Hercules, who had been his pupil long enough to have an eye for the kind of creature Benedict was ever trying to secure, on coming back from his exertions on the grass-barrier, brought a horrible-looking animal, and submitted it to the sullen entomologist.
"Is this of any use to you?"
The amateur lifted it up carefully, and having almost poked it into his near-sighted eyes, uttered a cry of delight,-
"Bravo, Hercules! you are making amends for your past mischief; it is splendid! it is unique!"
"Is it really very curious?" said Mrs. Weldon.
"Yes, indeed," answered the enraptured naturalist; "it is really unique; it belongs to neither of the ten orders; it can be classed neither with the coleoptera, neuroptera, nor to the hymenoptera: if it had eight legs I should know how to classify it; I should place it amongst the second section of the arachnida; but it is a hexapod, a genuine hexapod; a spider with six legs; a grand discovery; it must be entered on the catalogue as 'Hexapodes Benedictus.' " Once again mounted on his hobby, the worthy enthusiast continued to discourse with an unwonted vivacity to his indulgent ii* not over attentive audience.
Meanwhile the canoe was steadily threading its way over the dark waters, the silence of the night broken only by the rattle of the scales of some crocodiles, or by the snorting of hippopotamuses in the neighbourhood. Once the travellers were startled by a loud noise, such as might
[Illustration: It was caused by a troop of a hundred or more elephants.]
proceed from some ponderous machinery in motion: it was caused by a troop of a hundred or more elephants that, after feasting through the day on the roots of the forest, had come to quench their thirst at the river-side.
But no danger was to be apprehended; lighted by the pale moon that rose over the tall trees, the canoe throughout the night pursued in safety its solitary voyage.