“About a mile,” replied Pencroft; “and if you are astonished, captain, we are not less surprised ourselves at seeing you in this place!”

“Indeed,” said the engineer, who was recovering gradually, and who took great interest in these details, “indeed it is very singular!”

“But,” resumed the sailor, “can you tell us what happened after you were carried off by the sea?”

Cyrus Harding considered.  He knew very little.  The wave had torn him from the balloon net.  He sank at first several fathoms.  On returning to the surface, in the half light, he felt a living creature struggling near him.  It was Top, who had sprung to his help.  He saw nothing of the balloon, which, lightened both of his weight and that of the dog, had darted away like an arrow.

There he was, in the midst of the angry sea, at a distance which could not be less than half a mile from the shore.  He attempted to struggle against the billows by swimming vigorously.  Top held him up by his clothes; but a strong current seized him and drove him towards the north, and after half an hour of exertion, he sank, dragging Top with him into the depths.  From that moment to the moment in which he recovered to find himself in the arms of his friends he remembered nothing.

“However,” remarked Pencroft, “you must have been thrown on to the beach, and you must have had strength to walk here, since Neb found your footmarks!”

“Yes... of course replied the engineer, thoughtfully; “and you found no traces of human beings on this coast?”

“Not a trace,” replied the reporter; “besides, if by chance you had met with some deliverer there, just in the nick of time, why should he have abandoned you after having saved you from the waves?”

“You are right, my dear Spilett.  Tell me, Neb,” added the engineer, turning to his servant, “it was not you who... you can’t have had a moment of unconsciousness... during which no, that’s absurd....  Do any of the footsteps still remain?” asked Harding.

“Yes, master, replied Neb; “here, at the entrance, at the back of the mound, in a place sheltered from the rain and wind.  The storm has destroyed the others.”

“Pencroft,” said Cyrus Harding, “will you take my shoe and see if it fits exactly to the footprints?”

The sailor did as the engineer requested.  While he and Herbert, guided by Neb, went to the place where the footprints were to be found, Cyrus remarked to the reporter,—­

“It is a most extraordinary thing!”

“Perfectly inexplicable!” replied Gideon Spilett.

“But do not dwell upon it just now, my dear Spilett, we will talk about it by-and-by.”

A moment after the others entered.

There was no doubt about it.  The engineer’s shoe fitted exactly to the footmarks.  It was therefore Cyrus Harding who had left them on the sand.

“Come,” said he, “I must have experienced this unconsciousness which I attributed to Neb.  I must have walked like a somnambulist, without any knowledge of my steps, and Top must have guided me here, after having dragged me from the waves...  Come, Top!  Come, old dog!”