Pencroft searched in his waistcoat for the box, which was always there, for he was a confirmed smoker. He could not find it; he rummaged the pockets of his trousers, but, to his horror, he could nowhere discover the box.
“Here’s a go!” said he, looking at Herbert. “The box must have fallen out of my pocket and got lost! Surely, Herbert, you must have something—a tinder-box—anything that can possibly make fire!”
“No, I haven’t, Pencroft.”
The sailor rushed out, followed by the boy. On the sand, among the rocks, near the river’s bank, they both searched carefully, but in vain. The box was of copper, and therefore would have been easily seen.
“Pencroft,” asked Herbert, “didn’t you throw it out of the car?”
“I knew better than that,” replied the sailor; “but such a small article could easily disappear in the tumbling about we have gone through. I would rather even have lost my pipe! Confound the box! Where can it be?”
“Look here, the tide is going down,” said Herbert; “let’s run to the place where we landed.”
It was scarcely probable that they would find the box, which the waves had rolled about among the pebbles, at high tide, but it was as well to try. Herbert and Pencroft walked rapidly to the point where they had landed the day before, about two hundred feet from the cave. They hunted there, among the shingle, in the clefts of the rocks, but found nothing. If the box had fallen at this place it must have been swept away by the waves. As the sea went down, they searched every little crevice with no result. It was a grave loss in their circumstances, and for the time irreparable. Pencroft could not hide his vexation; he looked very anxious, but said not a word. Herbert tried to console him by observing, that if they had found the matches, they would, very likely, have been wetted by the sea and useless.
“No, my boy,” replied the sailor; “they were in a copper box which shut very tightly; and now what are we to do?”
“We shall certainly find some way of making a fire,” said Herbert. “Captain Harding or Mr. Spilett will not be without them.”
“Yes,” replied Pencroft; “but in the meantime we are without fire, and our companions will find but a sorry repast on their return.”
“But,” said Herbert quickly, “do you think it possible that they have no tinder or matches?”
“I doubt it,” replied the sailor, shaking his head, “for neither Neb nor Captain Harding smoke, and I believe that Mr. Spilett would rather keep his note-book than his match-box.”
Herbert did not reply. The loss of the box was certainly to be regretted, but the boy was still sure of procuring fire in some way or other. Pencroft, more experienced, did not think so, although he was not a man to trouble himself about a small or great grievance. At any rate, there was only one thing to be done—to await the return of Neb and the reporter; but they must give up the feast of hard eggs which they had meant to prepare, and a meal of raw flesh was not an agreeable prospect either for themselves or for the others.
Before returning to the cave, the sailor and Herbert, in the event of fire being positively unattainable, collected some more shell-fish, and then silently retraced their steps to their dwelling.
Pencroft, his eyes fixed on the ground, still looked for his box. He even climbed up the left bank of the river from its mouth to the angle where the raft had been moored. He returned to the plateau, went over it in every direction, searched among the high grass on the border of the forest, all in vain.
It was five in the evening when he and Herbert re-entered the cave. It is useless to say that the darkest corners of the passages were ransacked before they were obliged to give it up in despair. Towards six o’clock, when the sun was disappearing behind the high lands of the west, Herbert, who was walking up and down on the strand, signalized the return of Neb and Spilett.
They were returning alone!… The boy’s heart sank; the sailor had not been deceived in his forebodings; the engineer, Cyrus Harding, had not been found!
The reporter, on his arrival, sat down on a rock, without saying anything. Exhausted with fatigue, dying of hunger, he had not strength to utter a word.
As to Neb, his red eyes showed how he had cried, and the tears which he could not restrain told too clearly that he had lost all hope.
The reporter recounted all that they had done in their attempt to recover Cyrus Harding. He and Neb had surveyed the coast for a distance of eight miles and consequently much beyond the place where the balloon had fallen the last time but one, a fall which was followed by the disappearance of the engineer and the dog Top. The shore was solitary; not a vestige of a mark. Not even a pebble recently displaced; not a trace on the sand; not a human footstep on all that part of the beach. It was clear that that portion of the shore had never been visited by a human being. The sea was as deserted as the land, and it was there, a few hundred feet from the coast, that the engineer must have found a tomb.
As Spilett ended his account, Neb jumped up, exclaiming in a voice which showed how hope struggled within him, “No! he is not dead! he can’t be dead! It might happen to any one else, but never to him! He could get out of anything!” Then his strength forsaking him, “Oh! I can do no more!” he murmured.
“Neb,” said Herbert, running to him, “we will find him! God will give him back to us! But in the meantime you are hungry, and you must eat something.”
So saying, he offered the poor Negro a few handfuls of shell-fish, which was indeed wretched and insufficient food. Neb had not eaten anything for several hours, but he refused them. He could not, would not live without his master.
As to Gideon Spilett, he devoured the shell-fish, then he laid himself down on the sand, at the foot of a rock. He was very weak, but calm. Herbert went up to him, and taking his hand, “Sir,” said he, “we have found a shelter which will be better than lying here. Night is advancing. Come and rest! To-morrow we will search farther.”
The reporter got up, and guided by the boy went towards the cave. On the way, Pencroft asked him in the most natural tone, if by chance he happened to have a match or two.
The reporter stopped, felt in his pockets, but finding nothing said, “I had some, but I must have thrown them away.”
The seaman then put the same question to Neb and received the same answer.
“Confound it!” exclaimed the sailor.
The reporter heard him and seizing his arm, “Have you no matches?” he asked.
“Not one, and no fire in consequence.”
“Ah!” cried Neb, “if my master was here, he would know what to do!”
The four castaways remained motionless, looking uneasily at each other. Herbert was the first to break the silence by saying, “Mr. Spilett, you are a smoker and always have matches about you; perhaps you haven’t looked well, try again, a single match will be enough!”
The reporter hunted again in the pockets of his trousers, waistcoat, and great-coat, and at last to Pencroft’s great joy, no less to his extreme surprise, he felt a tiny piece of wood entangled in the lining of his waistcoat. He seized it with his fingers through the stuff, but he could not get it out. If this was a match and a single one, it was of great importance not to rub off the phosphorus.
“Will you let me try?” said the boy, and very cleverly, without breaking it, he managed to draw out the wretched yet precious little bit of wood which was of such great importance to these poor men. It was unused.
“Hurrah!” cried Pencroft; “it is as good as having a whole cargo!” He took the match, and, followed by his companions, entered the cave.
This small piece of wood, of which so many in an inhabited country are wasted with indifference and are of no value, must here be used with the greatest caution.