Though Michel Ardan and he had crossed the plains still wet with dew, and had taken the shortest route over creeks and ricefields, they could not reach Skersnaw in under five hours and a half.
Barbicane must have pa.s.sed the border half an hour ago.
There was an old bushman working there, occupied in selling f.a.gots from trees that had been leveled by his axe.
Maston ran toward him, saying, "Have you seen a man go into the wood, armed with a rifle? Barbicane, the president, my best friend?"
The worthy secretary of the Gun Club thought that his president must be known by all the world. But the bushman did not seem to understand him.
"A hunter?" said Ardan.
"A hunter? Yes," replied the bushman.
"Long ago?"
"About an hour."
"Too late!" cried Maston.
"Have you heard any gunshots?" asked Ardan.
"No!"
"Not one?"
"Not one! that hunter did not look as if he knew how to hunt!"
"What is to be done?" said Maston.
"We must go into the wood, at the risk of getting a ball which is not intended for us."
"Ah!" cried Maston, in a tone which could not be mistaken, "I would rather have twenty b.a.l.l.s in my own head than one in Barbicane"s."
"Forward, then," said Ardan, pressing his companion"s hand.
A few moments later the two friends had disappeared in the copse.
It was a dense thicket, in which rose huge cypresses, sycamores, tulip-trees, olives, tamarinds, oaks, and magnolias.
These different trees had interwoven their branches into an inextricable maze, through which the eye could not penetrate.
Michel Ardan and Maston walked side by side in silence through the tall gra.s.s, cutting themselves a path through the strong creepers, casting curious glances on the bushes, and momentarily expecting to hear the sound of rifles. As for the traces which Barbicane ought to have left of his pa.s.sage through the wood, there was not a vestige of them visible: so they followed the barely perceptible paths along which Indians had tracked some enemy, and which the dense foliage darkly overshadowed.
After an hour spent in vain pursuit the two stopped in intensified anxiety.
"It must be all over," said Maston, discouraged. "A man like Barbicane would not dodge with his enemy, or ensnare him, would not even maneuver! He is too open, too brave. He has gone straight ahead, right into the danger, and doubtless far enough from the bushman for the wind to prevent his hearing the report of the rifles."
"But surely," replied Michel Ardan, "since we entered the wood we should have heard!"
"And what if we came too late?" cried Maston in tones of despair.
For once Ardan had no reply to make, he and Maston resuming their walk in silence. From time to time, indeed, they raised great shouts, calling alternately Barbicane and Nicholl, neither of whom, however, answered their cries. Only the birds, awakened by the sound, flew past them and disappeared among the branches, while some frightened deer fled precipitately before them.
For another hour their search was continued. The greater part of the wood had been explored. There was nothing to reveal the presence of the combatants. The information of the bushman was after all doubtful, and Ardan was about to propose their abandoning this useless pursuit, when all at once Maston stopped.
"Hush!" said he, "there is some one down there!"
"Some one?" repeated Michel Ardan.
"Yes; a man! He seems motionless. His rifle is not in his hands.
What can he be doing?"
"But can you recognize him?" asked Ardan, whose short sight was of little use to him in such circ.u.mstances.
"Yes! yes! He is turning toward us," answered Maston.
"And it is?"
"Captain Nicholl!"
"Nicholl?" cried Michel Ardan, feeling a terrible pang of grief.
"Nicholl unarmed! He has, then, no longer any fear of his adversary!"
"Let us go to him," said Michel Ardan, "and find out the truth."
But he and his companion had barely taken fifty steps, when they paused to examine the captain more attentively. They expected to find a bloodthirsty man, happy in his revenge.
On seeing him, they remained stupefied.
A net, composed of very fine meshes, hung between two enormous tulip-trees, and in the midst of this snare, with its wings entangled, was a poor little bird, uttering pitiful cries, while it vainly struggled to escape. The bird-catcher who had laid this snare was no human being, but a venomous spider, peculiar to that country, as large as a pigeon"s egg, and armed with enormous claws. The hideous creature, instead of rushing on its prey, had beaten a sudden retreat and taken refuge in the upper branches of the tulip-tree, for a formidable enemy menaced its stronghold.
Here, then, was Nicholl, his gun on the ground, forgetful of danger, trying if possible to save the victim from its cobweb prison. At last it was accomplished, and the little bird flew joyfully away and disappeared.
Nicholl lovingly watched its flight, when he heard these words p.r.o.nounced by a voice full of emotion:
"You are indeed a brave man."
He turned. Michel Ardan was before him, repeating in a different tone:
"And a kindhearted one!"
"Michel Ardan!" cried the captain. "Why are you here?"
"To press your hand, Nicholl, and to prevent you from either killing Barbicane or being killed by him."
"Barbicane!" returned the captain. "I have been looking for him for the last two hours in vain. Where is he hiding?"
"Nicholl!" said Michel Ardan, "this is not courteous! we ought always to treat an adversary with respect; rest a.s.sureed if Barbicane is still alive we shall find him all the more easily; because if he has not, like you, been amusing himself with freeing oppressed birds, he must be looking for _you_. When we have found him, Michel Ardan tells you this, there will be no duel between you."
"Between President Barbicane and myself," gravely replied Nicholl, "there is a rivalry which the death of one of us----"