This was the third week in February. The convicts, awaiting a favorable opportunity, rarely left their retreat, and then only to a point in the interior or on the west coast. Ayrton had no news of his friends, and no hopes of seeing them again. Finally, the poor unfortunate, enfeebled by bad treatment, fell in a profound prostration in which he neither saw nor heard anything. From this moment, he could not say what had happened. “But, Mr. Smith,” he added, “since I was imprisoned in this cavern, how is it that I am here?” “How is that the convicts are lying there, dead, in the middle of the corral?” answered the engineer. “Dead!” cried Ayrton, half rising, notwithstanding his feebleness. His companions assisted him to get up, and all went to the little brook. It was broad daylight. There on the shore, in the position in which they had met their deaths, lay the five convicts. Ayrton was astounded. The others looked on without speaking. Then, at a sign from Smith, Neb and Pencroff examined the bodies. Not a wound was visible upon them. Only after minute search, Pencroff perceived on the forehead of one, on the breast of another, on this one’s back, and on the shoulder of a fourth, a small red mark, a hardly visible bruise, made by some unknown instrument. “There is where they have been hit!” said Smith. “But with what sort of a weapon?” cried the reporter. “A destructive weapon enough, though unknown to us!” “And who has destroyed them?” asked Pencroff. “The ruler of the island,” answered Smith, “he who has brought you here, Ayrton, whose influence is again manifesting itself, who does for us what we are unable to do for ourselves, and who then hides from us.” “Let us search for him!” cried Pencroff. “Yes, we will search,” replied Smith; “but the being who accomplishes such prodigies will not be found until it pleases him to call us to him!” This invisible protection, which nullified their own actions, both annoyed and affected the engineer. The relative inferiority in which it placed him wounded his pride. A generosity which so studiously eluded all mark of recognition denoted a sort of disdain for those benefited, which, in a measure, detracted from the value of the gift. “Let us search,” he repeated, “and Heaven grant that some day we be permitted to prove to this haughty protector that he is not dealing with ingrates! What would I not give to be able, in our turn, to repay him, and to render him, even at the risk of our lives, some signal service!” From this time, this search was the single endeavor of the inhabitants of Lincoln Island. All tried to discover the answer to this enigma, an answer which involved the name of a man endowed with an inexplicable, an almost superhuman power.