PART II THE ABANDONED CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCERNING THE LEADEN PELLET—MAKING A CANOE—HUNTING—IN THE TOP OF A KAURI—NOTHING TO INDICATE THE PRESENCE OF MAN—THE TURTLE ON ITS BACK—THE TURTLE DISAPPEARS—SMITH’S EXPLANATION.
It was exactly seven months since the passengers in the balloon had been thrown upon Lincoln Island. In all this time no human being had been seen. No smoke had betrayed the presence of man upon he island. No work of man’s hands, either ancient or modern, had attested his passage. Not only did it seem uninhabited at present, but it appeared to have been so always. And now all the framework of deductions fell before a little bit of metal found in the body of a pig.
It was certainly a bullet from a g*n, and what but a human being would be so provided?
When Pencroff had place
