the wood at the risk of catching a bullet not meant for us."

"Ah!" exclaimed Maston, with an unmistakable accent, "I would rather
have ten bullets in my head than one in Barbicane's head."

"Go ahead, then!" said Ardan, pressing his companion's hand.

A few seconds after the two companions disappeared in a copse. It was a
dense thicket made of huge cypresses, sycamores, tulip-trees, olives,
tamarinds, oaks, and magnolias. The different trees intermingled their
branches in inextricable confusion, and quite hid the view. Michel Ardan
and Maston walked on side by side phasing silently through the tall
grass, making a road for themselves through the vigorous creepers,
looking in all the bushes or branches lost in the sombre shade of the
foliage, and expecting to hear a shot at every step. As to the traces
that Barbicane must have left of his passage through the wood, it was
impossible for them to see them, and they marched blindly on in the
hardly-formed paths in which an Indian would have followed his adversary
step by step.

After a vain search of about an hour's length the two companions
stopped. Their anxiety was redoubled.

"It must be all over," said Maston in despair. "A man like Barbicane
would not lay traps or condescend to any manoeuvre! He is too frank, too
courageous. He has gone straight into danger, and doubtless far enough
from the bushman for the wind to carry off the noise of the shot!"

"But we should have heard it!" answered Michel Ardan.

"But what if we came too late?" exclaimed J.T. Maston in an accent of
despair.

Michel Ardan did not find any answer to make. Maston and he resumed
their interrupted walk. From time to time they shouted; they called
either Barbicane or Nicholl; but neither of the two adversaries
answered. Joyful flocks of birds, roused by the noise, disappeared
amongst the branches, and some frightened deer fled through the copses.

They continued their search another hour. The greater part of the wood
had been explored. Nothing revealed the presence of the combatants. They
began to doubt the affirmation of the bushman, and Ardan was going to
renounce the pursuit as useless, when all at once Maston stopped.

"Hush!" said he. "There is some one yonder!"

"Some one?" answered Michel Ardan.

"Yes! a man! He does not seem to move. His rifle is not in his hand.
What can he be doing?"

"But do you recognise him?" asked Michel Ardan.

"Yes, yes! he is turning round," answered