"Jules Verne. Off on a Comet. WORKS" - читать интересную книгу автора

his sensations in words, he would have said that he felt "up to anything,"
and he had even forgotten to taste so much as a crust of bread, a lapse
of memory of which the worthy soldier was rarely guilty.

As these thoughts were crossing his mind, a harsh bark was heard to
the left of the footpath, and a jackal was seen emerging from a large
grove of lentisks. Regarding the two wayfarers with manifest uneasiness,
the beast took up its position at the foot of a rock, more than thirty
feet in height. It belonged to an African species distinguished
by a black spotted skin, and a black line down the front of the legs.
At night-time, when they scour the country in herds, the creatures are
somewhat formidable, but singly they are no more dangerous than a dog.
Though by no means afraid of them, Ben Zoof had a particular aversion
to jackals, perhaps because they had no place among the fauna of his
beloved Montmartre. He accordingly began to make threatening gestures,
when, to the unmitigated astonishment of himself and the captain,
the animal darted forward, and in one single bound gained the summit
of the rock.

"Good Heavens!" cried Ben Zoof, "that leap must have been thirty
feet at least."

"True enough," replied the captain; "I never saw such a jump."

Meantime the jackal had seated itself upon its haunches,
and was staring at the two men with an air of impudent defiance.
This was too much for Ben Zoof's forbearance, and stooping down
he caught up a huge stone, when to his surprise, he found that it was
no heavier than a piece of petrified sponge. "Confound the brute!"
he exclaimed, "I might as well throw a piece of bread at him.
What accounts for its being as light as this?"

Nothing daunted, however, he hurled the stone into the air.
It missed its aim; but the jackal, deeming it on the whole
prudent to decamp, disappeared across the trees and hedges
with a series of bounds, which could only be likened
to those that might be made by an india-rubber kangaroo.
Ben Zoof was sure that his own powers of propelling must equal
those of a howitzer, for his stone, after a lengthened flight
through the air, fell to the ground full five hundred paces
the other side of the rock.

The orderly was now some yards ahead of his master, and had
reached a ditch full of water, and about ten feet wide.
With the intention of clearing it, he made a spring,
when a loud cry burst from Servadac. "Ben Zoof, you idiot!
What are you about? You will break your back!"

And well might he be alarmed, for Ben Zoof had sprung to a height of
forty feet into the air. Fearful of the consequences that would attend