"The difference in size between man and brontosaurus was nothing compared with the difference in size between man and ant. There are limits to the superiority of brain over brawn — even to the superiority of the brain of an ant, which in proportion to its size is twice as large as the brain of a man. But the time is coming…"
His voice sank almost to a whisper, and in the dim light of candles on the table the smouldering luminous-ness of his eyes seemed to leave the rest of his face in deep shadow.
"With the ant, Nature overreached herself. The ant was ready to take his place at the head of creation before creation was ready for him — before the solar system had progressed far enough to give him the conditions in which his body, and his brain with it, his brain which in all its intrinsic qualities is so much finer than the brain of man, could grow to the brute size at which all its potentialities could be developed. Nevertheless, when the solar system is older, and the sun is red because the white heat of its fire is exhausted, and the red light which will accelerate the growth of all living cells is stronger, the ant will be waiting for his turn. Unless Nature finds a swifter instrument than Time to put right her miscalculation…"
"Does it matter?" asked the Saint lightly, and Sardon's face seemed to flame at him.
"It matters. That is only another thing which we can learn from the ant — that individual profit and ambition should count for nothing beside more enduring good. Listen. When I was a boy I loved small creatures. Among them I kept a colony of ants. In a glass box. I watched them in their busy lives, I studied them as they built their nest, I saw how they divided their labour and how they lived and died so that their common life could go on. I loved them because they were so much better than everyone else I knew. But the other boys could not understand. They thought I was soft and stupid. They were always tormenting me. One day they found my glass box where the ants lived. I fought them, but there were so many of them. They were big and cruel. They made a fire and they put my box on it, while they held me. I saw the ants running, fighting, struggling insanely—" The hushed voice tightened as he spoke until it became thin and shrill like a suppressed scream. "I saw them curling up and shrivelling, writhing, tortured. I could hear the hiss of their seething agony in the flames. I saw them going mad, twisting — sprawling — blackening — burning alive before my eyes —"
"Uncle!"
The quiet voice of the girl Carmen cut softly across the muted shriek in which the last words were spoken, so quietly and normally that it was only in the contrast that Simon realized that Sardon had not really raised his voice.
The wild fire died slowly out of Sardon's eyes. For a moment his face remained set and frozen, and then, as if he had only been recalled from a fleeting lapse of attention, he seemed to come awake again with a slight start.
"Where was I?" he said calmly. "Oh yes. I was speaking about the intelligence of ants… It is even a mistake to assume, because they make no audible sounds, that they have not just as excellent means of communication as ourselves. Whether they share the telepathic gifts of other insects is a disputed point, but it is certain that in their antennae they possess an idiom which is adequate to all ordinary needs. By close study and observation it has even been possible for us to learn some of the elementary gestures. The work of Karl Escherich…"
He went into details, in the same detached incisive tone in which he had been speaking before his outburst.