The color was returning to his cheeks, and his bright eyes smiled at his nurses.He talked a little, notwithstanding Pencroft's efforts, who talked incessantly to prevent him from beginning to speak, and told him the most improbable stories.Herbert had questioned him on the subject of Ayrton, whom he was astonished not to see near him, thinking that he was at the corral.But the sailor, not wishing to distress Herbert, contented himself by replying that Ayrton had rejoined Neb, so as to defend Granite House.
"Humph!" said Pencroft, "these pirates! they are gentlemen who have no right to any consideration! And the captain wanted to win them by kindness!
I'll send them some kindness, but in the shape of a good bullet!""And have they not been seen again?" asked Herbert.
"No, my boy," answered the sailor, "but we shall find them, and when you are cured we shall see if the cowards who strike us from behind will dare to meet us face to face!""I am still very weak, my poor Pencroft!""Well! your strength will return gradually! What's a ball through the chest? Nothing but a joke! I've seen many, and I don't think much of them!"At last things appeared to be going on well, and if no complication occurred, Herbert's recovery might be regarded as certain.But what would have been the condition of the colonists if his state had been aggravated, --if, for example, the ball had remained in his body, if his arm or his leg had had to be amputated?
"No," said Spilett more than once, "I have never thought of such a contingency without shuddering!""And yet, if it had been necessary to operate," said Harding one day to him, "you would not have hesitated?""No, Cyrus!" said Gideon Spilett, "but thank God that we have been spared this complication!"As in so many other conjectures, the colonists had appealed to the logic of that simple good sense of which they had made use so often, and once more, thanks to their general knowledge, it had succeeded! But might not a time come when all their science would be at fault? They were alone on the island.Now, men in all states of society are necessary to each other.
Cyrus Harding knew this well, and sometimes he asked if some circumstance might not occur which they would be powerless to surmount.It appeared to him besides, that he and his companions, till then so fortunate, had entered into an unlucky period.During the two years and a half which had elapsed since their escape from Richmond, it might be said that they had had everything their own way.The island had abundantly supplied them with minerals, vegetables, animals, and as Nature had constantly loaded them, their science had known how to take advantage of what she offered them.
The wellbeing of the colony was therefore complete.Moreover, in certain occurrences an inexplicable influence had come to their aid!...But all that could only be for a time.
In short, Cyrus Harding believed that fortune had turned against them.
In fact, the convicts' ship had appeared in the waters of the island, and if the pirates had been, so to speak, miraculously destroyed, six of them, at least, had escaped the catastrophe.They had disembarked on the island, and it was almost impossible to get at the five who survived.Ayrton had no doubt been murdered by these wretches, who possessed firearms, and at the first use that they had made of them, Herbert had fallen, wounded almost mortally.Were these the first blows aimed by adverse fortune at the colonists? This was often asked by Harding.This was often repeated by the reporter; and it appeared to him also that the intervention, so strange, yet so efficacious, which till then had served them so well, had now failed them.Had this mysterious being, whatever he was, whose existence could not be denied, abandoned the island? Had he in his turn succumbed?
No reply was possible to these questions.But it must not be imagined that because Harding and his companions spoke of these things, they were men to despair.Far from that.They looked their situation in the face, they analyzed the chances, they prepared themselves for any event, they stood firm and straight before the future, and if adversity was at last to strike them, it would find in them men prepared to struggle against it.
