All approached, and saw to their extreme surprise, a boat floating down the current.
"Boat ahoy!" shouted the sailor, without thinking that perhaps it would be best to keep silence.
No reply. The boat still drifted onwards, and it was not more than twelve feet off, when the sailor exclaimed—
"But it is our own boat! she has broken her moorings, and floated down the current. I must say she has arrived very opportunely."
"Our boat?" murmured the engineer.
Pencroft was right. It was indeed the canoe, of which the rope had undoubtedly broken, and which had come alone from the sources of the Mercy. It was very important to seize it before the rapid current should have swept it away out of the mouth of the river, but Neb and Pencroft cleverly managed this by means of a long pole.
The canoe touched the shore. The engineer leapt in first, and found, on examining the rope, that it had been really worn through by rubbing against the rocks.
"Well," said the reporter to him, in a low voice, "this is a strange thing."
"Strange indeed!" returned Cyrus Handing.
Strange or not, it was very fortunate. Herbert, the reporter, Neb, and Pencroft, embarked in turn. There was no doubt about the rope having been worn through, but the astonishing part of the affair was, that the boat should have arrived just at the moment when the settlers were there to seize it on its way, for a quarter of an hour earlier or later it would have been lost in the sea.