was rising from the sea’s horizon, and touched with golden spangles the prismatic rugosities of the huge precipice.

Having thrown a rapid glance around him, the engineer seated himself on a block of stone.  Herbert offered him a few handfuls of shell-fish and sargassum, saying,—­

“It is all that we have, Captain Harding.”

“Thanks, my boy,” replied Harding; “it will do—­for this morning at least.”

He ate the wretched food with appetite, and washed it down with a little fresh water, drawn from the river in an immense shell.

His companions looked at him without speaking.  Then, feeling somewhat refreshed, Cyrus Harding crossed his arms, and said,—­

“So, my friends, you do not know yet whether fate has thrown us on an island, or on a continent?”

“No, captain,” replied the boy.

“We shall know to-morrow,” said the engineer; “till then, there is nothing to be done.”

“Yes,” replied Pencroft.

“What?”

“Fire,” said the sailor, who, also, had a fixed idea.

“We will make it, Pencroft,” replied Harding.

“While you were carrying me yesterday, did I not see in the west a mountain which commands the country?”

“Yes,” replied Spilett, “a mountain which must be rather high—­”

“Well,” replied the engineer, “we will climb to the summit to-morrow, and then we shall see if this land is an island or a continent.  Till then, I repeat, there is nothing to be done.”

“Yes, fire!” said the obstinate sailor again.

“But he will make us a fire!” replied Gideon Spilett, “only have a little patience, Pencroft!”

The seaman looked at Spilett in a way which seemed to say, “If it depended upon you to do it, we wouldn’t taste roast meat very soon”; but he was silent.

Meanwhile Captain Harding had made no reply.  He appeared to be very little troubled by the question of fire.  For a few minutes he remained absorbed in thought; then again speaking,—­