47

The Attack Of The Marchers; We Conclude Our Business In The Village Of The Mamba People

Within the stockade of the Mamba people there was much light and noise. I could hear the sounds of their musical instruments, and the pounding of their drums. Within the stockade, too, we could hear the chanting of the people and the beating of sticks, carried in the hands of dancers.

I knew the stockade, for it was the same from which we had, earlier, stolen away in the night.

Two days ago the leader of the small people had led me into the jungle, leaving behind the clearing where we had secured the lovely talunas, their necks at the mercy of the panga.

We had trekked but a short way into the jungle when the leader of the small men held up his hand for silence. I had then heard, as I had once before, but had been unable to place the noise, the sound, that strange sound, as of a small wind moving leaves. I had heard it before on the edge of the lagoon, but had not understood it.

Soon, as we approached more closely, quietly, the sound became much louder. It was now clearly distinguishable as a quite audible rustling or stirring. But there was no wind.

"The marchers," said the leader of the small men, pointing.

The hair on the back of my neck rose.

I saw now that the sound was the sound of millions upon millions of tiny feet, treading upon the leaves and fallen debris of the jungle floor. Too, there may have been, mixed in that sound, the almost infinitesimal sound, audible only in its cumulative effect, of the rubbings and clickings of the joints of tiny limbs and the shiftings and adjustments of tiny, black, shiny exoskeletons, those stiff casings of the segments of their tiny bodies.

"Do not go too close," said the leader of the small men.

The column of the marchers was something like a yard wide. I did not know how long it might be. It extended ahead through the jungle and behind through the jungle farther than I could see in either direction. Such columns can be pasangs in length. It is difficult to conjecture the numbers that constitute such a march. Conservatively some dozens of millions might be involved. The column widens only when food is found; then it may spread as widely as five hundred feet in width. Do not try to wade through such a flood. The torrent of hurrying feeders leaves little but bones in its path.

"Let us go toward the head of the column," said the little man.

We trekked through the jungle for several hours, keeping parallel to the long column. Once we crossed a small stream. The marchers, forming living bridges of their own bodies, clinging and scrambling on one another, crossed it also. They, rustling and black, moved over fallen trees and about rocks and palms. They seemed tireless and relentless. Flankers marshaled the column. Through the green rain forest the column moved, like a governed, endless, whispering black snake.

"Do they march at night?" I asked.

"Often," said the small man. "One must be careful where one sleeps."

We had then advanced beyond the head of the column by some four hundred yards.

"It is going to rain," I said. "Will that stop them?"

"For a time," he said. "They will scatter and seek shelter, beneath leaves and twigs, under the debris of the forest, and then, summoned by their leaders, they will reform and again take up the march."

Scarcely had he spoken but the skies opened up and, from the midst of the black, swirling clouds, while lightning cracked and shattered across the sky and branches lashed back and forth wildly in the wind, the driven, darkly silver sheets of a tropical rain storm descended upon us.

"Do they hunt?" I shouted to the small man.

"Not really," he said. "They forage."

"Can the column be guided?" I asked.

"Yes," he grinned, rubbing the side of his nose. Then he and the others curled up to sleep. I looked up at the sky, at the sheets of rain, the lashing branches. Seldom had I been so pleased to be caught in such a storm.

Within the stockade of the Mamba people there was much light and noise. I could hear the sounds of their musical instruments, and the pounding of the drums. Too, we could hear, within, the sounds of chanting and the beatings of the sticks carried in the hands of the dancers.

It is not so much that the column is guided as it is that it is lured.

This morning, early, the small men, with their nets and spears, had killed a small tarsk.

"Look," had said the leader of the small men this morning, "scouts."

He had thrown to the forest floor a portion of the slain tarsk. I watched the black, segmented bodies of some fifteen or twenty ants, some two hundred yards in advance of the column, approach the meat. Their antennae were lifted. They had seemed tense, excited. They were some two inches in length. Their bite, and that of their fellows, is vicious and extremely painful, but it is not poisonous. There is no quick death for those who fail to escape the column. Several of these ants then formed a circle, their heads together, their antennae, quivering, touching one another. Then, almost instantly, the circle broke and they rushed back to the column.

"Watch," had said the small man.

To my horror I had then seen the column turn toward the piece of tarsk flesh.

We had further encouraged the column during the day with additional blood and flesh, taken from further kills made by the small men with their nets and spears.

I looked up at the stockade. I remembered it, for it was the same from which we had, earlier, slipped away in the darkness of the night.

I rubbed tarsk blood on the palings. Behind me I could hear, yards away, a rustling.

"We will wait for you in the jungle," said the leader of the little men.

"Very well," I said.

The rustling was now nearer. Those inside the stockade, given their music and dancing, would not hear it. I stepped back. I saw the column, like a narrow black curtain, dark in the moonlight, ascend the palings.

I waited.

Inside the stockade, given the feast of the village, the column would widen, spreading to cover in its crowded millions every square inch of earth, scouring each stick, each piece of straw, hunting for each drop of grease, for each flake of flesh, even if it be no more than what might adhere to the shed hair of a hut urt.

When I heard the first scream I hurled my rope to the top of the stockade, catching one of the palings in its noose.

I heard a man cry out with pain.

I scrambled over the stockade wall. A woman, not even seeming to see me, crying out with pain, fled past me. She held a child in her arms.

There was now a horrified shouting in the camp. I saw torches being thrust to the ground. Men were irrationally thrusting at the ground with spears. Others tore palm leaves from the roofs of huts, striking about them.

I hoped there were no tethered animals in the camp. Between two huts I saw a man rolling on the ground in frenzied pain.

I felt a sharp painful bite at my foot. More ants poured over the palings. Now, near the rear wall and spreading toward the center of the village, it seemed there was a growing, lengthening, rustling, living carpet of insects. I slapped my arm and ran toward the hut in which originally, our party had been housed in this village. With my foot I broke through the sticks at its back.

"Tarl!" cried Kisu, bound. I slashed his bonds. I freed, too, Ayari, and Alice and Tende.

Men and women, and children, ran past the doorway of the hut.

There was much screaming.

"Ants!" cried Ayari.

Alice cried out with pain.

We could hear them on the underside of the thatched roof. One fell from the roof and I brushed it from my shoulder.

Tende screamed, suddenly, bitten.