Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 29

"Ant-hills!" echoed Benedict, suddenly aroused into a state of excitement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: One after another, the whole party made their way inside]

"No doubt of it, Mr. Benedict." replied d.i.c.k; "they are ant-hills twelve feet high at least: and I hope we shall be able to get into them."

"Twelve feet!" the naturalist repeated; "they must be those of the termites, the white ants; there is no other insect that could make them. Wonderful architects are the termites."

"Termites, or whatever they are, they will have to turn out for us," said d.i.c.k.

"But they will eat us up!" objected Benedict.

"I can't help that," retorted d.i.c.k; "go we must, and go at once."

"But stop a moment," continued the provoking naturalist; "stop, and tell me: I can't be wrong: I always thought that white ants could never be found elsewhere than in Africa."

"Come along, sir, I say; come along, quick!" shouted d.i.c.k, terrified lest Mrs. Weldon should have overheard him.

They hurried on. A wind had risen; large spattering drops were now beginning to fall more heavily on the ground and in a few minutes it would be impossible to stand against the advancing tempest. The nearest of the acc.u.mulation of ant-hills was reached in time, and however dangerous their occupants might be, it was decided either to expel them, or to share their quarters. Each cone was formed of a kind of reddish clay, and had a single opening at its base. Hercules took his hatchet, and quickly enlarged the aperture till it would admit his own huge body. Not an ant made its appearance. Cousin Benedict expressed his extreme surprise. But the structure unquestionably was empty, and one after another the whole party made their way inside.

The rain by this time was descending in terrific torrents, strong enough to extinguish, one would think, the most violent explosions of the electric fluid. But the travellers were secure in their shelter, and had nothing to fear for the present; their tenement was of greater stability than a tent or a native hut. It was one of those marvellous structures erected by little insects, which to Cameron appeared even more wonderful than the upraising of the Egyptian pyramids by human hands. To use his own comparison, it might be likened to the construction of a Mount Everest, the loftiest of the Himalayan peaks, by the united labour of a nation.

CHAPTER V.

WHITE ANTS.

The storm had now burst in full fury, and fortunate it was that a refuge had been found. The rain did not fall in separate drops as in temperate zones, but descended like the waters of a cataract, in one solid and compact ma.s.s, in a way that could only suggest the outpour of some vast aerial basin containing the waters of an entire ocean. Contrary, too, to the storms of higher lat.i.tudes, of which the duration seems ordinarily to be in inverse ratio to their violence, these African tempests, whatever their magnitude, often last for whole days, furrowing the soil into deep ravines, changing plains to lakes and brooks to torrents, and causing rivers to overflow and cover vast districts with their inundations. It is hard to understand whence such volumes of vapour and electric fluid can acc.u.mulate. The earth, upon these occasions, might almost seem to be carried back to the remote period which has been called "the diluvian age."

Happily, the walls of the ant-hill were very thick; no beaver-hut formed of pounded earth could be more perfectly water-tight, and a torrent might have pa.s.sed over it without a particle of moisture making its way through its substance.

As soon as the party had taken possession of the tenement, a lantern was lighted, and they proceeded to examine the interior. The cone, which was about twelve feet high inside, was eleven feet wide at the base, gradually narrowing to a sugar-loaf top. The walls and part.i.tions between the tiers of cells were nowhere less than a foot thick throughout.

These wonderful erections, the result of the combined labour of innumerable insects, are by no means uncommon in the heart of Africa. Smeathman, a Dutch traveller of the last century, has recorded how he and four companions all at one time occupied the summit of one of them in Lounde. Livingstone noticed some made of red clay, of which the height varied from fifteen to twenty feet; and in Nyangwe, Cameron several times mistook one of these colonies for a native camp pitched upon the plain. He described some of these strange edifices as being flanked with small spires, giving them the appearance of a cathedral-dome.

The reddish clay of which the ant-hill was composed could leave no doubt upon the mind of a naturalist that it had been formed by the species known as "termes bellicosus;" had it been made of grey or black alluvial soil, it might have been attributed to the "termes mordax" or "termes atrox," formidable names that must awaken anything but pleasure in the minds of all but enthusiast entomologists.

In the centre was an open s.p.a.ce, surrounded by roomy compartments, ranged one upon another, like the berths of a s.h.i.+p's cabin, and lined with the millions of cells that had been occupied by the ants. This central s.p.a.ce was inadequate to hold the whole party that had now made their hurried resort to it, but as each of the compartments was sufficiently capacious to admit one person to occupy it in a sitting posture, Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Nan, and Cousin Benedict were exalted to the upper tier, Austin, Bat, and Actaeon occupied the next story, whilst Tom and Hercules, and d.i.c.k Sands himself remained below.

d.i.c.k soon found that the soil beneath his feet was beginning to get damp, and insisted upon having some of the dry clay spread over it from the base of the cone.

"It is a long time," he said, "since we have slept with a roof over our heads; and I am anxious to make our refuge as secure as possible. It may be that we shall have to

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cousin Benedict's curiosity was awakened.]

stay here for a whole day or more; on the first opportunity I shall go and explore; it may turn out that we are near the stream we are seeking; and perhaps we shall have to build a raft before we start again."

Under his direction, therefore, Hercules took his hatchet, and proceeded to break down the lowest range of cells and to spread the dry, brittle clay of which they were composed a good foot thick over the damp floor, taking care not in any way to block up the aperture by which the fresh air penetrated into the interior.

It was indeed fortunate that the termites had abandoned their home; had it swarmed with its mult.i.tudes of voracious Neuroptera, the ant-hill would have been utterly untenable for human beings. Cousin Benedict's curiosity was awakened, and he was intensely interested in the question of the evacuation, so that he proceeded at once to investigate, if he could, whether the emigration had been recent or otherwise. He took the lantern, and as the result of his scrutiny he soon discovered in a recess what he described as the termites' "storehouse," or the place where the indefatigable insects keep their provisions. It was a large cavity, not far from the royal cell, which, together with the cells for the reception of the young larvae, had been destroyed by Hercules in the course of his flooring operations. Out of this receptacle Benedict drew a considerable quant.i.ty of gum and vegetable juices, all in a state so liquid as to demonstrate that they had been deposited there quite recently.

"They have only just gone," he exclaimed, with an air of authority, as if he imagined that some one was about to challenge his a.s.sertion.

"We are not going to dispute your word, Mr. Benedict," said d.i.c.k; "here we are; we have taken their place, and shall be quite content for them to keep out of the way, without caring when they went, or where they have gone."

"But we must care," retorted Benedict testily; "why they have gone concerns us a good deal; these juices make it evident, from the liquid state in which we find them, that the ants were here this morning, they have not only gone, but they have carried off their young larvae with them; they have been sagacious enough to take warning of some impending danger."

"Perhaps they heard that we were coming," said Hercules, laughing.

A look of withering scorn was the only answer that the entomologist deigned to give.

"Yes, I say," repeated Hercules, "perhaps they heard that we were coming."

"Pshaw!" said Benedict contemptuously; "do you imagine they would be afraid of you? they would reduce your carcase to a skeleton in no time, if they found it across their path."

"No doubt, if I were dead," replied Hercules, "they could pick my bones pretty clean; but while I had the use of my limbs I think I could crush them by thousands."

"Thousands!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Benedict, with increasing warmth; "you think you could demolish thousands; but what if they were hundreds of thousands, millions, hundreds of millions? Alive as much as dead, I tell you, they wouldn't be long in consuming every morsel of you."

During this brisk little discussion d.i.c.k Sands had been pondering over what Benedict had said. There was no doubt that the amateur naturalist was well acquainted with the habits of white ants, and if, as he affirmed, the insects had instinctively quitted their abode on account of some approaching danger, d.i.c.k asked himself whether it was safe or prudent for his party to remain. But the fury of the storm was still so great that all possibility of removing from the shelter seemed precluded for the present, and, without inquiring farther into the mystery, he merely said,

"Although the ants, Mr. Benedict, have left us their provisions, we must not forget that we have brought our own. We will have our supper now, and to-morrow, when the storm is over, we will see what is to be done."

Fatigue had not taken away the appet.i.te of the energetic travellers, and they gladly set about the preparation of their meal. The provisions, of which they had enough for

[Ill.u.s.tration: The naturalist now fairly mounted on a favourite hobby.]

another two days, had not been injured by the rain. For some minutes the crunching of hard biscuit was the only sound to be heard; Hercules, in particular, seemed to pound away with his huge jaws as with a pair of millstones.

Mrs. Weldon was the only one of the party who ate little; and that little was only taken at d.i.c.k's earnest solicitation; he could not help noticing, with much concern, that although Jack seemed to be satisfactorily recovering, and, without sign of fever, was sleeping calmly enough on a bed made up of clothes spread out in one of the cells, yet his mother had lost much of her courage, and seemed preoccupied and depressed.

Cousin Benedict did due honour to the simple evening repast; not on account of its quant.i.ty or quality, but because it gave him an opportunity of holding forth upon the subject of termites. He was much vexed that he had been unable to discover a single specimen in the deserted anthill with which he might ill.u.s.trate his lecture, but notwithstanding this deficiency he continued to talk, heedless whether any one was listening.

"They are wonderful insects," he said; "they belong to the order of the Neuroptera, which have the antennae longer than the head; their mandibles are well-developed, and the inferior pair of wings is generally as large as the superior. There are five families of them; the Panorpide, the Myrmellonide, the Hemerobiide, the Termitine, and the Perlide. I need hardly say that what we are now occupying is a dwelling of the Termitine."

At this point d.i.c.k became all attention; he was anxious to ascertain whether this discovery of white ants had aroused any suspicion in Benedict's mind that they must be on African soil. The naturalist, now fairly mounted on a favourite hobby, went on with his discourse.

"I am sorry not to have a specimen to show you, but these Termitine have four joints in the tarsi, and strong h.o.r.n.y mandibles. The family includes, as genera, the Mantispa, the Raphidia, and the Termes, the last commonly known as white ants, amongst which are 'Termes fatalis, Termes lucifugans, Termes mordax,' and several others more or less rare."

"And which of them built this ant-hill?" inquired d.i.c.k.

"The bellicosi!" replied Benedict, p.r.o.nouncing the name with as much pride as if he were eulogizing the Macedonians or some warlike nation of antiquity. "Bellicosi," he continued, "are to be found of every size. There is as much difference between the largest and the smallest of them as there is between Hercules and a dwarf; the workers are about one-fifth of an inch long; the soldiers, or fighting-ants, are half an inch; whilst the males and females measure four fifths of an inch. There is another curious species, called 'sirafoos,' which are about half an inch long, and have pincers instead of mandibles, and heads larger than their bodies, like sharks. In fact, if sharks and sirafoos were placed in compet.i.tion, I should be inclined to back the sharks."

"And where are these sirafoos most generally to be found?" said d.i.c.k cautiously.

"In Africa, in the southern and central provinces. Africa may truly be termed the land of ants. Livingstone, in the notes brought home by Stanley, describes a battle which he was fortunate enough to witness between an army of black ants and an army of red. The black ants, or drivers, which are what the natives call sirafoos, got the best of it; and the red ants, or 'tchoongoos,' after a very resolute defence, were obliged to retire defeated, carrying their eggs and young ones with them. Livingstone avows that he never saw the warlike instinct so strongly developed as in these sirafoos; the stoutest man, the largest animal, a lion or an elephant, quails before the grip of their mandibles: no obstacle impedes their progress; no tree is too lofty for them to scale, and they contrive to cross wide streams by forming their own bodies into a kind of suspension bridge. Equally amazing are their numbers; Du Chaillu, another African traveller, relates how it took more than twelve hours for a column of ants to file pa.s.s him, without a moment's pause in their march. These numbers, however cease to be so surprising when it is explained that their fecundity is such that a single female of the termites bellicosi has been estimated to produce as many as sixty thousand eggs a day. These Neuroptera furnish the natives with a favourite food, grilled ants being considered a great delicacy."

"Have you ever tasted them?" asked Hercules, with a grin.

"Never," answered the naturalist; "but I am in hopes I shall have a chance of doing so very soon."

"Surely you don't imagine yourself in Africa!" said Tom suddenly.