"The bashikonay?" echoed Ned in astonishment. "What in the name of this
wonderful country is that?"
"Ants," replied Cocoeni, hoarsely, while he shivered with unmistakable
fear. "The bashikonay ants eat up every living thing in their way, and
yonder they come in force; they have smelt out the locusts."
Our heroes looked when Cocoeni pointed with his trembling finger, and
saw marching down the valley a vast army of ants, each insect about half
an inch long.
They were in close order, and had divided themselves into two lines, one
on each side of the stream. So dense were they that they completely
filled the valley, until no ground could be seen under them. They also
extended in a solid phalanx until the winding hid their tail. They were
coming along in perfect soldier-like order, and running rapidly, with
their officers and scouts directing their movements.
"Are they so very vicious, then?" asked Ned, as he watched their fine
uniform motions with admiration.
"I tell you what, baas, if they see us they will eat us up in no time,
and leave our bones clean picked. No man nor beast can meet them and
live. They are terrible, and cannot be fought with."
"Then are we quite safe here?"
"I think so--I hope so. They do not like to cross water; besides, the
locusts are what they are after now, therefore, so that we don't stand
in their path, they may pass on. If the front rank passes on, the rest
will follow."
It was an anxious moment, for our heroes had no desire to test the
eating qualities of those small monsters. It is not nice to think of
being reduced to a skeleton so rapidly; besides, the agony of those
myriad nippers at work in and outside every organ, disintegrating
humanity, was frightful to contemplate.
Ned thought about the tortures of the iron boot with the boiling oil
poured in, the rack, and red-hot pincers, etc.; but even the imagination
of these failed to come up to the vague horror of being demolished in
this infinitesimal fashion.
Ages seemed to drag by before the front ranks were on a line with where
he stood. He watched the ruthless little monsters of fate, fascinated,
and thought with horror on the myriads of ogreish, sharp eyes that might
be watching these helpless victims in the tiny stream.
Onwards, however, they rushed past the human food, without turning to
the right or left; down they wound their course towards the open plain.
For three and a half hours they filed along, until the sun had almost
set.
Our heroes and their followers stood meanwhile with their feet in the
water, and their eyes fixed anxiously on that moving mass that had
hitherto left them alone.
Ned saw a large black snake drop from a crevice in the rock amongst
them. They at once closed upon it, and passed over it. A ripple-like
movement took place amongst the compact multitude where the snake had
dropped. This motion only lasted for a few seconds, then it ceased, and
the army scurried on with methodical and ruthless order.
At last they saw the end of this frightful army. Ned had attempted a
futile joke about the Jubilee Procession, but no one had laughed. These
little beasts were not suitable subjects to jest about--at least, not
while they were on the war-path.
They had come in one straight valley-filling line in the van, and they
terminated at the rear in the same rigid form, with no stragglers
dragging up behind. As the last rank filed slowly past, all uttered a
glad cry of relief.
Cocoeni pointed silently to the trail which this army had left, and our
heroes no longer dared to doubt his assertion.
Where the black snake had been was a gleaming necklace of white
vertebrae, and a flat grinning skull, and shining fangs. Scattered over
the ground were specks of varied sizes and shades. These were the
excavated and polished shells of insects and reptiles that had not been
so prudent and lucky as were Ned and his followers. The devastating
bashikonay had passed along that way, and, like the Grand Army of
France, had cleaned out thoroughly their line of march.
It was some time after the last of these resistless conquerors had
disappeared before any of Ned's band dared to venture out of their
sanctuary. These might only be the advance guard; the main body might
be coming on behind.
Therefore, uncomfortable as it was to have to stand passive for hours in
the centre of a stream of running water, this was infinitely to be
preferred to being caught between two such formidable hosts.
At length, even Cocoeni appeared satisfied that there were no more of
the bashikonay hosts coming down this particular glen on that occasion.
He therefore suggested that they might once more venture on terra firma,
and place some decent space between themselves and the common enemy.
This prudent advice they hastily acted upon. Each man grasped his load
firmly, and set off as fast as he could travel up the gorge, without
standing upon the order of his going.
Traces of these awful ants were seen at every turn of the way.
Beautifully polished and bran-new skeletons, large and small, were
scattered about in every contorted attitude of the most excruciating
agony.
Serpents with the tail-ends of their vertebrae in their jaws firmly
clenched; centipedes, scorpions, and other creeping and venomous things
exquisitely manipulated and polished of every fragment of corruptible
matter lay about, perfectly cleaned, yet undisturbed, and not a joint
out of place. Splendid museum specimens these were, going to waste.
Ned, even in his haste, could not help stooping and picking up a few of
these as he ran along. He was astonished at the deadly dexterity and
skill of those voracious workers. Not the most minute fragment of
flesh, marrow, or sinew remained on any of those highly burnished bones.
It was amazing and blood curdling. They had done all this without
disturbing the order of their march. Each insect had snatched his bit
in the passing, masticating it as he rushed onwards, while those
following after had finished the gruesome task. It was numbers, with a
fixed unity of purpose, which made the work compatible with speed. This
was, as Ned said, the biggest co-operative concern that he had ever seen
or read about.
"I hope these insect fiends are cannibalistic also in their habits, and
that the whole tribe have gone on this locust expedition. It is
something decidedly unpleasant to think that we may have to encounter
them on our return."
Nothing that they had experienced in the forest had been at all equal to
the horror of those half-inch adversaries. As they passed those
numerous and ghastly tokens of this most terrible foe, Ned and his chums
mentally vowed that it would be better to push ahead, rather than
retreat down that way too quickly again.
No animal that lived seemed too formidable to be able to resist them.
Before night came upon them and forced them to stop, they passed a group
of skeletons terribly suggestive. They were those of a lion, a lioness,
and two cubs. They had evidently been overtaken while sleeping in a
little cavity, and devoured before they could move far away from each
other. They lay in a circle, with the gravel torn up round them, in
their impotent and maddening agony. The skeleton of the lion was on his
back, completely curled up, with his thigh bone in his mouth. The
lioness was sprawling with legs far apart, and the cubs in different
positions, each indicative of torture.
That night they had to do without any fire, as there was no fuel to be
found. Scarcely one of them slept, so unnerved had these sights made
them. However, the darkness passed without any disturbance. Indeed,
the silence of that long night was weird, for it seemed the silence of a
universal death. Nothing broke it. No sigh of wind, no chirp of
insect, not even the rustle of a night adder--only a deep and awful
stillness that kept them awake with horrified expectancy.
Morning at last arrived, and they went on following the stream and the
whitened trail of those demon ants.
The gorge was gradually becoming narrower, yet without any diminishing
of those stupendous sides. It was not more than half the width it had
been, and as they looked up, the sky appeared like a ribbon of blue very
far above their heads. They were closed in now with rocks on all sides,
as the chasm was getting more abrupt in its windings.
All at once they came to the head of the stream, while beyond them
appeared only a dry and stony bed. At this sight the hearts of all sank
and felt like lumps of lead.
The stream rose and bubbled out of a little fountain, while round it
spread a patch of bright green grass. It was a delicious little patch
of moisture and verdure in the midst of this surrounding vastness of
shadow and sterility. As they flung down their burdens and rested
beside them, they felt as if bidding farewell to their only friend.
It had been a good and trusty friend to them for many days, becoming
more dearly prized the frailer it grew. It had saved their lives even
at its last stretch, and now it was all they had to depend upon in the
most uncertain future.
Some brushwood was found on the banks, and with this they made a fire
and cooked breakfast. Then they sat down to consider matters.
After a long silence, Ned spoke. "Boys, we must see the top of this
defile, and carry what water we require with us for the rest of the way.
I reckon that we are more than halfway through it, and we have
water-bags enough to last us a fortnight with care, and provisions for
double that time."
"Yes," answered Fred and Clarence, steadily.
"I don't savy going back yet, with those precious bashikonay behind us,"
added Fred.
"Then let us unpack our waterproof bags and fill them here. We can keep
on for a few days, and if nothing promising turns up, we can easily come
back."
No one having any objection to offer, this order was obeyed. The
water-bags were unpacked, filled, and the stoppers firmly screwed down.
Then, after a refreshing wash and a big drink, they said good-bye to the
crystal fount, and began their arid journey.
As the pass became narrower, it also became more steep and winding.
Sometimes the cliffs overhung so much that they lost sight altogether of
the sky, and seemed to be walking through a vast fiery tunnel.
It was hot and thirst-producing--this climbing over those parched rocks.
The light never left them altogether by day, even within those
closed-in portions. Sometimes they almost wished it had, to shut from
their unwilling eyes some shuddering sights they at times beheld.
They disturbed ugly-looking and venomous snakes, scorpions, and
yellow-spotted great spiders, with other strange specimens of the
reptile and insect world.
It was, as Ned had remarked, a wonderful land, this Africa, with its
strange curiosities of animal and insect life. They had seen already
much more than they had anticipated seeing, in the forest and on the
veldt.
Yet this long and weary passage through the mountains seemed to give
them every hour some new experience of the weird and horrible. As they
struggled on, their hearts beat with expectancy of what was next to be
revealed.
The gorge was longer than they had expected; three days and nights had
dragged along since they left the spring, and still they did not seem
nearly at a termination. They were going in an undulating, yet on the
whole pretty straight, course north-east, and they were ascending
gradually.
Already they had risen to an altitude of over six thousand feet above
the plain, yet the cliffs, instead of diminishing in height, seemed to
tower more loftily above their heads.
It was an arduous climb, and felt prison-like and spirit-crushing in its
narrow limits, yet, since it led them so straight, they could not but
think it must soon end. They reckoned that these most lofty cliffs must
be the centre peaks of the high inner mountains which they had seen from
the distance.
When the sun was above their heads at noon for a short time, it poured
its rays down pitilessly upon them, and heated the chasm almost to
suffocation point. Then loathsome insects and reptiles crept from the
crevices and frolicked in the furnace-like glow.
But at night, when the dew fell, it was piercingly cold and damp, even
under their skin wraps and tent. Only once had they been able to find
wood enough to raise a fire since leaving the fountain. Then the effect
on the bulging and smooth cliffs had been like some of the Inferno
conceptions of Gustave Dore.
"Two more days, lads," said Ned to his dutiful and unquestioning
followers. "If we see no way out of this lane by that time, I shall
turn back."
They were, however, lured on by the windings and the perceptible
drawing-in of the gorge. At the rate it was narrowing it must terminate
either in a cul-de-sac or an opening soon.
At last their hopes were realised, and they had palpable evidence that
they must have reached the other slope of the range.
The ridges were getting lower, or rather they were rising to their
level.
Daylight became stronger, while the chasm became once more a valley, and
fresher air poured in upon them.
About midday they were hemmed in by only about fifty feet high of walls
that dipped until they became level with the ground.
In front of them spread an almost flat ledge, and on it what looked to
be the ruins of a citadel.