"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.