It was about eleven o’clock in the morning.  An overpowering heat had obliged the inhabitants of the factory to keep in their huts, and one would not even meet a single native in the streets of Kazounde.

Mrs. Weldon was dozing near little Jack, who was sleeping soundly.  Cousin Benedict, himself, suffering from the influence of this tropical temperature, had given up his favorite hunts, which was a great sacrifice for him, for, in those rays of the midday sun, he heard the rustle of a whole world of insects.  He was sheltered, then, at the end of his hut, and there, sleep began to take possession of him in this involuntary siesta.

Suddenly, as his eyes half closed, he heard a humming; this is one of those insupportable buzzings of insects, some of which can give fifteen or sixteen thousand beats of their wings in a second.

“A hexapode!” exclaimed Cousin Benedict, awakened at once, and passing from the horizontal to the vertical position.

There was no doubt that it was a hexapode that was buzzing in his hut.  But, if Cousin Benedict was very near-sighted, he had at least very acute hearing, so acute even that he could recognize one insect from another by the intensity of its buzz, and it seemed to him that this one was unknown, though it could only be produced by a giant of the species.

“What is this hexapode?” Cousin Benedict asked himself.

Behold him, seeking to perceive the insect, which was very difficult to his eyes without glasses, but trying above all to recognize it by the buzzing of its wings.

His instinct as an entomologist warned him that he had something to accomplish, and that the insect, so providentially entered into his hut, ought not to be the first comer.

Cousin Benedict no longer moved.  He listened.  A few rays of light reached him.  His eyes then discovered a large black point that flew about, but did not pass near enough for him to recognize it.  He held his breath, and if he felt himself stung in some part of the face or hands, he was determined not to make a single movement that might put his hexapode to flight.  At last the buzzing insect, after turning around him for a long time, came to rest on his head.  Cousin Benedict’s mouth widened for an instant, as if to give a smile—­and what a smile!  He felt the light animal running on his hair.  An irresistible desire to put his hand there seized him for a moment; but he resisted it, and did well.

“No, no!” thought he, “I would miss it, or what would be worse, I would injure it.  Let it come more within my reach.  See it walking!  It descends.  I feel its dear little feet running on my skull!  This must be a hexapode of great height.  My God! only grant that it may descend on the end of my nose, and there, by squinting a little, I might perhaps see it, and determine to what order, genus, species, or variety it belongs.”