274 
THE TWO ARMIES. 
their pace. Living always underground, they have necessarily a very 
susceptible brain. The furious heat, and especially their fear lest the 
invading giants should pounce upon their families, impelled them to 
confront death unflinchingly. 
And a death which seemed certain; for each of the big carpenters, 
as far as size and thews were concerned, was well worth eight or ten of 
the little masons. At the first collision we saw a big ant fall upon a 
brown dwarf, and annihilate it at one blow. 
The masons, however, had the advantage of numbers. But what 
of that ? Suppose the front ranks were checked in the assault, and 
perished,—then the second, then the third,—if the army, still advanc¬ 
ing, did but furnish the enemy with new victims ? Such was our appre¬ 
hension. All our fear was for the little aborigines of our garden, dis¬ 
turbed by that invasion of a foreign people which we had brought upon 
them,—a people ill-bred and brutal, which, without any provocation, 
had marked their first arrival by slaughtering the inhabitants of the 
country. 
But it must be acknowledged that we had compared only the 
material forces of the two armies, and had not taken into account their 
moral strength. 
We recognized at the first onset an astonishing amount of skill and 
intelligence on the part of the little blacks. By sixes, they seized 
upon one of their gigantic opponents, each holding and neutralizing a 
claw; then two leaped on its back, and firmly grasped its antennae, 
until the giant, bound in every limb, was reduced to an inert body. 
It seemed to lose its senses; to grow dull and stupid ; no longer to be 
conscious of its enormous superiority of strength. Others then rushed 
to the attack, and, without incurring any danger, stabbed him above 
and below. 
The scene, regarded from a near point of view, was fright¬ 
ful. Whatever admiration the little ones merited for their heroic 
courage, their fury made one shudder. It was impossible to see 
without a feeling of pity these poor garotted giants, dragged miser¬ 
ably to and fro,—fired at from right and left,—floating as in an 
open sea on these billows of rage and impetuosity,—blind, power- 
