Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/457

 AN EXCITING CHASE. 429 reached the extrême tip of the nose. Like a couple of movable lenses, Benedict's two eyes steadily turned them- selves înwards till they were dîrected to the pfoper point. " Good ! " he whispcred to himself. He was exulting at the dlscovery that what he had been waiting for so patiently was a rare spécimen of the tribe of the Cicindelidae, peculiar to the districts of Southern Africa. The însect began to move again, and as it crawled down to the entrance of the nostrils the tickling sensation becamc too much for endurance, and Benedict sneezed. He made a sudden clutch, but of course he only caught his own nose. His vexation was very great, but he did not lose his composure ; he knew that the manticora rarely Aies very high, and that more frequently than not it simply crawls. Accordingly he groped about a long time on his hands and knees, and at last he found it basking in a ray of sunshine within a foot of him. His resolution was soon taken. He would not run the risk of crushing it by trying to catch it, but would make his observations on it as it crawled ; and so with his nose close to the ground, like a dog upon the scent, he foUowed it on ail fours, admiring it and examining it as it moved. Regardless of the heat he not only left the doorway of his hut, but continued creeping along till he reached the enclosing palisade. At the foot of the fence the manticora, according to the habits of its kind, began to seek a subterranean rctreat, and coming to the opening of a mole-track entered it at once. Benedict quite thought he had now lost sight of his prize altogether, but his surprise was very great when he found that the aperture was at least two feet wide, and that it led into a gallery which would admit his whole body. His momentary feeling of astonishment, however, gave way to hîs eagemess to follow up the hexapod, and he continued burrowing like a ferret. Without knowing it, he actually passed under the palisading, and was now beyond it ; — the mole-track, in fact, was a communication that had been made between
 * A tuberous mantîcora! " he exclaîmed.