troop, a deafening concert arose
from the top of the tree.

The mango served as a perch for a colony of gray parrots, prattling,
quarrelsome, ferocious birds, which set upon living birds, and those
who would judge them from their congeners which Europe keeps in cages,
would be singularly mistaken.

These parrots jabbered with such a noise that Dick Sand thought of
firing at them to oblige them to be silent, or to put them to flight.
But Harris dissuaded him, under the pretext that in these solitudes it
was better not to disclose his presence by the detonation of a fire-arm.

"Let us pass along without noise," he said, "and we shall pass along
without danger."

Supper was prepared at once, without any need of proceeding to cook
food. It was composed of conserves and biscuit. A little rill, which
wound under the plants, furnished drinkable water, which they did not
drink without improving it with a few drops of rum. As to _dessert_,
the mango was there with its juicy fruit, which the parrots did not
allow to be picked without protesting with their abominable cries.

At the end of the supper it began to be dark. The shade rose slowly
from the ground to the tops of the trees, from which the foliage soon
stood out like a fine tracery on the more luminous background of the
sky. The first stars seemed to be shining flowers, which twinkled at
the end of the last branches. The wind went down with the night, and no
longer trembled in the branches of the trees. The parrots themselves
had become mute. Nature was going to rest, and inviting every living
being to follow her in this deep sleep.

Preparations for retiring had to be of a very primitive character.

"Shall we not light a large fire for the night?" Dick Sand asked the
American.

"What's the good?" replied Harris. "Fortunately the nights are not
cold, and this enormous mango will preserve the soil from all
evaporation. We have neither cold nor dampness to fear. I repeat, my
young friend, what I told you just now. Let us move along incognito. No
more fire than gunshots, if possible."

"I believe, indeed," then said Mrs. Weldon, "that we have nothing to
fear from the Indians--even from those wanderers of the woods, of whom
you have spoken, Mr. Harris. But, are there not other four-footed
wanderers, that the sight of a fire would help to keep at a distance?"

"Mrs. Weldon," replied the American, "you do too much honor to the deer
of this country. Indeed, they fear