“Perhaps,” replied Dick Sand.

“I would do well, I think, to go in advance,” said Harris.

“No, Mr. Harris, we will not separate,” replied Dick Sand, in a decided tone.

“As you will,” replied the American.  “But, during the night, it will be difficult for me to guide you.”

“Never mind that!” replied Dick Sand.  “We are going to halt.  Mrs. Weldon will consent to pass a last night under the trees, and to-morrow, when it is broad daylight, we will proceed on our journey!  Two or three miles still, that will be an hour’s walk!”

“Be it so,” replied Harris.

At that moment Dingo commenced to bark furiously.

“Here, Dingo, here!” cried Dick Sand.  “You know well that no one is there, and that we are in the desert!”

This last halt was then decided upon.

Mrs. Weldon let her companions work without saying a word.  Her little
Jack was sleeping in her arms, made drowsy by the fever.

They sought the best place to pass the night.  This was under a large bunch of trees, where Dick Sand thought of disposing all for their rest.  But old Tom, who was helping him in these preparations, stopped suddenly, crying out: 

“Mr. Dick! look! look!”

“What is it, old Tom?” asked Dick Sand, in the calm tone of a man who attends to everything.

“There—­there!” cried Tom; “on those trees—­blood stains!—­and—­on the ground—­mutilated limbs!”

Dick Sand rushed toward the spot indicated by old Tom.  Then, returning to him:  “Silence, Tom, silence!” said he.

In fact, there on the ground were hands cut off, and above these human remains were several broken forks, and a chain in pieces!

Happily, Mrs. Weldon had seen nothing of this horrible spectacle.

As for Harris, he kept at a distance, and any one observing him at this moment would have been struck at the change made in him.  His face had something ferocious in it.

Dingo had rejoined Dick Sand, and before these bloody remains, he barked with rage.

The novice had hard work to drive him away.

Meanwhile, old Tom, at the sight of these forks, of this broken chain, had remained motionless, as if his feet were rooted in the soil.  His eyes were wide open, his hands clenched; he stared, murmuring these incoherent words: 

“I have seen—­already seen—­these forks—­when little—­I have seen!”

And no doubt the memories of his early infancy returned to him vaguely.  He tried to recall them.  He was going to speak.

“Be silent, Tom!” repeated Dick Sand.  “For Mrs. Weldon’s sake, for all our sakes, be silent!”

And the novice led the old black away.

Another halting place was chosen, at some distance, and all was arranged for the night.

The repast was prepared, but they hardly touched it.  Fatigue took away their hunger.  All were under an indefinable impression of anxiety which bordered on terror.