“They foresaw that we were going to invade their dwelling,” replied Hercules, laughing.

“Indeed!” replied Cousin Benedict, whom this answer sensibly shocked.  “You think yourself so strong that you would be dangerous to these courageous insects?  A few thousand of these newroptera would quickly reduce you to a skeleton if they found you dead on the road.”

“Dead, certainly,” replied Hercules, who would not give up; “but, living, I could crush masses of them.”

“You might crush a hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, a million,” replied Cousin Benedict, with animation, “but not a thousand millions; and a thousand millions would devour you, living or dead, to the last morsel.”

During this discussion, which was less trifling than might be supposed, Dick Sand reflected on the observations made by Cousin Benedict.  There was no doubt that the savant knew too much about the habits of the termites to be mistaken.  If he declared that a secret instinct warned them to leave the ant-hill recently, it was because there was truly peril in remaining in it.

Meanwhile, as it was impossible to abandon this shelter at a moment when the storm was raging with unparalleled intensity, Dick Sand looked no farther for an explanation of what seemed to be inexplicable, and he contented himself with saying: 

“Well, Mr. Benedict, if the termites have left their provisions in this ant-hill, we must not forget that we have brought ours, and let us have supper.  To-morrow, when the storm will be over, we will consult together on our future plans.”

They then occupied themselves in preparing the evening meal, for, great as their fatigue was, it had not affected the appetite of these vigorous walkers.  On the contrary, the food, which had to last for two more days, was very welcome.  The damp had not reached the biscuits, and for several minutes it could be heard cracking under the solid teeth of Dick Sand and his companions.  Between Hercules’s jaws it was like grain under the miller’s grindstone.  It did not crackle, it powdered.

Mrs. Weldon alone scarcely eat, and even Dick Sand’s entreaties were vain.  It seemed to him that this brave woman was more preoccupied, more sad than she had been hitherto.  Meanwhile her little Jack suffered less; the fever had not returned, and at this time he was sleeping, under his mother’s eyes, in a cell well lined with garments.  Dick Sand knew not what to think.

It is useless to say that Cousin Benedict did honor to the repast, not that he paid any attention either to the quality or to the quantity of the food that he devoured, but because he had found an opportunity to deliver a lecture in entomology on the termites.  Ah! if he had been able to find a termite, a single one, in the deserted ant hill!  But nothing.