Since
then, my task has been reduced simply to watch the habits of the
animal, and to record the results. When we reach a certain distance
where these beasts are said to abound, I am to have the liberal
examination of the specimen."
Paul continued to listen, in the most profound silence, until the
Doctor concluded his singular but characteristic explanation; then the
incredulous bee-hunter shook his head, and saw fit to reply, by
saying--
"Stranger, old Ishmael has burrowed you in the very bottom of a hollow
tree, where your eyes will be of no more use than the sting of a
drone. I, too, know something of that very wagon, and I may say that I
have lined the squatter down into a flat lie. Harkee, friend; do you
think a girl, like Ellen Wade, would become the companion of a wild
beast?"
"Why not? why not?" repeated the naturalist; "Nelly has a taste, and
often listens with pleasure to the treasures that I am sometimes
compelled to scatter in this desert. Why should she not study the
habits of any animal, even though it were a rhinoceros?"
"Softly, softly," returned the equally positive, and, though less
scientific, certainly, on this subject, better instructed bee-hunter;
"Ellen is a girl of spirit, and one too that knows her own mind, or
I'm much mistaken; but with all her courage and brave looks, she is no
better than a woman after all.
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