The Raid on the Termites

e

, they looke

ic and aloof it soared, dwarfing all near it-the termitary which, yesterday, had been but waist-high. There was the

ungle, he had spoken perhaps more truly than he knew. At any rate, the jungl

hes, shooting up and over in graceful, tangling curves, their trunks oddly flat a

of roots, tough and gnarled, whitish in color, curled in all directions to catch the feet and baffle the eye

ough drawn by curiosity to inspect them. As big as an eagle it appeared to them; both grasped their spears; but

ble quickness it loomed over them. Six feet through, its body was roughly spherical, and carried on those amazingly long

ly sunk to little more than a whisper. This was a world of titanic dangers and fierce alarms. Instinct ca

sed to set them down near one. No doubt, to his own mind, he had placed them near one of the termite highways. But his ideas

t be a tunnel opening somewhere very nea

r a thrust, if necessary, at the frightful

trees quaked and rocked as it brushed against them in its deliberate advance. Dead leaves many feet across and too heavy for the combined efforts

er us," breathed J

drew a long br

and it will probably pass us by. It's blind, and c

shed by. Then, with the earthworm fading into the distan

epths, finally saw it-a black hole leading down into a sma

e are. C

en grass stalk was a problem; sometimes they had to curve back on their tracks for sixty or eighty feet in order to get aroun

tion of the stark peril tha

s a flying elephant and twice as deadly, roared around them for several minutes as though debating whether or not to attack them, and fi

e than waist-high. But something in its malevolent eyes made the two men hesitate about attacking it. At the same time it was squatting in the only cle

em was deci

a flash of yellow. The roar increased to an ear-shattering scream. Something swooped so breathlessly

the spider, suddenly as immobile as a lump of stone, was drawn up into the heavens by th

nd, and was concentrating on the spider,

Jim, insects had always heretofore been something to brush away or step on, as the circumstance might indic

knew that then the victim would have been taken back, helpless and motionless as the spider was, to be laid side by side with other helpless but still conscious victims in the fetid depths of the wasp's nest.

glancing up to see if any m

away. What with the crowding monsters around them, the tunnel beg

by a mighty army sounded in the underbrush be

ly accelerating his pace i

fallen stalks, climbing over obstructions as though no obstructions were there, was coming a grim and armored hor

kind. As tall as Jim, clashing in its hor

do," Jim panted. "We've got to kill the th

things that smelled like termites however little they resembled them.

ar point slanted to receive the onsla

the defense offered, and would have striven to circumvent it, had time been given

of its leap. But it was on the point and had transfixed itsel

teel piercing it through, it whirled with hardly abated vita

d, and dashed it down on what looked to him a vital spot-the unbelieva

ground. An instant later it was up, but now its movements were dazed and sluggish as it dragged

tugged it. "My spear!"

loose from the horny armor of the dying an

let it go....

m the convulsively jerking hulk. They darted into the tunnel

tch darkness, now and then bumping heavily against a wall as the tunnel turned, but ha

s. The smashing noise of their progress was growing louder. The two had run

e in-began to grow accustomed to the gloom, they saw ahead of the

its terrible bulk back and forth rhythmically, while its feet remained immovable. An instant it did this, then it charged at the two men. Simultaneously the crashing of the fierce horde behind sound

hideous attacking thing before them was blind,

ut he almost shouted aloud as he saw Denny leap-

tapulted on his chest past the snapping peril. Jim followed, with not a foot to spare. They were not past the soft rear-parts of the thin

the struggle going on before them, the two men witnessed the grim wat

hey were swept against the walls, or slashed in two by the enormous mandibles. On

If what I think is going to happen o

mall tunnel branching off beside the main stem. Into this they squeezed. But

here, I think. We'l

side-avenue, and peered out at the main avenue they had j

to stream past them. In twos and threes, then in whole squads, they

er went forward to help the dying Horatius. The rest lined up in a triple row across a

hollow mountain?" whispered Jim to Denny. "How do they know their

come here for. This unhampered observation of a strange and terrible rac

f battle for a distance of more than a few yards. My only guess is that they are constantly and silently commanded by the unknown intelligence, the ruling brain, that h

n?" sugge

as the egg layer, of the tribe. But don't talk too much. The vibrat

o side it was being filled with a new sort of termite. These were smaller than the

block in a growing wall behind the savage defenders against the ants, and fastened it in pla

d wood. The cement is a sort of stuff that exudes from their own bodies. In ten mi

hing, will be shut off on the outside of the wall with the

t is their organization that no one, including the

"It's terrible, someh

, too, might go off in millions and deliberately starve to death because the ruling power decided there were too many people on earth. We, too, might devour our dead because it was essential not to let anything go to waste. We, too, might control our births so that we

ead before that times comes,"

heir certain death. On the near side, the workers retreated to unknown depths in the great hollow mountain behin

our way? We're hardly on the fringe of the termitary yet-and I want to get at the heart of it, and into the depths far

itary, walking easily upright in this tunnel which was only one of many hundreds in the v