Advancing toward them was what at first sight appeared like a vast undulating carpet of dark brown color. It was about five feet in width and came onward through the forest like a coffee-colored river.
“Sacred cod-fish!” exclaimed Captain Sprowl. “I’ve got a notion that we’d better be doing something pretty quick.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jack, for there was an odd intonation in the captain’s voice.
“Getting out of here, for instance,” exclaimed the captain. “Each of them marching ants is two inches long and is armed with nippers like a pair of pincers. They are coming after the dead body of that snake, I guess, or they may only be out on the war-path as their custom is sometimes. But in any case, we’d better go away from this part of the woods, for if we don’t they’ll overflow us like Noah’s flood.”
CHAPTER XXII.
“UP A TREE.”
The Ecitons, or foraging ants of Brazil are the terrors of the forests. Cases have been known in which these marching armies of myriads of the creatures have caused the desertion of entire villages. Animals, even the ferocious jaguar, flee before them, and birds and the minor forms of animal life give them a wide berth. They overwhelm by sheer force of numbers. One of their columns is like a stream of water. When it strikes an obstruction it spreads out till it has covered it. Then the relentless march goes on, leaving behind it devastation and death.
All these facts were known to Captain Sprowl from hear-say, and to Professor Von Dinkelspeil from his books. Yet neither of them had ever actually beheld one of the great movements of these creatures.
But Captain Sprowl’s warning to get out of the way came too late. The jungle on each side of the clearing was thick and too densely grown with thorn bushes and spined plants to permit escape in that direction.
Both paths out of the place were now blocked by the approaching armies advancing from opposite directions. To have attempted to pass by them would have been madness. In an instant anyone rash enough to face the columns would have been overwhelmed from head to foot by a tidal wave of Ecitons.