During that day, while hunting in the high grass, he started a bird whose warbling attracted him.
Dick Sand was going to shoot it, when Cousin Benedict cried out:
"Don't fire, Dick!
Don't fire!
A bird among five persons would not be enough."
"It will be enough for Jack," replied Dick Sand, taking aim at the bird, which was in no hurry to fly away.
"No, no!" said Cousin Benedict, "do not fire!
It is an indicator, and it will bring us honey in abundance."
Dick Sand lowered his gun, realizing that a few pounds of honey were worth more than one bird; and Cousin Benedict and he followed the bird, which rose and flew away, inviting them to go with it.
They had not far to go, and a few minutes after, some old trunks, hidden in between the spurges, appeared in the midst of an intense buzzing of bees.
Cousin Benedict would have preferred not to have robbed these industrious hymenopters of the "fruit of their labors," as he expressed it.
But Dick Sand did not understand it in that way.
He smoked out the bees with some dry herbs and obtained a considerable quantity of honey.
Then leaving to the indicator the cakes of wax, which made its share of the profit, Cousin Benedict and he returned to the boat.
The honey was well received, but it was but little, and, in fact, all would have suffered cruelly from hunger, if, during the day of the 12th, the boat had not stopped near a creek where some locusts swarmed.
They covered the ground and the shrubs in myriads, two or three deep.
Now, Cousin Benedict not failing to say that the natives frequently eat these orthopters—which was perfectly true—they took possession of this manna. There was enough to fill the boat ten times, and broiled over a mild fire, these edible locusts would have seemed excellent even to less famished people.
Cousin Benedict, for his part, eat a notable quantity of them, sighing, it is true—still, he eat them.
Nevertheless, it was time for this long series of moral and physical trials to come to an end.
Although drifting on this rapid river was not so fatiguing as had been the walking through the first forests near the coast, still, the excessive heat of the day, the damp mists at night, and the incessant attacks of the mosquitoes, made this descent of the watercourse very painful.
It was time to arrive somewhere, and yet Dick Sand could see no limit to the journey.
Would it last eight days or a month?
Nothing indicated an answer.
Had the river flowed directly to the west, they would have already reached the northern coast of Angola; but the general direction had been rather to the north, and they could travel thus a long time before reaching the coast.
Dick Sand was, therefore, extremely anxious, when a sudden change of direction took place on the morning of the 14th of July.
Little Jack was in the front of the boat, and he was gazing through the thatch, when a large expanse of water appeared on the horizon.
"The sea!" he shouted.
At this word Dick Sand trembled, and came close to little Jack.
"The sea?" he replied.
"No, not yet; but at least a river which flows toward the west, and of which this stream is only a tributary.
Perhaps it is the Zaire itself."
"May God grant that is!" replied Mrs. Weldon.
Yes; for if this were the Zaire or Congo, which Stanley was to discover a few years later, they had only to descend its course so as to reach the Portuguese settlements at its mouth.
Dick Sand hoped that it might be so, and he was inclined to believe it.
During the 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th of July, in the midst of a more fertile country, the boat drifted on the silvery waters of the river.
They still took the same precautions, and it was always a mass of herbs that the current seemed to carry on its surface.
A few days more, and no doubt the survivors of the "Pilgrim" would see the termination of their miseries.
Self-sacrifice had been shared in by all, and if the young novice would not claim the greater part of it, Mrs. Weldon would demand its recognition for him.
But on the 18th of July, during the night, an incident took place which compromised the safety of the party.
Toward three o'clock in the morning a distant noise, still very low, was heard in the west.
Dick Sand, very anxious, wished to know what caused it.
While Mrs. Weldon, Jack, and Cousin Benedict slept in the bottom of the boat, he called Hercules to the front, and told him to listen with the greatest attention.
The night was calm.
Not a breeze stirred the atmosphere.
"It is the noise of the sea," said Hercules, whose eyes shone with joy.
"No," replied Dick Sand, holding down his head.
"What is it then?" asked Hercules.
"Wait until day; but we must watch with the greatest care."
At this answer, Hercules returned to his post. Dick Sand stood in front, listening all the time.
The noise increased.