But it must be acknowledged that we had compared only the material forces of the two armies, and had not taken into account their moral strength.
We recognized at the first onset an astonishing amount of skill and intelligence on the part of the little blacks. By sixes, they seized upon one of their gigantic opponents, each holding and neutralizing a claw; then two leaped on its back, and firmly grasped its antennæ, until the giant, bound in every limb, was reduced to an inert body. It seemed to lose its senses; to grow dull and stupid; no longer to be conscious of its enormous superiority of strength. Others then rushed to the attack, and, without incurring any danger, stabbed him above and below.
The scene, regarded from a near point of view, was frightful. Whatever admiration the little ones merited for their heroic courage, their fury made one shudder. It was impossible to see without a feeling of pity these poor garotted giants, dragged miserably to and fro,—fired at from right and left,—floating as in an open sea on these billows of rage and impetuosity,—blind, powerless, and incapable of resistance,—like lambs beneath the butcher's knife.
We longed to separate them. But how was it to be done? We were in the presence of infinity. A man's strength was nothing when tested against such multitudes. We might have proceeded to the extremity of a universal deluge,—a moment's noyade[P]—but even this would have proved insufficient. They would not have let go their death-grasp; and when the torrent had flowed by, the massacre would have continued. The sole remedy, and an atrocious one—worse even than the evil—would have been to have burned alive, with a wisp of flaming straw, the two contending hosts, the conquerors and the conquered.
[P] The wholesale drownings which took place at Lyons during the Reign of Terror were known as noyades.—Translator.
We were particularly struck by the fact that, after all, it was only a very few of the big ants that were garotted and captured; and that if those which remained free had fallen upon the assailants, they might easily have wrought a frightful carnage, their action being so rapid, and one blow inflicting death. But no such idea occurred to them. They ran hither and thither in a panic of fear, and rushed into the very throes of danger, into the thickest press of the hostile masses. Alas, they were not only vanquished, but seemed to have lost their senses! While the little ants, feeling themselves at home, on their native soil, showed so firm a front, the gigantic foreigners,—without any stake in the ground,—a desperate fragment of an annihilated city,—wholly ignorant of the country whither they had been transplanted,—recognized that everything was antagonistic to them, that a snare was hidden at every step, that no refuge was open to their scattered forces. Ah, woful condition of a people whose fatherland has perished, and who have lost their gods!
Yes, I excuse them. We ourselves were almost terrified at the sight of those legions of death,—that formidable army of little black skeletons which had all escaladed the earthen vase, and in that confined region, choked and burning, crowded and furious, mounted one upon another. As the discomfiture of the giants became a thing assured, horrible appetites were revealed among the blacks. An opportune moment arrived. It was a dramatic stroke! In their mute but terribly eloquent pantomime, we heard this cry: "Their young ones are fat!"
The gluttonous army of the lean threw themselves on the children. The latter, belonging to a superior race, were sufficiently heavy; and more, their oblong nymph-like envelope, round and smooth, offered no points of vantage. Two, three, four little blacks, by combining their efforts, succeeded, though not without difficulty, in carrying a single one of these up the smooth sides of the earthen vase. Then they came abruptly to a terrible resolve,—to seize upon the maillots, to bear off the naked children. It was no easy matter, for the little one clung stoutly, and its interwoven limbs were, so to speak, soldered together; in such wise that this violent and sudden development could only be effected by severe wounds,—in fact, by quartering them. The black ants then carried them off, torn and palpitating.