“This is an awkward business,” said he, looking at Herbert. “My box must have fallen from my pocket, and I can’t find it. But you, Herbert, have you nothing: no steel, not anything, with which we can make fire?” “Not a thing, Pencroff.” The sailor, followed by the boy, walked out, rubbing his forehead. On the sand, among the rocks, by the bank of the river, both of them searched with the utmost care, but without result. The box was of copper, and had it been there, they must have seen it. “Pencroff,” asked Herbert, “did not you throw it out of the basket?” “I took good care not to,” said the sailor. “But when one has been knocked around as we have been, so small a thing could easily have been lost; even my pipe is gone. The confounded box; where can it be?” “Well, the tide is out; let us run to the place where we landed,” said Herbert. It was little likely that they would find this box, which the sea would have rolled among the pebbles at high water; nevertheless, it would do no harm to search. They, therefore, went quickly to the place where they had first landed, some 200 paces from the Chimneys. There, among the pebbles, in the hollows of the rocks, they made minute search, but in vain. If the box had fallen here it must have been carried out by the waves. As the tide went down, the sailor peered into every crevice, but without Success. It was a serious loss, and, for the time, irreparable. Pencroff did not conceal his chagrin. He frowned, but did not speak, and Herbert tried to console him by saying, that, most probably, the matches would have been so wetted as to be useless. “No, my boy,” answered the sailor. “They were in a tightly closing metal box. But now, what are we to do?” “We will certainly find means of procuring fire,” said Herbert. “Mr. Smith or Mr. Spilett will not be as helpless as we are.” “Yes, but in the meantime we are without it,” said Pencroff, “and our companions will find but a very sorry meal on their return.” “But,” said Herbert, hopefully, “it is not possible that they will have neither tinder nor matches.” “I doubt it,” answered the sailor, shaking his head. “In the first place, neither Neb nor Mr. Smith smoke, and then I’m afraid Mr. Spilett has more likely kept his notebook than his match-box.” Herbert did not answer. This loss was evidently serious. Nevertheless, the lad thought surely they could make a fire in some way or other, but Pencroff, more experienced, although a man not easily discouraged, knew differently. At any rate there was but one thing to do:—to wait until the return of Neb and the reporter. It was necessary to give up the repast of cooked eggs which they had wished to prepare, and a diet of raw flesh did not seem to be, either for themselves or for the others, an agreeable prospect.