What, then, was his joy when Hercules, “his pupil” after all, brought him a horrible little beast which he had found on a sprig of the tikatika.  Singularly enough the brave black seemed a little confused in presenting it to him.

But what exclamations Cousin Benedict uttered when he had brought this insect, which he held between his index finger and his thumb, as near as possible to his short-sighted eyes, which neither glasses nor microscope could now assist.

“Hercules!” he cried, “Hercules!  Ah! see what will gain your pardon!  Cousin Weldon!  Dick! a hexapode, unique in its species, and of African origin!  This, at least, they will not dispute with me, and it shall quit me only with my life!”

“It is, then, very precious?” asked Mrs. Weldon.

“Precious!” cried Cousin Benedict.  “An insect which is neither a coleopter, nor a neuropteran, nor a hymenopter; which does not belong to any of the ten orders recognized by savants, and which they will be rather tempted to rank in the second section of the arachnides.  A sort of spider, which would be a spider if it had eight legs, and is, however, a hexapode, because it has but six.  Ah! my friends, Heaven owed me this joy; and at length I shall give my name to a scientific discovery!  That insect shall be the ‘Hexapodes Benedictus.’”

The enthusiastic savant was so happy—­he forgot so many miseries past and to come in riding his favorite hobby—­that neither Mrs. Weldon nor Dick Sand grudged him his felicitations.

All this time the perogue moved on the dark waters of the river.  The silence of night was only disturbed by the clattering scales of the crocodiles, or the snorting of the hippopotami that sported on the banks.

Then, through the sprigs of the thatch, the moon appeared behind the tops of the trees, throwing its soft light to the interior of the boat.

Suddenly, on the right bank, was heard a distant hubbub, then a dull noise as if giant pumps were working in the dark.

It was several hundred elephants, that, satiated by the woody roots which they had devoured during the day, came to quench their thirst before the hour of repose.  One would really have supposed that all these trunks, lowered and raised by the same automatic movement, would have drained the river dry.

CHAPTER XVIII.

VARIOUS INCIDENTS.

For eight days the boat drifted, carried by the current under the conditions already described.  No incident of any importance occurred.  For a space of many miles the river bathed the borders of superb forests; then the country, shorn of these fine trees, spread in jungles to the limits of the horizon.

If there were no natives in this country—­a fact which Dick Sand did not dream of regretting—­the animals at least abounded there.  Zebras sported on the banks, elks, and “caamas,” a species of antelope which were extremely graceful, and they disappeared at night to give place to the leopards, whose growls could be heard, and even to the lions which bounded in the tall grasses.  Thus far the fugitives had not suffered from these ferocious creatures, whether in the forests or in the river.