had seen plenty of them before, for owing to their reputation of being the most clever in mimickry of the Psittacidæ, they have been domesticated everywhere in both the Old and New worlds.
But Jack's dissatisfaction was nothing compared to Cousin Benedict's. In spite of being allowed to wander away from the rank, he had failed to discover a single insect which was worth the pursuit; not even a fire-fly danced at night; nature seemed to be mocking him, and his ill-humour increased accordingly.
In this way the journey was continued for four days longer, and on the 16th it was estimated that they must have travelled between eighty and ninety miles north-eastwards from the coast. Harris positively asserted that they could not be much more than twenty miles from San Felice, and that by pushing forwards they might expect in eight-and-forty hours to find themselves lodged in comfortable quarters.
But although they had thus succeeded in traversing this vast table-land, they had not seen one human inhabitant. Dick was more than ever perplexed, and it was a subject of bitter regret to him that they had not stranded upon some more frequented part of the shore, near some village or plantation where Mrs. Weldon might long since have found a suitable refuge.
Deserted, however, as the country apparently was by man, it had latterly shown itself much more abundantly tenanted by animals. Many a time a long, plaintive cry was heard, which Harris attributed to the tardigrades or sloths often found in wooded districts, and known by the name of "ais;" and in the middle of the dinner-halt on this day, a loud hissing suddenly broke upon the air which made Mrs. Weldon start to her feet in alarm.
"A serpent!" cried Dick, catching up his loaded gun.
The negroes, following Dick's example, were in a moment on the alert.
"Don't fire!" cried Harris.
There was indeed nothing improbable in the supposition that a "sucuru," a species of boa, sometimes measuring forty feet in length, had just moved itself in the long grass at their side, but Harris affirmed that the "sucuru" never hisses, and declared that the noise had really come from animals of an entirely inoffensive character.
"What animals?" asked Dick, always eager for information, which it must be granted Harris seemed always equally anxious to give.