"It is their instinct, you know; it is their instinct."
On the 17th of June an adventure happened to him which was attended with unexpected consequences. It was about eleven o'clock in the morning. The insufferable heat had driven all the residents within the dépôt indoors, and not a native was to be seen in the streets of Kazonndé. Mrs. Weldon was dozing; Jack was fast asleep. Benedict himself, sorely against his will, for he heard the hum of many an insect in the sunshine, had been driven to the seclusion of his cabin, and was falling into an involuntary siesta.
Suddenly a buzz was heard, an insect's wing vibrating some fifteen thousand beats a second!
"A hexapod!" cried Benedict, sitting up.
Short-sighted though he was, his hearing was acute, and his perception made him thoroughly convinced that he was in proximity to some giant specimen of its kind. Without moving from his seat he did his utmost to ascertain what it was; he was determined not to flinch from the sharpest of stings if only he could get the chance of capturing it. Presently he made out a large black speck flitting about in the few rays of daylight that were allowed to penetrate the hut. With bated breath he waited in eager expectation. The insect, after long hovering above him, finally settled on his head. A smile of satisfaction played about his lips as he felt it crawling lightly through his hair. Equally fearful of missing or injuring it, he restrained his first impulse to grasp it in his hand.
"I will wait a minute," he thought; "perhaps it may creep down my nose; by squinting a little perhaps I shall be able to see it."
For some moments hope alternated with fear. There sat Benedict with what he persuaded himself was some new African hexapod perched upon his head, and agitated by doubts as to the direction in which it would move. Instead of travelling in the way he reckoned along his nose, might it not crawl behind his ears or down his neck, or, worse than all, resume its flight in the air?
Fortune seemed inclined to favour him. After threading the entanglement of the naturalist's hair the insect was felt to be descending his forehead. With a fortitude not unworthy of the Spartan who suffered his breast to be gnawed by a fox, nor of the Roman hero who plunged his hand into the red-hot coals, Benedict endured the tickling of the six small feet, and made not a motion that might frighten the creature into taking wing. After making repeated circuits of his forehead, it passed just between his eyebrows; there was a moment of deep suspense lest it should once more go upwards; but it soon began to move again; neither to the right nor to the left did it turn, but kept straight on over the furrows made by the constant rubbing of the spectacles, right along the arch of the cartilage till it
[Illustration: Before long the old black speck was again flitting just above his head. Page 432.]
reached the extreme tip of the nose. Like a couple of movable lenses, Benedict's two eyes steadily turned themselves inwards till they were directed to the proper point.