Un capitaine de quinze ans. English Page 24

  CHAPTER V.

  WHITE ANTS.

  The storm had now burst in full fury, and fortunate it was that arefuge had been found. The rain did not fall in separate drops as intemperate zones, but descended like the waters of a cataract, in onesolid and compact mass, in a way that could only suggest the outpour ofsome vast aerial basin containing the waters of an entire ocean.Contrary, too, to the storms of higher latitudes, of which the durationseems ordinarily to be in inverse ratio to their violence, theseAfrican tempests, whatever their magnitude, often last for whole days,furrowing the soil into deep ravines, changing plains to lakes andbrooks to torrents, and causing rivers to overflow and cover vastdistricts with their inundations. It is hard to understand whence suchvolumes of vapour and electric fluid can accumulate. The earth, uponthese occasions, might almost seem to be carried back to the remoteperiod which has been called "the diluvian age."

  Happily, the walls of the ant-hill were very thick; no beaver-hutformed of pounded earth could be more perfectly water-tight, and atorrent might have passed over it without a particle of moisture makingits way through its substance.

  As soon as the party had taken possession of the tenement, a lanternwas lighted, and they proceeded to examine the interior. The cone,which was about twelve feet high inside, was eleven feet wide at thebase, gradually narrowing to a sugar-loaf top. The walls and partitionsbetween the tiers of cells were nowhere less than a foot thickthroughout.

  These wonderful erections, the result of the combined labour ofinnumerable insects, are by no means uncommon in the heart of Africa.Smeathman, a Dutch traveller of the last century, has recorded how heand four companions all at one time occupied the summit of one of themin Lounde. Livingstone noticed some made of red clay, of which theheight varied from fifteen to twenty feet; and in Nyangwe, Cameronseveral times mistook one of these colonies for a native camp pitchedupon the plain. He described some of these strange edifices as beingflanked with small spires, giving them the appearance of acathedral-dome.

  The reddish clay of which the ant-hill was composed could leave nodoubt upon the mind of a naturalist that it had been formed by thespecies known as "termes bellicosus;" had it been made of grey or blackalluvial soil, it might have been attributed to the "termes mordax" or"termes atrox," formidable names that must awaken anything but pleasurein the minds of all but enthusiast entomologists.

  In the centre was an open space, surrounded by roomy compartments,ranged one upon another, like the berths of a ship's cabin, and linedwith the millions of cells that had been occupied by the ants. Thiscentral space was inadequate to hold the whole party that had now madetheir hurried resort to it, but as each of the compartments wassufficiently capacious to admit one person to occupy it in a sittingposture, Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Nan, and Cousin Benedict were exalted tothe upper tier, Austin, Bat, and Actaeon occupied the next story, whilstTom and Hercules, and Dick Sands himself remained below.

  Dick soon found that the soil beneath his feet was beginning to getdamp, and insisted upon having some of the dry clay spread over it fromthe base of the cone.

  "It is a long time," he said, "since we have slept with a roof over ourheads; and I am anxious to make our refuge as secure as possible. Itmay be that we shall have to stay here for a whole day or more; on thefirst opportunity I shall go and explore; it may turn out that we arenear the stream we are seeking; and perhaps we shall have to build araft before we start again."

  Cousin Benedict's curiosity was awakened.]

  Under his direction, therefore, Hercules took his hatchet, andproceeded to break down the lowest range of cells and to spread thedry, brittle clay of which they were composed a good foot thick overthe damp floor, taking care not in any way to block up the aperture bywhich the fresh air penetrated into the interior.

  It was indeed fortunate that the termites had abandoned their home; hadit swarmed with its multitudes of voracious Neuroptera, the ant-hillwould have been utterly untenable for human beings. Cousin Benedict'scuriosity was awakened, and he was intensely interested in the questionof the evacuation, so that he proceeded at once to investigate, if hecould, whether the emigration had been recent or otherwise. He took thelantern, and as the result of his scrutiny he soon discovered in arecess what he described as the termites' "storehouse," or the placewhere the indefatigable insects keep their provisions. It was a largecavity, not far from the royal cell, which, together with the cells forthe reception of the young larvae, had been destroyed by Hercules inthe course of his flooring operations. Out of this receptacle Benedictdrew a considerable quantity of gum and vegetable juices, all in astate so liquid as to demonstrate that they had been deposited therequite recently.

  "They have only just gone," he exclaimed, with an air of authority, asif he imagined that some one was about to challenge his assertion.

  "We are not going to dispute your word, Mr. Benedict," said Dick; "herewe are; we have taken their place, and shall be quite content for themto keep out of the way, without caring when they went, or where theyhave gone."

  "But we must care," retorted Benedict testily; "why they have goneconcerns us a good deal; these juices make it evident, from the liquidstate in which we find them, that the ants were here this morning, theyhave not only gone, but they have carried off their young larvae withthem; they have been sagacious enough to take warning of some impendingdanger."

  "Perhaps they heard that we were coming," said Hercules, laughing.

  A look of withering scorn was the only answer that the entomologistdeigned to give.

  "Yes, I say," repeated Hercules, "perhaps they heard that we werecoming."

  "Pshaw!" said Benedict contemptuously; "do you imagine they would beafraid of you? they would reduce your carcase to a skeleton in no time,if they found it across their path."

  "No doubt, if I were dead," replied Hercules, "they could pick my bonespretty clean; but while I had the use of my limbs I think I could crushthem by thousands."

  "Thousands!" ejaculated Benedict, with increasing warmth; "you thinkyou could demolish thousands; but what if they were hundreds ofthousands, millions, hundreds of millions? Alive as much as dead, Itell you, they wouldn't be long in consuming every morsel of you."

  During this brisk little discussion Dick Sands had been pondering overwhat Benedict had said. There was no doubt that the amateur naturalistwas well acquainted with the habits of white ants, and if, as heaffirmed, the insects had instinctively quitted their abode on accountof some approaching danger, Dick asked himself whether it was safe orprudent for his party to remain. But the fury of the storm was still sogreat that all possibility of removing from the shelter seemedprecluded for the present, and, without inquiring farther into themystery, he merely said,

  "Although the ants, Mr. Benedict, have left us their provisions, wemust not forget that we have brought our own. We will have our suppernow, and to-morrow, when the storm is over, we will see what is to bedone."

  Fatigue had not taken away the appetite of the energetic travellers,and they gladly set about the preparation of their meal. Theprovisions, of which they had enough for another two days, had not beeninjured by the rain. For some minutes the crunching of hard biscuit wasthe only sound to be heard; Hercules, in particular, seemed to poundaway with his huge jaws as with a pair of millstones.

  The naturalist now fairly mounted on a favourite hobby.]

  Mrs. Weldon was the only one of the party who ate little; and thatlittle was only taken at Dick's earnest solicitation; he could not helpnoticing, with much concern, that although Jack seemed to besatisfactorily recovering, and, without sign of fever, was sleepingcalmly enough on a bed made up of clothes spread out in one of thecells, yet his mother had lost much of her courage, and seemedpreoccupied and depressed.

  Cousin Benedict did due honour to the simple evening repast; not onaccount of its quantity or quality, but because it gave him anopportunity of holding forth upon the subject of termites. He was muchvexed that he had been unable to discover a single specimen in t
hedeserted anthill with which he might illustrate his lecture, butnotwithstanding this deficiency he continued to talk, heedless whetherany one was listening.

  "They are wonderful insects," he said; "they belong to the order of theNeuroptera, which have the antennae longer than the head; theirmandibles are well-developed, and the inferior pair of wings isgenerally as large as the superior. There are five families of them;the Panorpide, the Myrmellonide, the Hemerobiide, the Termitine, andthe Perlide. I need hardly say that what we are now occupying is adwelling of the Termitine."

  At this point Dick became all attention; he was anxious to ascertainwhether this discovery of white ants had aroused any suspicion inBenedict's mind that they must be on African soil. The naturalist, nowfairly mounted on a favourite hobby, went on with his discourse.

  "I am sorry not to have a specimen to show you, but these Termitinehave four joints in the tarsi, and strong horny mandibles. The familyincludes, as genera, the Mantispa, the Raphidia, and the Termes, thelast commonly known as white ants, amongst which are 'Termes fatalis,Termes lucifugans, Termes mordax,' and several others more or lessrare."

  "And which of them built this ant-hill?" inquired Dick.

  "The bellicosi!" replied Benedict, pronouncing the name with as muchpride as if he were eulogizing the Macedonians or some warlike nationof antiquity. "Bellicosi," he continued, "are to be found of everysize. There is as much difference between the largest and the smallestof them as there is between Hercules and a dwarf; the workers are aboutone-fifth of an inch long; the soldiers, or fighting-ants, are half aninch; whilst the males and females measure four fifths of an inch.There is another curious species, called 'sirafoos,' which are abouthalf an inch long, and have pincers instead of mandibles, and headslarger than their bodies, like sharks. In fact, if sharks and sirafooswere placed in competition, I should be inclined to back the sharks."

  "And where are these sirafoos most generally to be found?" said Dickcautiously.

  "In Africa, in the southern and central provinces. Africa may truly betermed the land of ants. Livingstone, in the notes brought home byStanley, describes a battle which he was fortunate enough to witnessbetween an army of black ants and an army of red. The black ants, ordrivers, which are what the natives call sirafoos, got the best of it;and the red ants, or 'tchoongoos,' after a very resolute defence, wereobliged to retire defeated, carrying their eggs and young ones withthem. Livingstone avows that he never saw the warlike instinct sostrongly developed as in these sirafoos; the stoutest man, the largestanimal, a lion or an elephant, quails before the grip of theirmandibles: no obstacle impedes their progress; no tree is too lofty forthem to scale, and they contrive to cross wide streams by forming theirown bodies into a kind of suspension bridge. Equally amazing are theirnumbers; Du Chaillu, another African traveller, relates how it tookmore than twelve hours for a column of ants to file pass him, without amoment's pause in their march. These numbers, however cease to be sosurprising when it is explained that their fecundity is such that asingle female of the termites bellicosi has been estimated to produceas many as sixty thousand eggs a day. These Neuroptera furnish thenatives with a favourite food, grilled ants being considered a greatdelicacy."

  "Have you ever tasted them?" asked Hercules, with a grin.

  "Never," answered the naturalist; "but I am in hopes I shall have achance of doing so very soon."

  "Surely you don't imagine yourself in Africa!" said Tom suddenly.

  "Africa! no; why should I?" replied Benedict; "but, as I have alreadyseen a tzetsy in America, I do not despair of having the satisfactionof discovering white ants there too. You do not know the sensation Ishall make in Europe when I publish my folio volume and itsillustrations."

  It was evident that no inkling of the truth had yet entered poorBenedict's brain, and it seemed likely that it would requiredemonstration far more striking than any natural phenomena to undeceivethe minds of such of the party as were not already in possession of thefatal secret.

  Although it was nine o'clock, Cousin Benedict went on talkingincessantly, regardless of the fact that one by one his audience werefalling to sleep in their separate cells. Dick Sands did not sleep, butneither did he interrupt the entomologist by farther questions;Hercules kept up his attention longer than the rest, but at length hetoo succumbed to weariness, and his eyes and ears were closed to allexternal sights and sounds.

  But endurance has limits, and at last Cousin Benedict, having wornhimself out, clambered up to the topmost cell of the cone, which he hadchosen for his dormitory, and fell into a peaceful slumber.

  The lantern had been already extinguished. All was darkness and silencewithin, whilst the storm without still raged with a violence that gaveno sign of abatement.

  Dick Sands himself was the only one of the party who was not partakingin the repose that was so indispensable to them all; but he could notsleep; his every thought was absorbed in the responsibility that restedon him to rescue those under his charge from the dangers thatthreatened them. Again and again he recalled every incident that hadoccurred since the loss of Captain Hull and his crew; he remembered theoccasion when he had stood with his pistol pointed at Negoro's head;why, oh why, had his hand faltered then? why had he not at that momenthurled the miserable wretch overboard, and thus relieved himself andhis partners in trouble from the catastrophe that had since befallenthem? Peril was still staring them in the face, and his sole drop ofconsolation in the bitter cup of despondency was that Mrs. Weldon wasstill ignorant of their real situation.

  At that moment, just in the fever of his agony, he felt a light breathupon his forehead; a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a gentlevoice murmured in his ear,--

  "My poor boy, I know everything. God will help us! His will be done!"

  "My poor boy, I know everything."]