st mile
cleared, they saw a large hole, opened through the underwood, which
ended obliquely at the rivulet and followed its bank. It was a passage
made by elephants, and those animals, doubtless by hundreds, were in
the habit of traversing this part of the forest. Great holes, made by
the feet of the enormous pachyderms, riddled a soil softened during
the rainy season. Its spongy nature also prepared it for those large
imprints.

It soon appeared that this passage did not serve for those gigantic
animals alone. Human beings had more than once taken this route, but
as flocks, brutally led to the slaughter-house, would have followed
it. Here and there bones of dead bodies strewed the ground; remains
of skeletons, half gnawed by animals, some of which still bore the
slave's fetters.

There are, in Central Africa, long roads thus marked out by human
debris. Hundreds of miles are traversed by caravans, and how many
unhappy wretches fall by the way, under the agents' whips, killed by
fatigue or privations, decimated by sickness! How many more massacred
by the traders themselves, when food fails! Yes, when they can no
longer feed them, they kill them with the gun, with the sword, with
the knife! These massacres are not rare.

So, then, caravans of slaves had followed this road. For a mile Dick
Sand and his companions struck against these scattered bones at each
step, putting to flight enormous fern-owls. Those owls rose at their
approach, with a heavy flight, and turned round in the air.

Mrs. Weldon looked without seeing. Dick Sand trembled lest she should
question him, for he hoped to lead her back to the coast without
telling her that Harris's treachery had led them astray in an African
province. Fortunately, Mrs. Weldon did not explain to herself what
she had under her eyes. She had desired to take her child again, and
little Jack, asleep, absorbed all her care. Nan walked near her, and
neither of them asked the young novice the terrible questions he
dreaded.

Old Tom went along with his eyes down. He understood only too well why
this opening was strewn with human bones.

His companions looked to the right, to the left, with an air of
surprise, as if they were crossing an interminable cemetery, the
tombs of which had been overthrown by a cataclysm; but they passed in
silence.

Meanwhile, the bed of the rivulet became deeper and wider at the same
time. Its current was less impetuous. Dick Sand hoped that it would