On that day, also, during the midday halt, a hissing passed through the air, which made Mrs. Weldon very uneasy, because it was so strange.

“What is that?"’ she asked, rising hastily.

“A serpent!” cried Dick Sand, who gun, in hand, threw himself before Mrs. Weldon.

They might fear, in fact, that some reptile would glide among the plants to the halting place.  It would be nothing astonishing if it were one of those enormous “sucurus,” kinds of boas, which sometimes measure forty feet in length.

But Harris reminded Dick Sand that the blacks were already following, and he reassured Mrs. Weldon.

According to him, that hissing could not be produced by a “sucuru,” because that serpent does not hiss; but he indicated the presence of several inoffensive quadrupeds, rather numerous in that country.

“Be reassured, then,” said he, “and make no movement which may frighten those animals.”

“But what are they?” asked Dick Sand, who made it like a law of conscience to interrogate and make the American speak—­who, however, never required pressing before replying.

“They are antelopes, my young friend,” replied Harris.

“Oh! how I should like to see them!” cried Jack.

“That is very difficult, my good little man,” replied the American, “very difficult.”

“Perhaps we may try to approach than—­those hissing antelopes?” returned Dick Sand.

“Oh! you will not take three steps,” replied the American, shaking his head, “before the whole band will take flight.  I beg of you, then, not to trouble yourself.”

But Dick Sand had his reasons for being curious.  He wished to see, and, gun in hand, he glided among the herbs.  Immediately a dozen graceful gazelles, with small, sharp horns, passed with the rapidity of a water-spout.  Their hair, bright red, looked like a cloud of fire under the tall underwood of the forest.

“I had warned you,” said Harris, when the novice returned to take his place.

Those antelopes were so light of foot, that it had been truly impossible to distinguish them; but it was not so with another troop of animals which was signaled the same day.  Those could be seen—­imperfectly, it is true—­but their apparition led to a rather singular discussion between Harris and some of his companions.

The little troop, about four o’clock in the afternoon, had stopped for a moment near an opening in the woods, when three or four animals of great height went out of a thicket a hundred steps off, and scampered away at once with remarkable speed.

In spite of the American’s recommendations, this time the novice, having quickly shouldered his gun, fired at one of these animals.  But at the moment when the charge was going off, the weapon had been rapidly turned aside by Harris, and Dick Sand, skilful as he was, had missed his aim.

“No firing; no firing!” said the American.