"As I told you, Pencroft, we will leave it to you," answered Harding.
"Ah!" said Pencroft, "if there was only a light-house on the coast, it would be much more convenient for sailors."
"Yes," replied Herbert, "and this time we shall have no obliging engineer to light a fire to guide us into port!"
"Why, indeed, my dear Cyrus," said Spilett, "we have never thanked you for it, but frankly, without that fire we should never have been able to reach—"
"A fire?" asked Harding, much astonished at the reporter's words.
"We mean, captain," answered Pencroft, "that on board the Bonadventure we were very anxious during the few hours before our return, and we should have passed to windward of the island, if it had not been for the precaution you took of lighting a fire in the night of the 19th of October, on Prospect Heights."
"Yes, yes! That was a lucky idea of mine!" replied the engineer.
"And this time," continued the sailor, "unless the idea occurs to Ayrton, there will be no one to do us that little service!"
"No! no one!" answered Cyrus Harding.
A few minutes after, finding himself alone in the bows of the vessel with the reporter, the engineer bent down and whispered,—