"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 theory. Each of us added to his load one of the aerolites; then, again returning to the plateau, we plunged into the forest. One shot that Sumichrast made rendered him happy for the whole day. He had knocked down a green-colored crossbill, of a species still unknown in Europe. "What a queer bird!" cried Lucien. "How did it manage to eat with its mouth all awry?" "Its mouth," replied Sumichrast, smiling, "is well adapted to its food. This bird--which we have here met with quite by chance, as it usually frequents mountain-tops--feeds on roots, buds, and pine-cones. Owing to its two mandibles being so strongly made and so curiously arranged it can cut through, as if with a pair of scissors, branches which a bird with a pointed beak could never penetrate." "God is mindful of all His creatures," muttered l'Encuerado, who was helping to skin the bird. "I had always fancied that these poor creatures were deformed."