Two years and a half ago, the castaways had been thrown on Lincoln Island; and up to this time they had been cut off from their kind. Once the reporter had attempted to establish communication with the civilized world, by a letter tied to the neck of a bird; but this was an expedient on whose success they could place no reliance. Ayrton, indeed, under the circumstances which have been related, had joined the little colony. And now, on the 17th of October, other men had appeared within sight of the island, on that desert sea! There could be no doubt of it; there was a ship, but would she sail away into the offing, or put in shore? The question would soon be decided. Smith and Herbert hastened to call the others into the great hall of Granite House, and inform them of what had been observed. Pencroff seized the spy-glass and swept the horizon till his gaze fell upon the point indicated. “No doubt of it, she’s a ship!” said he in a tone of no great pleasure. “Is she coming towards us?” asked Spilett. “Impossible to say yet,” replied Pencroff, “for only her sails are visible; her hull is below the horizon. “What must we do?” said the boy. “We must wait,” said Smith. And for a time which seemed interminable, the colonists remained in silence, moved alternately by fear and hope. They were not in the situation of castaways upon a desert island, constantly struggling with niggardly Nature for the barest means of living, and always longing to got back to their fellow-men. Pencroff and Neb, especially, would have quitted the island with great regret. They were made, in truth, for the new life which they were living in a region civilized by their own exertions! Still, this ship would bring them news of the Continent; perhaps it was an American vessel; assuredly it carried men of their own race, and their hearts beat high at the thought! From time to time, Pencroff went to the window with the glass. From thence he examined the ship carefully. She was still twenty miles to the east, and they had no means of communication with her. Neither flag nor fire would have been seen; nor would the report of a gun be heard. Yet the island, with Mount Franklin towering high above it, must be visible to the lookout men on the ship. But why should the vessel land there? Was it not mere chance which brought it into that part of the Pacific, out of the usual track, and when Tabor Island was the only land indicated on the maps? But here a suggestion came from Herbert. “May it not be the Duncan?” cried he. The Duncan, as our readers will remember, was Lord Glenarvan’s yacht, which had abandoned Ayrton on the islet, and was one day to come back for him. Now the islet was not so far from Lincoln Island but that a ship steering for one might pass within sight of the other. They were only 150 miles distant in longitude, and 75 in latitude. “We must warn Ayrton,” said Spilett, “and tell him to come at once. Only he can tell us whether she is the Duncan.”