Evidently it was better to study it in this independent attitude. Only
he must not lose sight of it.
"To seize the _manticore_ would be to risk crushing it," Cousin
Benedict said to himself. "No; I shall follow it! I shall admire it! I
have time enough to take it!"
Was Cousin Benedict wrong? However that may be, see him now on all
fours, his nose to the ground like a dog that smells a scent, and
following seven or eight inches behind the superb hexapode. One moment
after he was outside his hut, under the midday sun, and a few minutes
later at the foot of the palisade that shut in Alvez's establishment.
At this place was the _manticore_ going to clear the enclosure with a
bound, and put a wall between its adorer and itself? No, that was not
in its nature, and Cousin Benedict knew it well. So he was always
there, crawling like a snake, too far off to recognize the insect
entomologically--besides, that was done--but near enough to perceive
that large, moving point traveling over the ground.
The _manticore_, arrived near the palisade, had met the large entrance
of a mole-hill that opened at the foot of the enclosure. There,
without hesitating, it entered this subterranean gallery, for it is in
the habit of seeking those obscure passages. Cousin Benedict believed
that he was going to lose sight of it.
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