“Ants,” replied Cocoeni, hoarsely, while he shivered with unmistakable fear. “The bashikonay ants eat up every living thing in their way, and yonder they come in force; they have smelt out the locusts.”
Our heroes looked when Cocoeni pointed with his trembling finger, and saw marching down the valley a vast army of ants, each insect about half an inch long.
They were in close order, and had divided themselves into two lines, one on each side of the stream. So dense were they that they completely filled the valley, until no ground could be seen under them. They also extended in a solid phalanx until the winding hid their tail. They were coming along in perfect soldier-like order, and running rapidly, with their officers and scouts directing their movements.
“Are they so very vicious, then?” asked Ned, as he watched their fine uniform motions with admiration.
“I tell you what, baas, if they see us they will eat us up in no time, and leave our bones clean picked. No man nor beast can meet them and live. They are terrible, and cannot be fought with.”
“Then are we quite safe here?”
“I think so—I hope so. They do not like to cross water; besides, the locusts are what they are after now, therefore, so that we don’t stand in their path, they may pass on. If the front rank passes on, the rest will follow.”
It was an anxious moment, for our heroes had no desire to test the eating qualities of those small monsters. It is not nice to think of being reduced to a skeleton so rapidly; besides, the agony of those myriad nippers at work in and outside every organ, disintegrating humanity, was frightful to contemplate.
Ned thought about the tortures of the iron boot with the boiling oil poured in, the rack, and red-hot pincers, etc.; but even the imagination of these failed to come up to the vague horror of being demolished in this infinitesimal fashion.
Ages seemed to drag by before the front ranks were on a line with where he stood. He watched the ruthless little monsters of fate, fascinated, and thought with horror on the myriads of ogreish, sharp eyes that might be watching these helpless victims in the tiny stream.