Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
injured his precious entomologist’s box. Acteon went beside him, and made it his duty to preserve the unlucky, near-sighted man from any new disasters.
Besides, Cousin Benedict had made rather a bad choice of the quagmire for his plunge. When they drew him out of the sticky earth a large quantity of bubbles rose to the surface, and, in bursting, they emitted some gases of a suffocating odor. Livingstone, who had been sunk up to his chest in this slime, compared these grounds to a collection of enormous sponges, made of black, porous earth, from which numerous streams of water spouted when they were stepped upon. These places were always very dangerous.
For the space of half a mile Dick Sand and his companions must march over this spongy soil. It even became so bad that Mrs. Weldon was obliged to stop, for she sank deep in the mire. Hercules, Bat, and Austin, wishing to spare her the unpleasantness more than the fatigue of a passage across this marshy plain, made a litter of bamboos, on which she consented to sit. Her little Jack was placed in her arms, and they endeavored to cross that pestilential marsh in the quickest manner.
The difficulties were great. Acteon held Cousin Benedict firmly. Tom aided Nan, who, without him, would have disappeared several times in some crevice. The three other blacks carried the litter. At the head, Dick Sand sounded the earth. The choice of the place to step on was not made without trouble. They marched from preference on the edges, which were covered by a thick and tough grass. Often the support failed, and they sank to the knees in the slime.
At last, about five o’clock in the evening, the marsh being cleared, the soil regained sufficient firmness, thanks to its clayey nature; but they felt it damp underneath. Very evidently these lands lay below the neighboring rivers, and the water ran through their pores.
At that time the heat had become overwhelming. It would even have been unbearable, if thick storm clouds had not interposed between the burning rays and the ground. Distant lightnings began to rend the sky and low rollings of thunder grumbled in the depths of the heavens. A formidable storm was going to burst forth.
Now, these cataclysms are terrible in Africa: rain in torrents, squalls of wind which the strongest trees cannot resist, clap after clap of thunder, such is the contest of the elements in that latitude.
Dick Sand knew it well, and he became very uneasy. They could not pass the night without shelter. The plain was likely to be inundated, and it did not present a single elevation on which it was possible to seek refuge.
But refuge, where would they seek it in this low desert, without a tree, without a bush? The bowels of the earth even would not give it. Two feet below the surface they would find water.
However, toward the north a series of low hills seemed to limit the marshy plain. It was as the border of this depression of land. A few trees were profiled there on a more distant, clearer belt, left by the clouds on the line of the horizon.
There, if shelter were still lacking, the little band would at least no longer risk being caught in a possible inundation. There perhaps was salvation for all.
“Forward, my friends, forward!” repeated Dick Sand. “Three miles more and we shall be safer than in these bottom-lands.”
“Hurry! hurry!” cried Hercules.
The brave black would have wished to take that whole world in big arms and carry it alone.
Those words inspired those courageous men, and in spite of the fatigue of a day’s march, they advanced more quickly than they had done at the commencement from the halting-place.
When the storm burst forth the end to be attained was still more than two miles off. Now—a fact which was the more to be feared—the rain did not accompany the first lightnings exchanged between the ground and the electrical clouds. Darkness then became almost complete, though the sun had not disappeared below the horizon. But the dome of vapors gradually lowered, as if it threatened to fall in—a falling in which must result in a torrent of rain. Lightnings, red or blue, split it in a thousand places, and enveloped the plain in an inextricable network of fire.
Twenty times Dick and his companions ran the risk of being struck by lightning. On this plateau, deprived of trees, they formed the only projecting points which could attract the electrical discharges. Jack, awakened by the noise of the thunder, hid himself in Hercules’ arms. He was very much afraid, poor little boy, but he did not wish to let his mother see it, for fear of afflicting her more. Hercules, while taking great steps, consoled him as well as he could.
“Do not be afraid, little Jack,” he repeated. “If the thunder comes near us, I will break it in two with a single hand. I am stronger than it!”
And, truly, the giant’s strength reassured Jack a little.
Meanwhile the rain must soon fall, and then it would in torrents, poured out by those clouds in condensing. What would become of Mrs. Weldon and her companions, if they did not find a shelter?
Dick Sand stopped a moment near old Tom.
“What must be done?” said he.
“Continue our march, Mr. Dick,” replied Tom. “We cannot remain on this plain, that the rain is going to transform into a marsh!”
“No, Tom, no! But a shelter! Where? What? If it were only a hut—”
Dick Sand had suddenly broken off his sentence. A more vivid flash of lightning had just illuminated the whole plain.
“What have I seen there, a quarter of a mile off?” exclaimed Dick Sand.
“Yes, I also, I have seen—” replied old Tom, shaking his head.
“A camp, is it not?”
“Yes, Mr. Dick, it must be a camp, but a camp of natives!”
A new flash enabled them to observe this camp more closely. It occupied a part of the immense plain.
There, in fact, rose a hundred conical tents, symmetrically arranged, and measuring from twelve to fifteen feet in height. Not a soldier showed himself, however. Were they then shut up under their tents, so as to let the storm pass, or was the camp abandoned?
In the first case, whatever Heaven should threaten, Dick Sand must flee in the quickest manner. In the second, there was, perhaps, the shelter he asked.
“I shall find out,” he said to himself; then, addressing old Tom: “Stay here. Let no one follow me. I shall go to reconnoiter that camp.”
“Let one of us accompany you, Mr. Dick.”
“No, Tom, I shall go alone. I can approach without being seen. Stay here.”
The little troop that followed Tom and Dick Sand halted. The young novice left at once and disappeared in the darkness, which was profound when the lightning did not tear the sky.
Some large drops of rain already began to fall.
“What is the matter?” asked Mrs. Weldon, approaching the old black.
“We have perceived a camp, Mrs. Weldon,” replied Tom; “a camp—or, perhaps, a village, and our captain wished to reconnoiter it before leading us to it.”
Mrs. Weldon was satisfied with this reply. Three minutes after, Dick Sand was returning.
“Come! come!” he cried, in a voice which expressed his entire satisfaction.
“The camp is abandoned?” asked Tom.
“It is not a camp,” replied the young novice; “it is not a village. They are ant-hills!”
“Ant-hills!” exclaimed Cousin Benedict, whom that word aroused.
“Yes, Mr. Benedict, but ant-hills twelve feet high, at least, and in which we shall endeavor to hide ourselves.”
“But then,” replied Cousin Benedict, “those would be ant-hills of the warlike termite or of the devouring termite. Only those ingenious