第43章 BOOK II.(19)

"This reminds me,"said Bearwarden,"of the old lady who never completed her preparations for turning in without searching for burglars under the bed.Finally she found one,and exclaimed in delight,'I've been looking for you fifty years,and at last you are here!'The question is,now that we have found our burglar,what shall we do with him?""I constantly regret not having a rifle,"replied Cortlandt,"though it is doubtful if even that would help us here.""Let us sit down and wait,"said Ayrault;"there may be an opening soon."Anon a woolly rhinoceros,resembling the Rhinoceros tichorhinus that existed contemporaneously on earth with the mammoth,came to drink the water that had partly cooled.It was itself a formidable-looking beast,but in an instant the monster again rushed from concealment with the same tremendous speed.The rhinoceros turned in the direction of the sound,and,lowering its head,faced the foe.The ant's shears,however,passed beneath the horn,and,fastening upon the left foreleg,cut it off with a loud snap.

"Now is our chance,"exclaimed Cortlandt;"we may kill the brute before he is through with the rhinoceros.""Stop a bit,doctor,"said Bearwarden."We have a good record so far;let us keep up our reputation for being sports.Wait till he can attend to us."The encounter was over in less than a minute,three of the rhinoceros's legs being taken off,and the head almost severed from the body.Taking up the legs in its mandibles,the murderous creature was returning to its lair,when,with the cry of "Now for the fray!"Bearwarden aimed beneath the body and blew off one of the farther armoured legs,from the inside.

"Shoot off the legs on the same side,"he counselled Ayrault,while he himself kept up a rapid fire.Cortlandt tried to disconcert the enemy by raining duck-shot on its scale-protected eyes,while the two rifles tore off great masses of the horn that covered the enormously powerful legs.The men separated as they retreated,knowing that one slash of the great shears would cut their three bodies in halves if they were caught together.The monster had dropped the remains of the rhinoceros when attacked,and made for the hunters at its top speed,which was somewhat reduced by the loss of one leg.Before it came within cutting distance,however,another on the same side was gone,Ayrault having landed a bullet on a spot already stripped of armour.

After this the men had no difficulty in keeping out of its way,though it still moved with some speed,snipping off young trees in its path like grass.Finally,having blown the scales from one eye,the travellers sent in a bullet that exploded in the brain and ended its career.

"This has been by all odds the most exciting hunt we have had,"said Ayrault,"both on account of the determined nature and great speed of the attack,and the almost impossibility of finding a vulnerable spot.""Anything short of explosive bullets,"added Bearwarden,"would have been powerless against this beast,for the armour in many places is nearly a foot thick.""This is also the most extraordinary as well as most dangerous creature with which we have,had to deal,"said Cortlandt,"because it is an enormously enlarged insect,with all the inherent ferocity and strength.It is almost the exact counterpart of an African soldier-ant magnified many hundred thousand times.I wonder,"he continued thoughtfully,"if our latter-day insects may not be the deteriorated (in point of size)descendants of the monsters of mythology and geology,for nothing could be a more terrible or ferocious antagonist than many of our well-known insects,if sufficiently enlarged.No animal now alive has more than a small fraction of the strength,in proportion to its size,of the minutest spider or flea.It may be that through lack of food,difficulties imposed by changing climate,and the necessity of burrowing in winter,or through some other conditions changed from what they were accustomed to,their size has been reduced,and that the fire-flies,huge as they seemed,are a step in advance of this specimen in the march of deterioration or involution,which will end by making them as insignificant as those on earth.These ants have probably come into the woods to lay their eggs,for,from the behaviour of the animals we watched from the turtle,there must have been several;or perhaps a war is in progress between those of a different colour,as on earth,in which case the woods may be full of them.

Doubtless the reason the turtle seemed so unconcerned at the general uneasiness of the animals was because he knew he could make himself invulnerable to the marauder by simply closing his shell,and we were unmolested because it did not occur to the ant that any soft-shelled creatures could be on the turtle's back.""I think,"said Bearwarden,"it will be the part of wisdom to return to the Callisto,and do the rest of our exploring on Jupiter from a safe height;for,though we succeeded in disabling this beauty,it was largely through luck,and had we not done so we should probably have provided a bon bouche for our deceased friend,instead of standing at his grave."Accordingly they proceeded,and were delighted,a few minutes later,to see the sunlight reflected from the projectile's polished roof.