insect which was fit to enrich his collection. Even the "pyrophores"
obstinately refused to show themselves to him, and attract him by the
phosphorescences of their corselet. Nature seemed truly to mock the
unhappy entomologist, whose temper was becoming cross.

For four days more the march toward the northeast was continued in the
same way. On the 16th of April the distance traversed from the coast
could not be estimated at less than one hundred miles. If Harris had
not gone astray--and he affirmed it without hesitation--the Farm of San
Felice was no more than twenty miles from the halting place of that
day. Before forty-eight hours the little troop then would have a
comfortable shelter where its members could at last repose from their
fatigues.

Meanwhile, though the plateau had been almost entirely crossed in its
middle part, not a native, not a wanderer had been encountered under
the immense forest.

More than once, without saying anything about it, Dick Sand regretted
being unable to go ashore on some other point of the coast. More to the
south, or more to the north, villages, hamlets, or plantations would
not have been lacking, and long before this Mrs. Weldon and her
companions would have found an asylum.

But, if the country seemed to be abandoned by man, animals showed
themselves more frequently during these last days. At times was heard a
kind of long, plaintive cry, that Harris attributed to some of those
large tardi-grades, habitual denizens of those vast wooded regions,
named "ais."