294 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



struggled past — tired, hopeless, bewildered, 

 idiotic and thoughtless to the last. Then some 

 half dead Eciton straggled from the circle along 

 the beach, and threw the line behind him into 

 confusion. The desperation of total exhaustion 

 had accomplished what necessity and opportu- 

 nity and normal life could not. Several others 

 followed his scent instead of that leading back 

 toward the out-house, and as an amoeba gradu- 

 ally flows into one of its own pseudopodia, so the 

 forlorn hope of the great Eciton army passed 

 slowly down the beach and on into the jungle. 

 Would they die singly and in bewildered groups, 

 or would the remnant draw together, and again 

 guided by the super-mind of its Mentor lay the 

 foundation of another army, and again come to 

 nest in my out-house? 



Thus was the ending still unfinished, the finale 

 buried in the future — and in this we find the 

 fascination of Nature and of Science. Who can 

 be bored for a moment in the short existence 

 vouchsafed us here; with dramatic beginnings 

 barely hidden in the dust, with the excitement of 

 every moment of the present, and with all of cos- 

 mic possibility lying just concealed in the future, 

 whether of Betelgeuze, of Amoeba or — of our- 

 selves? Vogue la galere! 



