In the meantime Captain Sprowl had obtained the loan of their handkerchiefs from Mr. Chadwick and Dick Donovan. He knotted his own ample bandana to the others and then saturated them with liquid from the professor’s bottle. This done, he lowered the dripping, reeking string of handkerchiefs to Jack.
“Tie this around the trunk of the tree,” he said. “When the ants hit it, it’ll keep ‘em back. It was like this that they used to put wool round trees to keep the caterpillars off, back home.”
“Do you think it will work?” asked Jack anxiously, for the situation was becoming critical. It seemed almost unthinkable that they could be in actual peril of their lives from creatures not much bigger than a good-sized bluebottle fly. And yet a jaguar would have been a less dangerous foe than these myriads of tiny creatures, with ten times a jaguar’s ferocity in their minute make-ups.
“Well, boy, if it don’t work, it’s all up with us,” declared the captain solemnly.
Aided by the professor, who at once saw the utility of the contrivance, Jack managed to tie the bandage of handkerchiefs around the tree-trunk.
“When it gets dry, douse it with some more of this stuff,” said the captain, handing down the bottle of chemicals.
With an eagerness that may be imagined Jack and the professor watched the first ants that swarmed up the barricade of handkerchiefs. They dropped like files of soldiers storming a fortress wall that bristles with machine guns. Thousands and thousands of them fell from the tree as they encountered the poison-soaked bandage; but still the swelling ranks behind pushed the vanguard on.
From time to time Jack moistened the bandage afresh, and after what appeared to be an eternity of waiting the ants began to slacken in their attack. By slow degrees they retreated till only the masses on the ground were left.
“Scatter some of the stuff among ‘em!” called Captain Sprowl.
Jack spattered the rest of the contents of the bottle over the still swarming myriads on the ground. Wherever it fell an immense patch of dead ants instantly appeared. But at last it was exhausted. Luckily the ants appeared to be reforming for another march, and yet it was a long time before it was deemed safe to descend. When they did so, a strange sight met their eyes. They had been imprisoned in the tree for not much more than two hours. Yet in that space of time the ants had literally cleaned the bones of the dead snake and wrought havoc with the carcasses of the pigs.