st dar for two
year. Stuck to 'im like a limpit till he a-most busted hisself by
tumblin' into a swamp, smashin' his spectacles, an' ketchin' fever, w'en
he found hisself obleeged to go home to recroot--he called it--though
what dat was I nebber rightly understood, unless it was drinkin' brandy
an' water; for I noticed that w'en he said he needed to recroot, he
allers had a good stiff pull at de brandy bottle."

Ebony's discourse was here cut short by the sudden appearance of an
enormous butterfly, which the excitable negro dashed after at a
breakneck pace in the interests of science. The last glimpse they had
of him, as he disappeared among the trees, was in a somewhat peculiar
attitude, with his head down and his feet in the air!

"That's a sign he has missed him," remarked Hockins, beginning to fill
his pipe--the tobacco, not the musical, one! "I've always observed that
when Ebony becomes desperate, and knows he can't git hold of the thing
he's arter, he makes a reckless plunge, with a horrible yell, goes right
down by the head, and disappears like a harpooned whale."

"True, but have you not also observed," said Mark, "that like the whale
he's sure to come to the surface again--sooner or later--and generally
with the object of pursuit in possession?"

"I b'lieve you're right, doctor," said the seaman, emitting a prolonged
puff of smoke.

"Does he always go mad like that?" asked the Secretary, who was much
amused.

"Usually," replied Mark, "but he is generally madder than that. He's in
comparatively low spirits to-day. Perhaps it is the heat that affects
him. Whew! how hot it is! I think I shall take a bath in the first
pool we come to."

"That would only make you hotter, sir," said Hockins. "I've often tried
it. At first, no doubt, when you gits into the water it cools you, but
arter you come out you git hotter than before. A _hot_ bath is the
thing to cool you comfortably."

"But we can't get a hot bath here," returned Mark.

"You are wrong," said the Secretary, "we have many natural hot springs
in our land. There is one not far from here."

"How far?" asked Mark with some interest.

"About two rice-cookings off."

To dispel the reader's perplexity, we may explain at once that in
Madagascar they measure distances by the time occupied in cooking a pot
of rice. As that operation occupies about half-an-hour, the Secretary
meant that the hot spring was distant about two half-hours--that is,