tale! Oh! how pleased I should be to be able to read
such pretty stories as that in a book!"

"Tales, indeed!" cried Lucien, quite indignant.

"Well, the very idea of saying that the earth is a ball, which moves
round and round, and that there are stars which are bigger! Many a night
have I spent looking at the stars, and I know they are nothing but
lanterns, and that's enough!"

"But if you have observed them so carefully," interposed Sumichrast,
"you must have observed that they are constantly shifting their places."

"Yes, but that is because the angels don't always light up the same
stars, and God has plenty of them in every direction--"

I now interrupted the conversation.

"Come, let us all go to rest!" I cried, cutting short a discussion which
I knew, by experience, must end in Lucien and Sumichrast getting the
worst of it.

The next morning there was nothing better to do than to go with my
companions to look after the aerolite. The ball of fire appeared to have
passed just over us, and I fancied that we should be certain to recover
some part of it. After an hour of useless wandering, we were compelled
to admit that our eyes must have been much mistaken as to distances.
L'Encuerado could not help smiling incredulously on hearing the
conjectures which I and Sumichrast made; but he was generous enough not
to take advantage of the superior astronomical knowledge which he
assumed he possessed.

On setting out I again crossed the valley, and then climbing the
mountain, I led my companions up to a plateau.

As far as was possible I followed the route I thought the meteor had
taken. L'Encuerado was just making his way into the forest when
Sumichrast noticed a broken tree, a little to the right. I leaped up on
the slope, and soon remarked that the ground, for a space of at least
twenty yards, was strewn with black or green stones, which had been in a
fused state, and evidently bore the appearance of iron _scoriae_. There
could be no doubt about it; the tree which had been struck had caused
the explosion of the meteor, and had broken under the shock.

"These, therefore, are the remains of some of your sky-lanterns," said
Lucien to l'Encuerado, who had just picked up some large stones, shining
like metal.

The Indian shook his head without answering. The fallen tree, the burned
and blackened trunk, the withered and even scorched grass, these
strange-looking stones--every thing visibly combined to upset his
t