caped him.

That particular noise, too well known by African travelers, the
whizzing of arrows, passed through the air.

Dick Sand had had time to perceive a camp a hundred feet from the
ant-hill, and ten feet from the cone, on the inundated plain, long
boats, filled with natives.

It was from one of those boats that the flight of arrows had come the
moment the young novice's head appeared out of the hole.

Dick Sand, in a word, had told all to his companions. Seizing his gun,
followed by Hercules, Acteon, and Bat, he reappeared at the summit of
the cone, and all fired on one of the boats.

Several natives fell, and yells, accompanied by shots, replied to the
detonation of the fire-arms.

But what could Dick Sand and his companions do against a hundred
Africans, who surrounded them on all sides?

The ant-hill was assailed. Mrs. Weldon, her child, and Cousin
Benedict, all were brutally snatched from it, and without having had
time to speak to each other or to shake hands for the last time, they
saw themselves separated from each other, doubtless in virtue of
orders previously given.

A last boat took away Mrs. Weldon, little Jack and Cousin Benedict.
Dick Sand saw them disappear in the middle of the camp.

As to him, accompanied by Nan, Old Tom, Hercules, Bat, Acteon and
Austin, he was thrown into a second boat, which went toward another
point of the hill.

Twenty natives entered this boat.

It was followed by five others.

Resistance was not possible, and nevertheless, Dick Sand and his
companions attempted it. Some soldiers of the caravan were wounded
by them, and certainly they would have paid for this resistance with
their lives, if there had not been a formal order to spare them.

In a few minutes, the passage was made. But just as the boat landed,
Hercules, with an irresistible bound, sprang on the ground. Two
natives having sprung on him, the giant turned his gun like a club,
and the natives fell, with their skulls broken.

A moment after, Hercules disappeared under the cover of the trees,
in the midst of a shower of balls, as Dick Sand and his companions,
having been put on land, were chained like slaves.

CHAPTER VII.

IN CAMP ON THE BANKS OF THE COANZA.

The aspect of the country was entirely changed since the inundation.
It had made a lake of the plain where the termite village stood. The
cones of twenty ant-hills emerged, and formed the only projecting
points on this large basin