“What have you got?” asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh.

“A splendid Ornit’optera a day-flying moss’,” said Verkimier as he cautiously rose, “vich mimics zee Trepsichrois mulciber.  Ant zis very morning I caught von Leptocircus virescens, vich derives protection from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly.”

“What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!” remarked Moses in an undertone to the hermit as they moved on again.

“Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses.  These are the scientific names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they are not.  Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic.  Indeed, you have a little of it yourself,” said the hermit with one of his twinkling glances.  “When you are almost terrified of your wits don’t you pretend that there’s nothing the matter with you?”

“Nebber, massa, nebber!” answered the negro with remonstrative gravity.  “When I’s nigh out ob my wits, so’s my innards feels like nuffin’ but warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I’s told, an’ blue in de lips, an’ I pretends nuffin’—­I don’t care who sees it!”

The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse.  Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat—­became more hilly, and the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall, and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of which they were in search.  By that time the porters who carried Verkimier’s boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not be far distant.  In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so that a man could scarcely see his fellow even when within two paces of him.  Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm.  In these circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and followed during the greater part of the day.  The track of a rhinoceros and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from those creatures.

“Shall we have a stormy night, think you?” asked Nigel, as he assisted in striking a light.

“It may be so,” replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of his wet matches, which failed to kindle.  “What we hear may be distant thunder, but I doubt it.  The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings of a volcano.  Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran ranges.  This thick darkness inclines me to think so—­especially after the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at Krakatoa.  Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have escaped—­mine are useless.”