No one made any reply. Each one seemed afraid to pronounce the word.
“Well?” resumed Glenarvan, addressing himself especially to the Major.
“My dear Edward,” replied McNabbs, “it would be incurring too great a responsibility for me to reply _hic et nunc_. It is a question which requires reflection. I must know first, through which countries the thirty-seventh parallel of southern latitude passes?”
“That’s Paganel’s business; he will tell you that,” said Glenarvan.
“Let’s ask him, then,” replied the Major.
But the learned geographer was nowhere to be seen. He was hidden among the thick leafage of the OMBU, and they must call out if they wanted him.
“Here,” replied a voice that seemed to come from the clouds.
“To know what countries the thirty-seventh parallel passes through.”
“That’s easily said. I need not disturb myself to come down for that.”
“Listen, then. After leaving America the thirty-seventh parallel crosses the Atlantic Ocean.”
“It goes on two degrees below the Cape of Good Hope.”
“Runs across the Indian Ocean, and just touches Isle St. Pierre, in the Amsterdam group.”
“It cuts Australia by the province of Victoria.”
This last sentence was not completed. Was the geographer hesitating, or didn’t he know what to say?
No; but a terrible cry resounded from the top of the tree. Glenarvan and his friends turned pale and looked at each other. What fresh catastrophe had happened now? Had the unfortunate Paganel slipped his footing?
Already Wilson and Mulrady had rushed to his rescue when his long body appeared tumbling down from branch to branch.
But was he living or dead, for his hands made no attempt to seize anything to stop himself. A few minutes more, and he would have fallen into the roaring waters had not the Major’s strong arm barred his passage.
“How’s this? What is the matter with you? What came over you? Another of your absent fits.”
“Yes, yes,” replied Paganel, in a voice almost inarticulate with emotion. “Yes, but this was something extraordinary.”
“I said we had made a mistake. We are making it still, and have been all along.”
“Glenarvan, Major, Robert, my friends,” exclaimed Paganel, “all you that hear me, we are looking for Captain Grant where he is not to be found.”