me use of the fore feet. And he had a curious fancy that he was too far
off to verify, that most of these ants of both kinds were wearing
accoutrements, had things strapped about their bodies by bright white
bands like white metal threads...

He put down the glasses abruptly, realising that the question of
discipline between the captain and his subordinate had become acute.

"It is your duty," said the captain, "to go aboard. It is my
instructions."

The lieutenant seemed on the verge of refusing. The head of one of the
mulatto sailors appeared beside him.

"I believe these men were killed by the ants," said Holroyd abruptly in
English.

The captain burst into a rage. He made no answer to Holroyd. "I have
commanded you to go aboard," he screamed to his subordinate in Portuguese.
"If you do not go aboard forthwith it is mutiny--rank mutiny. Mutiny and
cowardice! Where is the courage that should animate us? I will have you in
irons, I will have you shot like a dog." He began a torrent of abuse and
curses, he danced to and fro. He shook his fists, he behaved as if beside
himself with rage, and the lieutenant, white and still, stood looking at
him. The crew appeared forward, with amazed faces.

Suddenly, in a pause of this outbreak, the lieutenant came to some heroic
decision, saluted, drew himself together and clambered upon the deck of
the cuberta.

"Ah!" said Gerilleau, and his mouth shut like a trap. Holroyd saw the ants
retreating before da Cunha's boots. The Portuguese walked slowly to the
fallen man, stooped down, hesitated, clutched his coat and turned him
over. A black swarm of ants rushed out of the clothes, and da Cunha
stepped back very quickly and trod two or three times on the deck.

Holroyd put up the glasses. He saw the scattered ants about the invader's
feet, and doing what he had never seen ants doing before. They had nothing
of the blind movements of the common ant; they were looking at him--as a
rallying crowd of men might look at some gigantic monster that had
dispersed it.

"How did he die?" the captain shouted.

Holroyd understood the Portuguese to say the body was too much eaten to
tell.

"What is there forward?" asked Gerilleau.

The lieutenant walked a few paces, and began his answer in Portuguese. He
stopped abruptly and beat off something from his leg. He made some
peculiar steps as if he was trying to stamp on something invisible, and
went quickly towards the side. Then he control