Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 6.djvu/199

 and the pigs began to run away, at the moment when the sailor was getting ready the rope to bind them.

"That's Herbert's voice," cried the reporter.

"Run!" exclaimed Pencroft. And the sailor and Spilett dashed towards the spot whence the cries proceeded.

They did well to hasten, for at a turn of the path near a clearing they saw Herbert thrown on the ground and in the grasp of a savage being, apparently a gigantic ape, who was about to do him some great harm.

To rush on this monster, throw him on the ground in his turn, snatch Herbert from him, then bind him securely, was the work of a minute for Pencroft and Gideon Spilett. The sailor was of Herculean strength, the reporter also was powerful, and in spite of the monster's resistance he was firmly tied so that he could not even move.

"You are not hurt, Herbert," asked Spilett.

"No, no!"

"Oh, if this ape had wounded him!" exclaimed Pencroft.

"But he is not an ape," answered Herbert.

At these words Pencroft and Gideon Spilett looked at the singular being who lay on the ground. Indeed it was not an ape, it was a human being, a man. But what a man! A savage in all the horrible acceptation of the word, and so much the more frightful that he seemed fallen to the lowest degree of brutishness!

Shaggy hair, untrimmed beard descending to the chest, the body naked except a rag round the waist, wild eyes, enormous hands with immensely long nails, skin the color of mahogany, feet as hard as if made of horn,—such was the miserable creature who yet had claim to be called a man. It might justly be asked if there were yet a soul in this body, or if the brute instinct alone survived!

"Are you quite sure that this is a man, or that he has ever been one?" said Pencroft to the reporter.

"Alas! there is no doubt about it," replied Spilett.

"Then this must be the castaway?" asked Herbert.

"Yes," replied Gideon Spilett, "but the unfortunate man has no longer anything human about him!"

The reporter spoke the truth. It was evident that if the castaway had ever been a civilized being, solitude had made him a savage, or worse, perhaps a real beast of the