At length the fish became scarce in the Eliva Monon; the shoals were leaving fast for the sea. By this time the young kongoos and compagnondos could fly, and the fishing eagles left gradually. The last to leave was the sad old kongoo. He stood for days near his nest, hoping that his mate would come back. Finally he gave up the hope of ever seeing her again, and flew away, never to come back to the Eliva Monon. The following year some other kongoos took possession of his abandoned nest.
Not one of the fishing eagles could ever tell him what had become of his mate. Had she suddenly dropped dead? Had she been carried away under the water by a big fish, or as she was striving to rise from the water with a big fish did a water-snake coil round her? The widowed kongoo the following year got another companion, but he always remembered his first mate and chose another river during the spawning season.
CHAPTER XLV
THE BASHIKOUAY ANTS
Millions upon millions of bashikouay ants inhabit their subterranean dwellings; but no one to this day has been able to see how they live there, and what their home is like.
One day there was great excitement among them. They all shouted: “Let us go above the ground and make a raid. The forest is also our home; it is there that we get our living.”
They cried boastfully: “We are very small, it is true, and when we are alone we are powerless; but as an army we are the most formidable and dreaded creatures of the forest. Who can withstand our fierceness when we are on the war path, and are eager for attack! The big njokoo runs as fast as he can at our approach,” and they laughed when they thought of his big size and the capers he cut when they swarmed into his ears, and everywhere over his huge body. “The terrible and mighty ngina whose roarings fill the forest, runs away when warned by the multitude of insects and animals fleeing for life’s sake at our coming; but he is often caught while surrounded by our swarms, and his shrieks of pain ring through the forest as he flies, with many of our number covering his body and biting him. The sly and blood-thirsty njego has no time to look for prey, and flies, yelling, ‘The bashikouays are coming!’” Then all the bashikouays laughed at the same time, for they imagined the stampede created by their appearance.
Then they cried more boastfully still: “All the night prowlers,—the kambis, the ncheris, the omembas,—and all the living creatures of the great forest in which we live, insects and all, cry in great distress, ‘Let us flee for our lives, for the bashikouays are coming!’ The forest is filled with the buzz of the fleeing host, small and large; all are panic-stricken; the heavy tramping of the njokoo is heard above all. They do not all escape. Many of the animals leave their helpless young behind, to be eaten by us, and multitudes of insects are devoured by our hordes. The human beings fear and hate us. We are afraid only of three things,—fire, water, and the sun. The only creatures that are not afraid of us are those that live in the water and in the air.”
After the great uproar of their boasting had subsided, their chiefs said to them: “Be still; wait a while till our young get larger and stronger; for we cannot leave them behind.”
As with other ants, the great chiefs, acting as the generals of an army, are the largest and the least numerous of all. Their heads are furnished with ugly, powerful, long nippers, the head being as large as the rest of the body.
The officers are smaller than the chiefs, and much more numerous, and armed likewise with powerful nippers. They attend to the discipline of the great army; then come the soldiers forming the mass of the great army. The number of these is beyond computation. Their heads are square and their nippers are not as powerful as those of the others; but they can bite terribly also.