Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/425

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TN CAPTIVITY. 397 caravan; even if she had heard the noisy commotion of the market she would not hâve known what it meant, and she was in ignorance alike of the death of Harris/ of the sale of Tom and his companions, of the dreadful end of the kîng, and of the royal obsequîes in whîch poor Dîck had been assigned so melancholy a share. During the journey from the Coanza to Kazonndâ, Harrîs and Negoro had heid no conversation with her, and since her arrivai she had not been allowed to pass the inclosure of the establish- ment» so that, as far as she knew, she was quite alone, and being in Negoro's power, was in a position from whîch it seemed only too likely nothîng but death could release her. From Cousin Benedict. it is needless to repeat, she could expect no assistance; his own personal pursuits engrossed him, and he had no care nor leisure to bestow upon ex- temal circumstances. His first feelîng, on being made to understand that he was not in America, was one of deep disappointment that the wonderfui things he had seen were no discoveries at ail; they were simply African insects common on African soil. This vexation, however, soon passed away, and he began to believe that " the land of the Pharaohs " might possess as much entomologîcal wealth as " the land of the Incas." "Ah," he would exclaim to Mrs. Weldon, heedless that she gave him little or no attention, " this is the country of the manticorae, and wonderfui coleoptera they are, with their long hairy legs, their sharp elytra and their big man- dibles; the most remarkable of them ail is the tuberous manticora. And isn't this, too, the land of the golden- tipped calosomî? and of the prickly-legged goliaths of Guinea and Gabon? Hère, too, we ought to find the spotted anthidia, whîch lay their eggs in empty snail-shells; and the sacred atenchus, whîch the old Egyptians used to vcnerate as divine.'* " Ycs, yes;" he would say at another time, " this is the proper habitat of those death 's-hcad sphinxes whîch are now so common everywhere; and this is the place for those Mdias Bigoti/ so formidable to the natives of Sénégal.