"and if it is so it is not impossible that those who left him on the island may return to fetch him some day!"
"And they will no longer find him," said Herbert.
"But then," said Pencroft, "they must return, and———"
"My friends," said Cyrus Harding, "do not let us discuss this question until we know more about it. I believe that the unhappy man has suffered, that he has severely expiated his faults, whatever they may have been, and that the wish to unburden himself stifles him. Do not let us press him to tell his history! He will tell it doubtless, and when we know it, we shall see what course it will be best to follow. He alone can tell us, if he has more than a hope, a certainty, of returning some day to his country, but I doubt it!"
"And why?" asked the reporter.
"Because that, in the event of his being sure of being delivered at a certain time, he would have waited the hour of his deliverance and would not have thrown this document into the sea. No, it is more probable that he was condemned to die on that islet, and that he never expected to see his fellow-creatures again!"
"But," observed the sailor, "there is one thing which I cannot explain."
"What is it?"
"If this man had been left for twelve years on Tabor Island, one may well suppose that he had been several years already in the wild state in which we found him!"
"That is probable," replied Cyrus Harding.
"It must then be years since he wrote that document!"
"No doubt, and yet the document appears to have been recently written!"
"Besides, how do you know that the bottle which enclosed the document may not have taken several years to come from Tabor Island to Lincoln Island?"
"That is not absolutely impossible," replied the reporter.
"Might it not have been a long time already on the coast of the island?"
"No," answered Pencroft, "for it was still floating. We could not even suppose that after it had stayed for any length of time on the shore, it would have been swept off by the sea, for the south coast is all rocks, and it would certainly have been smashed to pieces there!"
