body was that of the engineer Cyrus Smith.
*Sea birds who especially enjoy flying in storms.
CHAPTER VIII
Neb did not move. The sailor said only one word to him.
“Living?” he shouted.
Neb did not reply. Gideon Spilett and Pencroff turned pale. Harbert clasped his hands and remained still. But it was evident that the poor Negro, absorbed in his grief, had neither seen his companions nor heard the sailor’s words.
The reporter knelt down next to the motionless body and placed his ear on the engineer’s chest after having half-opened his garment. A minute—a century!—passed, during which he tried to detect some heartbeat.
The body was that of the engineer.
Neb had straightened up a bit and stared without seeing. Despair could not have changed a man’s face more. Neb was unrecognizable, exhausted by fatigue, broken by pain. He believed his master dead. Gideon Spilett got up after a long and careful examination.
“He lives!” he said.
Pencroff, in his turn, knelt next to Cyrus Smith; his ear also detected a heartbeat and some breath that escaped from the engineer’s lips.
Harbert ran outside to look for water. A hundred feet away he found a clear stream, evidently very swollen by the rains of the previous evening, which filtered through the sand. But there was nothing he could use to carry this water, not a shell among these dunes. The boy had to content himself with dipping his handkerchief into the stream, and he ran back to the cave.
Fortunately the soaked handkerchief was sufficient for Gideon Spilett who wanted only to wet the engineer’s lips. These molecules of cool water produced an immediate effect. A sigh escaped from Cyrus Smith’s chest and it even appeared that he was trying to say a few words.
“We’ll save him!” said the reporter.
At these words, Neb recovered hope. He removed his master’s clothing to see if the body showed any wound. Neither the head nor torso nor limbs had any contusions, not even scratches—a surprising thing, since the engineer must have been tossed around among the rocks. Even the hands were intact, and it was difficult to explain how the engineer showed no trace of the efforts he must have made to get past the reef.
But the explanation of these circumstances would come later. When Cyrus Smith was able to speak, he would tell what happened. For the moment, they must recall him to life, and it was likely that vigorously rubbing his body might bring on this result. This is what was done with the sailor’s pea jacket. The engineer, warmed by this rough massage, moved his hands slightly, and his breathing began to be more regular. He was dying of exhaustion and no doubt, without the arrival of the reporter and his companions, it would have been all over for Cyrus Smith.
“You thought that your master was dead?” the sailor asked Neb.
“Yes! Dead!” replied Neb, “and if Top had not found you, if you hadn’t come, I would have buried my master, and I would have died beside him!”
One could see on what Cyrus Smith’s life had depended!
Neb related what had happened. The day before, after leaving the Chimneys at daybreak, he went along the coast in a northeasterly direction and reached the point on the shore that he had already visited. There, admittedly without any hope, Neb searched along the shore, among the rocks, on the sand, for the least indication to guide him. He had especially examined the part of the shore that the high tide had not reached because, on the beach, the rise and fall of the tide had erased all signs. Neb no longer hoped to find his master living. His purpose was to discover the engineer’s body, a cadaver that he wanted to bury with his own hands!
Neb searched for a long time. His efforts remained fruitless. It did not seem that this deserted coast had ever been frequented by a human being. Those shells that the sea had not reached, and which could be seen by the thousands above the tideline, were intact—not a single one had been broken. In a space of two to three hundred yards,* there was no trace of a landing, either recently or in the distant past.
Neb then decided to go up the coast for several miles. It was possible that currents carried the body to a point further up. When a cadaver floats a short distance from a low shore, it is rare that the waves do not push it up onto the beach sooner or later. Neb knew this and he wanted to see his master one last time.
“I ran along the shore for two more miles. I visited the entire reef line at low tide, the entire beach at high tide, and I despaired of finding anything when yesterday, about five o’clock in the evening, I saw footprints in the sand.”
“Footprints?” shouted Pencroff.
“Yes!” replied Neb.
“And did these footprints begin at the reef?” asked the reporter.
“No,” replied Neb, “at the high water mark only, because those between the high water mark and the reef were washed away.”
“Continue, Neb,” said Gideon Spilett.
“When I saw these prints, I was nearly crazy with joy. They were very distinct and went toward the dunes. Running, I followed them for a quarter of a mile, taking care not to erase them. Five minutes later, as night was coming on, I heard a dog barking. It was Top, and Top led me here to my master.”
Neb finished his recital by telling them about his grief on finding this inanimate body. He tried to detect some sign of life. Now that he had found him dead, he wanted him alive! All his efforts were useless. Nothing remained but to render the last rites to him whom he loved so much.
Neb then thought of his companions. Doubtless they would want to see the unfortunate man for one last time. Top was there. Couldn’t he count on the shrewdness of the faithful animal? Neb pronounced the reporter’s name several times, the one that Top knew best of the engineer’s companions. Then he pointed to the south and the dog darted off in that direction.
Guided by an instinct that might seem almost supernatural because the animal had never been to the Chimneys, Top nevertheless arrived there.
Neb’s companions listened carefully to this story. It astonished them that Cyrus Smith, after the efforts he must have made to escape the waves and get past the reef, did not even show a scratch. Also inexplicable was that the engineer had been able to get to this distant cave in the middle of dunes more than a mile from the coast.
“So, Neb,” said the reporter, “it wasn’t you who brought your master to this place?”
“No, it wasn’t I,” replied Neb.
“It’s obvious that Mr. Smith came here alone,” said Pencroff.
“It’s obvious,” noted Gideon Spilett, “but it’s unbelievable!”
They could only get an explanation from the engineer himself; they would have to wait until he was able to speak. Fortunately, life was already rapidly returning to him. The massage had improved
