ldon and her
companions would have found an asylum.

But, if the country seemed to be abandoned by man, animals showed
themselves more frequently during these last days. At times was heard a
kind of long, plaintive cry, that Harris attributed to some of those
large tardi-grades, habitual denizens of those vast wooded regions,
named "ais."

On that day, also, during the midday halt, a hissing passed through the
air, which made Mrs. Weldon very uneasy, because it was so strange.

"What is that?"' she asked, rising hastily.

"A serpent!" cried Dick Sand, who gun, in hand, threw himself before
Mrs. Weldon.

They might fear, in fact, that some reptile would glide among the
plants to the halting place. It would be nothing astonishing if it were
one of those enormous "sucurus," kinds of boas, which sometimes measure
forty feet in length.

But Harris reminded Dick Sand that the blacks were already following,
and he reassured Mrs. Weldon.

According to him, that hissing could not be produced by a "sucuru,"
because that serpent does not hiss; but he indicated the presence of
several inoffensive quadrupeds, rather numerous in that country.

"Be reassured, then," said he, "and make no movement which may frighten
those animals."

"But what are they?" asked Dick Sand, who made it like a law of
conscience to interrogate and make the American speak--who, however,
never required pressing before replying.

"They are antelopes, my young friend," replied Harris.

"Oh! how I should like to see them!" cried Jack.

"That is very difficult, my good little man," replied the American,
"very difficult."

"Perhaps we may try to approach than--those hissing antelopes?"
returned Dick Sand.

"Oh! you will not take three steps," replied the American, shaking his
head, "before the whole band will take flight. I beg of you, then, not
to trouble yourself."

But Dick Sand had his reasons for being curious. He wished to see, and,
gun in hand, he glided among the herbs. Immediately a dozen graceful
gazelles, with small, sharp horns, passed with the rapidity of a
water-spout. Their hair, bright red, looked like a cloud of fire under
the tall underwood of the forest.

"I had warned you," said Harris, when the novice returned to take his
place.

Those antelopes were so light of foot, that it had been truly
impossible to distinguish them; but it was not so with another troop of
animals which was signaled the same day. Those could be
see