Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
soon found a thick fog.
They were touching, in fact, on the rainy season. Fortunately, the next day, a comfortable shelter would be hospitably offered to the little troop. There were only a few hours to elapse.
Though, according to Harris, who could only establish his calculation by the time which the journey had lasted, they could not be more than six miles from the farm, the ordinary precautions were taken for the night. Tom and his companions would watch one after the other. Dick Sand insisted that nothing should be neglected in that respect. Less than ever, would he depart from his habitual prudence, for a terrible suspicion was incrusted in his mind; but he did not wish to say anything yet.
The retiring to rest had been made at the feet of a group of large trees. Fatigue aiding, Mrs. Weldon and hers were already asleep, when they were awakened by a great cry.
“Eh! what’s the matter?” asked Dick Sand, quickly, who was on his feet first of all.
“It is I! it is I who have cried!” replied Cousin Benedict.
“And what is the matter with you?” asked Mrs. Weldon.
“I have just been bit!”
“By a serpent?” asked Mrs. Weldon, with alarm.
“No, no! It was not a serpent, but an insect,” replied Cousin Benedict. “Ah! I have it! I have it!”
“Well, crush your insect,” said Harris, “and let us sleep, Mr. Benedict!”
“Crush an insect!” cried Cousin Benedict. “Not so! I must see what it is!”
“Some mosquito!” said Harris, shrugging his shoulders.
“No! It is a fly,” replied Cousin Benedict, “and a fly which ought to be very curious!”
Dick Sand had lit a little portable lantern, and he approached Cousin Benedict.
“Divine goodness!” cried the latter. “Behold what consoles me for all my deceptions! I have, then, at last made a discovery!”
The honest man was raving. He looked at his fly in triumph. He would willingly kiss it.
“But what is it, then?” asked Mrs. Weldon.
“A dipter, cousin, a famous dipter!” And Cousin Benedict showed a fly smaller than a bee, of a dull color, streaked with yellow on the lower part of its body.
“And this fly is not venomous?” asked Mrs. Weldon.
“No, cousin, no; at least not for man. But for animals, for antelopes, for buffaloes, even for elephants, it is another thing. Ah! adorable insect!”
“At last,” asked Dick Sand, “will you tell us, Mr. Benedict, what is this fly?”
“This fly,” replied the entomologist, “this fly that I hold between my fingers, this fly—it is a tsetse! It is that famous dipter that is the honor of a country, and, till now, no one has ever found a tsetse in America!”
Dick Sand did not dare to ask Cousin Benedict in what part of the world this redoubtable tsetse was only to be met. And when his companions, after this incident, had returned to their interrupted sleep, Dick Sand, in spite of the fatigue which overwhelmed him, did not close his eyes the whole night.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Terrible Word.
It was time to arrive. Extreme lassitude made it impossible for Mrs. Weldon to continue any longer a journey made under such painful conditions. Her little boy, crimson during the fits of fever, very pale during the intermissions, was pitiable to see. His mother extremely anxious, had not been willing to leave Jack even in the care of the good Nan. She held him, half-lying, in her arms.
Yes, it was time to arrive. But, to trust to the American, on the very evening of this day which was breaking—the evening of the 18th of April, the little troop should finally reach the shelter of the “hacienda” of San Felice.
Twelve days’ journey for a woman, twelve nights passed in the open air; it was enough to overwhelm Mrs. Weldon, energetic as she was. But, for a child, it was worse, and the sight of little Jack sick, and without the most ordinary cares, had sufficed to crush her.
Dick Sand, Nan, Tom, and his companions had supported the fatigues of the journey better.
Their provisions, although they were commencing to get exhausted, had not become injured, and their condition was satisfactory.
As for Harris, he seemed made for the difficulties of these long journeys across the forests, and it did not appear that fatigue could affect him. Only, in proportion as he neared the farm, Dick Sand observed that he was more preoccupied and less frank in behavior than before. The contrary would have been more natural. This was, at least, the opinion of the young novice, who had now become more than suspicious of the American. And meanwhile, what interest could Harris have in deceiving them? Dick Sand could not have explained it, but he watched their guide more closely.
The American probably felt himself suspected by Dick Sand, and, no doubt, it was this mistrust which made him still more taciturn with “his young friend.”
The march had been resumed.
In the forest, less thick, the trees were scattered in groups, and no longer formed impenetrable masses. Was it, then, the true pampas of which Harris had spoken?
During the first hours of the day, no accident happened to aggravate the anxieties that Dick Sand felt. Only two facts were observed by him. Perhaps they were not very important, but in these actual junctures, no detail could be neglected.
It was the behavior of Dingo which, above all, attracted more especially the young man’s attention.
In fact the dog, which, during all this journey, had seemed to be following a scent, became quite different, and that almost suddenly. Until then, his nose to the ground, generally smelling the herbs or the shrubs, he either kept quiet, or he made a sort of sad, barking noise, like an expression of grief or of regret.
Now, on this day, the barking of the singular animal became like bursts, sometimes furious, such as they formerly were when Negoro appeared on the deck of the Pilgrim. A suspicion crossed suddenly Dick Sand’s mind, and it was confirmed by Tom, who said to him:
“How very singular, Mr. Dick! Dingo no longer smells the ground as he did yesterday! His nose is in the air, he is agitated, his hair stands up! One would think he scented in the distance——”
“Negoro, is it not so?” replied Dick Sand, who seized the old black’s arm, and signed to him to speak in a low voice.
“Negoro, Mr. Dick! May it not be that he has followed our steps?”
“Yes, Tom; and that at this moment even he may not be very far from us.”
“But why?” said Tom.
“Either Negoro does not know this country,” went on Dick Sand, “and then he would have every interest in not losing sight of us——”
“Or?” said Tom, who anxiously regarded the novice.
“Or,” replied Dick Sand, “he does know it, and then he——”
“But how should Negoro know this country? He has never come here!”
“Has he never been here?” murmured Dick Sand.
“It is an incontestable fact that Dingo acts as if this man whom he detests were near us!”
Then, interrupting himself to