Chapter 23

PART 2

ABANDONED

CHAPTER 1

It was now exactly seven months since the balloon voyagers had been thrown
on Lincoln Island. During that time, notwithstanding the researches they
had made, no human being had been discovered. No smoke even had betrayed
the presence of man on the surface of the island. No vestiges of his
handiwork showed that either at an early or at a late period had man lived
there. Not only did it now appear to be uninhabited by any but themselves,
but the colonists were compelled to believe that it never had been
inhabited. And now, all this scaffolding of reasonings fell before a simple
ball of metal, found in the body of an inoffensive rodent! In fact, this
bullet must have issued from a firearm, and who but a human being could
have used such a weapon?

When Pencroft had placed the bullet on the table, his companions looked
at it with intense astonishment. All the consequences likely to result from
this incident, notwithstanding its apparent insignificance, immediately
took possession of their minds. The sudden apparition of a supernatural
being could not have startled them more completely.

Cyrus Harding did not hesitate to give utterance to the suggestions which
this fact, at once surprising and unexpected, could not fail to raise in
his mind. He took the bullet, turned it over and over, rolled it between
his finger and thumb; then, turning to Pencroft, he asked,--

Are you sure that the peccary wounded by this bullet was not more than
three months old?"

"Not more, captain," replied Pencroft. "It was still sucking its mother
when I found it in the trap."

"Well," said the engineer, "that proves that within three months a gun-
shot was fired in Lincoln Island."

"And that a bullet," added Gideon Spilett, "wounded, though not mortally,
this little animal."

"That is unquestionable," said Cyrus Harding, "and these are the
deductions which must be drawn from this incident: that the island was
inhabited before our arrival, or that men have landed here within three
months. Did these men arrive here voluntarily or involuntarily, by
disembarking on the shore or by being wrecked? This point can only be
cleared up later. As to what they were, Europeans or Malays, enemies or
friends of our race, we cannot possibly guess; and if they still inhabit
the island, or if they have left it, we know not. But these questions are
of too much importance to be allowed to remain long unsettled."

"No! a hundred times no! a thousand times no!" cried the sailor,
springing up from the table. "There are no other men than ourselves on
Lincoln Island! By my faith! The island isn't large and if it had been
inhabited, we should have seen some of the