Till then, I repeat, there is nothing to be done." "Yes, fire!" said the obstinate sailor again.
"But he will make us a fire!" replied Gideon Spilett, "only have a little patience, Pencroft!" The seaman looked at Spilett in a way which seemed to say, "If it depended upon you to do it, we wouldn't taste roast meat very soon"; but he was silent.
Meanwhile Captain Harding had made no reply.

He appeared to be very little troubled by the question of fire.

For a few minutes he remained absorbed in thought; then again speaking,-- "My friends," said he, "our situation is, perhaps, deplorable; but, at any rate, it is very plain.

Either we are on a continent, and then, at the expense of greater or less fatigue, we shall reach some inhabited place, or we are on an island.

In the latter case, if the island is inhabited, we will try to get out of the scrape with the help of its inhabitants; if it is desert, we will try to get out of the scrape by ourselves." "Certainly, nothing could be plainer," replied Pencroft.
"But, whether it is an island or a continent," asked Gideon Spilett, "whereabouts do you think, Cyrus, this storm has thrown us ?" "I cannot say exactly," replied the engineer, "but I presume it is some land in the Pacific.