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o'clock came. Kéraban, Van Mitten, and Bruno, after a light supper which consisted of some of the stores in the hampers, walked about smoking for nearly half an hour, pacing up and down a narrow path which was firm enough to sustain them.

"Now," said Van Mitten, "I think, friend Kéraban, that there is no objection to our going to sleep in the carriage until the fresh horses come."

"I see no objection whatever," replied Kéraban, after a pause. This reply was somewhat extraordinary for a man who was always making objections.

"I do not think we have anything to fear in the middle of such an extensive plain," said the Dutchman.

"I think not."

“There is no attack likely to be made upon us?"

"None."

"Except, perhaps, the attacks of mosquitos," said Bruno, who had just succeeded in administering to himself a hard slap on the face, intended as a death-blow to half-a-dozen of those insects.

As a matter of fact, the worries of these insects became very trying. Attracted, perhaps, by the light of the carriage lamps, the mosquitos came singing in myriads around them.

"Hum," said Van Mitten, "there is one thing needful, and that is a mosquito-net."

"These are not mosquitos," said Kéraban, as he scratched the back of his neck, "they are gnats."

"I'll be hanged if I can tell the difference, then," remarked Van Mitten, who did not wish to enter upon an entomological discussion.