McEWEN OF THE SHINING SLAVE MAKERS
IT was a hot day in August. The parching rays of a summer sun had faded the once sappy green leaves of the trees to a dull and dusty hue. The grass, still good to look upon in shady places, spread sere and dry where the light had fallen unbroken. The roads were hot with thick dust, and wherever a stone path led, it reflected heat to weary body and soul.
Robert McEwen had taken a seat under a fine old beech tree whose broad arms cast a welcome shade. He had come here out of the toil of the busy streets.
For a time he gave himself over to blank contemplation of the broad park and the occasional carriages that jingled by. Presently his meditation was broken by an ant on his trousers, which he flipped away with his finger. This awoke him to the thought that there might be more upon him. He stood up, shaking and brushing himself. Then he noticed an ant running along the walk in front of him. He stamped on it.
“I guess that will do for you,” he said, half aloud, and sat down again.
Now only did he really notice the walk. It was wide and hard and hot. Many ants were hurrying about, and now he saw that they were black. At last, one more active than the others fixed his eye. He followed it with his glance for more than a score of feet.
This particular ant was progressing urgently, now to the right, now to the left, stopping here and there, but never for more than a second. Its energy, the zig-zag course it pursued, the frequency with which it halted to examine something, enlisted his interest. As he gazed, the path grew in imagination until it assumed immense proportions.
Suddenly he bestirred himself, took a single glance and then jumped, rubbing his eyes. He was in an unknown world, strange in every detail. The branched and many-limbed trees had disappeared. A forest of immense flat swords of green swayed in the air above him. The ground between lacked its carpet of green and was roughly strewn with immense boulders of clay. The air was strong with an odor which seemed strange and yet familiar. Only the hot sun streaming down and a sky of faultless blue betokened a familiar world. In regard to himself McEwen felt peculiar and yet familiar. What was it that made these surroundings and himself seem odd and yet usual? He could not tell. His three pairs of limbs and his vigorous mandibles seemed natural enough. The fact that he sensed rather than saw things was natural and yet odd. Forthwith moved by a sense of duty, necessity, and a kind of tribal obligation which he more felt than understood, he set out in search of food and prey and presently came to a broad plain, so wide that his eye could scarce command more than what seemed an immediate portion of it. He halted and breathed with a feeling of relief. Just then a voice startled him.
“Anything to eat hereabout?” questioned the newcomer in a friendly and yet self-interested tone.
McEwen drew back.
“I do not know,” he said, “I have just——”
“Terrible,” said the stranger, not waiting to hear his answer. “It looks like famine. You know the Sanguineæ have gone to war.”
“No,” answered McEwen mechanically.
“Yes,” said the other, “they raided the Fuscæ yesterday. They’ll be down on us next.”
With that the stranger made off. McEwen was about to exclaim at the use of the word us when a ravenous craving for food, brought now forcibly to his mind by the words of the other, made him start in haste after him.
Then came another who bespoke him in passing.
“I haven’t found a thing to-day, and I’ve been all the way to the Pratensis region. I didn’t dare go any further without having some others with me. They’re hungry, too, up there, though they’ve just made a raid. You heard the Sanguineæ went to war, didn’t you?”
“Yes, he told me,” said McEwen, indicating the retreating figure of the stranger.
“Oh, Ermi. Yes, he’s been over in their territory. Well, I’ll be going now.”
McEwen hastened after Ermi at a good pace, and soon overtook him. The latter had stopped and was gathering in his mandibles a jagged crumb, almost as large as himself.
“Oh!” exclaimed McEwen eagerly, “where did you get that?”
“Here,” said Ermi.
“Will you give me a little?”
“I will not,” said the other, and a light came in his eye that was almost evil.
“All right,” said McEwen, made bold by hunger and yet cautious by danger, “which way would you advise me to look?”
“Wherever you please,” said Ermi, “why ask me? You are not new at seeking,” and strode off.
“The forest was better than this,” thought McEwen; “there I would not die of the heat, anyhow, and I might find food. Here is nothing,” and he turned and glanced about for a sight of the jungle whence he had come.
Far to the left and rear of him he saw it, those great up-standing swords. As he gazed, revolving in his troubled mind whether he should return or not, he saw another like himself hurrying toward him out of the distance.
He eagerly hailed the newcomer, who was yet a long way off.
“What is it?” asked the other, coming up rapidly.
“Do you know where I can get something to eat?”
“Is that why you called me?” he answered, eyeing him angrily. “Do you ask in time of famine? Certainly not. If I had anything for myself, I would not be out here. Go and hunt for it like the rest of us. Why should you be asking?”
“I have been hunting,” cried McEwen, his anger rising. “I have searched here until I am almost starved.”
“No worse off than any of us, are you?” said the other. “Look at me. Do you suppose I am feasting?”
He went off in high dudgeon, and McEwen gazed after him in astonishment. The indifference and sufficiency were at once surprising and yet familiar. Later he found himself falling rapidly into helpless lassitude from both hunger and heat, when a voice, as of one in pain, hailed him.
“Ho!” it cried.
“Hello!” he answered.
“Come, come!” was the feeble reply.
McEwen started forward at once. When he was still many times his own length away he recognized the voice as that of his testy friend of a little while before, but now sadly changed. He was stretched upon the earth, working his mandibles feebly.
“What is it?” asked McEwen solicitously. “What ails you? How did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” said the other. “I was passing along here when that struck me,” indicating a huge boulder. “I am done for, though. You may as well have this food now, since you are one of us. The tribe can use what you do not eat,” he sighed.
“Oh, nothing of the sort,” said McEwen solicitously, the while he viewed the crushed limbs and side of the sufferer. “You’ll be all right. Why do you speak of death? Just tell me where to take you, or whom to go for.”
“No,” said the other, “it would be no use. You see how it is. They could do nothing for me. I did not want your aid. I merely wanted you to have this food here. I shall not want it now.”
“Don’t say that,” returned McEwen. “You mustn’t talk about dying. There must be something I can do. Tell me. I don’t want your food.”
“No, there isn’t anything you could do. There isn’t any cure, you know that. Report, when you return, how I was killed. Just leave me now and take that with you. They need it, if you do not.”
McEwen viewed him silently. This reference to a colony or tribe or home seemed to clarify many things for him. He remembered now apparently the long road he had come, the immense galleries of the colony to which he belonged under the earth, the passages by which he had made his way in and out, the powerful and revered ant mother, various larvæ to be fed and eggs to be tended. To be sure. That was it. He was a part of this immense colony or group. The heat must have affected his sensory powers. He must gather food and return there—kill spiders, beetles, grubs, and bring them back to help provision the colony. That was it. Only there were so few to be found here, for some reason.
The sufferer closed his eyes in evident pain, and trembled convulsively. Then he fell back and died.
McEwen gazed upon the now fast stiffening body, with all but indifference, and wondered. The spectacle seemed so familiar as to be all but commonplace. Apparently he had seen so many die that way. Had he not, in times past, reported the deaths of hundreds?
“Is he dead?” asked a voice at his side.
“Yes,” said McEwen, scarcely bringing himself out of his meditation sufficiently to observe the newcomer.
“Well, then, he will not need this, I guess,” said the other, and he seized upon the huge lump with his mandibles, but McEwen was on the alert and savage into the bargain, on the instant. He, too, gripped his mandibles upon it.
“I was called by him to have this, before he died,” he shouted “and I propose to have it. Let go.”
“That I will not,” said the other with great vigor and energy. “I’ll have some of it, at least,” and, giving a mighty wrench, which sent both himself and McEwen sprawling, he tore off a goodly portion of it and ran, gaining his feet so quickly that he was a good length off before McEwen arose. The latter was too hungry, however, to linger in useless rage, and now fell to and ate before any other should disturb him. Then, feeling partially satisfied, he stretched himself languorously and continued more at his leisure. After a time he shook himself out of his torpor which had seized on him with his eating, and made off for the distant jungle, in which direction, as he now felt, lay the colony home.
He was in one of the darkest and thickest portions of the route thither when there was borne to him from afar the sound of feet in marching time, and a murmuring as of distant voices. He stopped and listened. Presently the sounds grew louder and more individual. He could now tell that a great company was nearing him. The narrow path which he followed was clear for some distance, and open to observation. Not knowing what creatures he was about to meet, he stepped out of it into a thicket, at one side and took up a position behind a great boulder. The tramp of many feet was now so close as to bode contact and discovery, and he saw, through the interstices of green stalks, a strange column filing along the path he had left. They were no other than a company of red warriors—slave makers like himself, only of a different species, the fierce Sanguineæ that Ermi had spoken of as having gone to war.
To war they certainly had been, and no doubt were going again. Nearly every warrior carried with him some mark of plunder or of death. Many bore in their mandibles dead bodies of the enemy or their larvæ captured from a Fuscan colony. Others bore upon their legs the severed heads of the poor blacks who had been slain in the defense of their home, and whose jaws still clung to their foes, fixed in the rigor of death. Still others dragged the bodies of their victims, and shouted as they went, making the long, lonely path to ring with uncanny sounds as they disappeared in the distance.
McEwen came furtively out after a time and looked after them. He had gotten far to the left of the warriors and somewhat to the front of them, and was just about to leave the shadow of one clump of bushes to hurry to a neighboring stone, when there filed out from the very shelter upon which he had his eye fixed, the figure of one whom he immediately recognized as Ermi. The latter seemed to await a favorable opportunity when he should not be observed, and then started running. McEwen followed. In the distance could be seen a group of the Sanguineæ, who had evidently paused for something, moving about in great excitement, in groups of two or three, gesticulating and talking. Some of those not otherwise engaged displayed a sensibility of danger or a lust of war by working their jaws and sawing at heavy stones with their mandibles. Presently one gazed in the direction of Ermi, and shouted to the others.
Immediately four warriors set out in pursuit. McEwen hastened after Ermi, to see what would become of him. Discreetly hidden himself, he could do this with considerable equanimity. As he approached, he saw Ermi moving backward and forward, endeavoring to close the entrance to a cave in which he had now taken refuge. Apparently that warrior had become aware that no time was to be lost, since he also could see the pursuing Sanguineæ. With a swiftness born of daring and a keen realization of danger, he arranged a large boulder at the very edge of the portal as a key, and then others in such position that when the first should topple in the others would follow. Then he crawled deftly inside the portal, and pulling the keystone, toppled the whole mass in after him.
This was hardly done when the Sanguineæ were upon him. They were four cruel, murderous fighters, deeply scarred. One, called by the others Og, had a black’s head at his thigh. One of his temples bore a scar, and the tip of his left antenna was broken. He was a keen old warrior, however, and scented the prey at once.
“Hi, you!” he shouted to the others. “Here’s the place.”
Just then another drew near to the portal which Ermi had barricaded. He looked at it closely, walked about several times, sounded with his antennæ and then listened. There was no answer.
“Hist!” he exclaimed to the others.
Now they came up. They also looked, but so well had Ermi done his work that they were puzzled.
“I’m not sure,” said Og, “it looks to me more like an abandoned cave than an entrance.”
“Tear it open, anyway,” advocated Ponan, the second of the quartette, speaking for the first time.
“There may be no other exit.”
“Aha!” cried Og, “Good! We will see anyhow.”
“Come on!” yelled Maru, a third, seizing the largest boulder, “Mandibles to!”
“Out with him!” cried Om, jumping eagerly to work. “We will have him out in a jiffy!”
It was not an easy task, as the boulders were heavy and deep, but they tore them out. Later they dragged forth Ermi, who, finding himself captured, seized the head of Maru with his mandibles. Og, on the other hand, seized one of Ermi’s legs in his powerful jaws. The others also had taken hold. The antennæ of all were thrown back, and the entire mass went pushing and shoving, turning and tumbling in a whirl.
McEwen gazed, excited and sympathetic. At first he thought to avoid it all, having a horror of death, but a moment later decided to come to his friend’s rescue, a feeling of tribal relationship which was overwhelming coming over him. Springing forward, he clambered upon the back of Og, at whose neck he began to saw with his powerful teeth. Og, realizing a new adversary, released his hold upon Ermi’s limb and endeavored to shake off his new enemy. McEwen held tight, however. The others, however, too excited to observe the newcomer, still struggled to destroy Ermi. The latter had stuck steadily to his labor of killing Maru, and now, when Og’s hold was loosened, he gave a powerful crush and Maru breathed his last. This advantaged him little, however, for both Ponan and Om were attacking his sides.
“Take that!” shouted Om, throwing himself violently upon Ermi and turning him over. “Saw off his head, Ponan.”
Ponan released his hold and sprang for Ermi’s head. There was a kicking and crushing of jaws, and Ponan secured his grip.
“Kill him!” yelled Om. “Come, Og! Come!”
At this very moment Og’s severed head fell to the ground, and McEwen leaping from his back, sprang to the aid of Ermi.
“Come!” he shouted at Ponan, who was sawing at Ermi’s head. “It’s two to two now,” and McEwen gave such a wrench to Ponan’s side that he writhed in pain, and released his hold on Ermi.
But recovering himself he leaped upon McEwen, and bore him down, sprawling.
The fight was now more desperate than ever. The combatants rolled and tossed. McEwen’s right antenna was broken by his fall, and one of his legs was injured. He could seem to get no hold upon his adversary, whom he now felt to be working toward his neck.
“Let go!” he yelled, gnashing at him with his mandibles, but Ponan only tightened his murderous jaws.
Better fortune was now with Ermi, however, who was a more experienced fighter. Getting a grip upon Om’s body, he hurled him to the ground and left him stunned and senseless.
Seeing McEwen’s predicament, he now sprang to his aid. The latter was being sadly worsted and but for the generous aid of Ermi, would have been killed. The latter struck Ponan a terrific blow with his head and having stunned him, dragged him off. The two, though much injured, now seized upon the unfortunate Sanguinea and tore him in two, and would have done as much for Om, had they not discovered that that bedraggled warrior had recovered sufficiently to crawl away and hide.
McEwen and Ermi now drew near to each other in warm admiration.
“Come with me,” said Ermi. “They are all about here now and that coward who escaped will have them upon us. There is a corridor into our home from here, only I was not able to reach it before they caught me. Help me barricade this entrance.”
Together they built up the stones more effectually than before, and then entered, toppling the mass in behind them. With considerable labor, they built up another barricade below.
“You watch a moment, now,” said Ermi to McEwen, and then hurried down a long passage through which he soon returned bringing with him a sentinel, who took up guard duty at the point where the fight had occurred. “He will stay here and give the alarm in case another attack is made,” he commented.
“Come now,” he added, touching McEwen affectionately with his antennæ. Leading the way, Ermi took him along a long winding corridor with which, somehow, he seemed to be familiar, and through various secret passages into the colony house.
“You see,” he said to McEwen familiarly, as they went, “they could not have gotten in here, even if they had killed me, without knowing the way. Our passageways are too intricate. But it is as well to keep a picket there, now that they are about. Where have you been? You do not belong to our colony, do you?”
McEwen related his experiences since their meeting in the desert, without explaining where he came from. He knew that he was a member of some other colony of this same tribe without being sure of which one. A strange feeling of wandering confusion possessed him, as though he had been injured in some way, somewhere, and was lost for the moment.
“Well, you might as well stay with us, now,” said Ermi. “Are you hungry?”
“Very,” said McEwen.
“Then we will eat at once.”
McEwen now gazed upon a domed chamber of vast proportions, with which, also, he seemed familiar, an old inhabitant of one such, no less. It had several doors that opened out into galleries, and corridors leading to other chambers and store rooms, a home for thousands.
Many members of this allied family now hurried to meet them, all genially enough.
“You have had an encounter with them?” asked several at once.
“Nothing to speak of,” said Ermi, who, fighter that he was, had also a touch of vanity. “Look after my friend here, who has saved my life.”
“Not I!” cried McEwen warmly.
They could not explain, however, before they were seized by their admirers and carried into a chamber where none of the din of preparation penetrated, and where was a carpet of soft grass threads upon which they might lie.
Injured though they were, neither could endure lying still for long, and were soon poking about, though unable to do anything. McEwen was privileged to idle and listlessly watch an attack on one portal of the cave which lasted an entire day, resulting in failure for the invaders. It was a rather broken affair, the principal excitement occurring about the barricaded portals and secret exits at the end of the long corridors, where McEwen often found himself in the way. The story of his prowess had been well told by Ermi, and he was a friend and hero whom many served. A sort of ambulance service was established which not only looked to the bringing in of the injured, but also to the removal of the dead. A graveyard was prepared just outside one of the secret entrances, far from the scene of the siege, and here the dead were laid in orderly rows.
The siege having ended temporarily the same day it began, the household resumed its old order. Those who had remained within went forth for forage. The care of the communal young, which had been somewhat interrupted, was now resumed. Larvæ and chrysalises, which had been left almost unattended in the vast nurseries, were moved to and fro between the rooms where the broken sunlight warmed, and the shadow gave them rest.
“There is war ahead,” said Ermi to McEwen one day not long after this. “These Sanguineæ will never let us alone until we give them battle. We shall have to stir up the whole race of Shining Slave Makers and fight all the Sanguineæ before we have peace again.”
“Good,” said McEwen. “I am ready.”
“So am I,” answered Ermi, “but it is no light matter. They are our ancient enemy and as powerful as we. If we meet again you will see war that is war.”
Not long after this McEwen and Ermi, foraging together, encountered a Sanguinea, who fought with them and was slain. Numerous Lucidi, of which tribe he found himself to be a member, left the community of a morning to labor and were never heard of again. Encounters between parties of both camps were frequent, and orderly living ceased.
At last the entire community was in a ferment, and a council was called. It was held in the main saloon of the formicary, a vast chamber whose hollowed dome rose like the open sky above them. The queen of the community was present, and all the chief warriors, including Ermi and McEwen. Loud talking and fierce comment were indulged in to no point, until Yumi, long a light in the councils of the Lucidi, spoke. He was short and sharp of speech.
“We must go to war,” he said. “Our old enemies will give us no peace. Send couriers to all the colonies of the Shining Slave Makers. We will meet the Red Slave Makers as we did before.”
“Ah,” said an old Lucidi, who stood at McEwen’s side, “that was a great battle. You don’t remember. You were too young. There were thousands and thousands in that. I could not walk for the dead.”
“Are we to have another such?” asked McEwen.
“If the rest of us come. We are a great people. The Shining Slave Makers are numberless.”
Just then another voice spoke, and Ermi listened.
“Let us send for them to come here. When the Sanguineæ again lay siege let us pour out and destroy them. Let none escape.”
“Let us first send couriers and hear what our people say,” broke in Ermi loudly. “The Sanguineæ are a vast people also. We must have numbers. It must be a decisive battle.”
“Ay, ay,” answered many. “Send the couriers!”
Forthwith messengers were dispatched to all parts, calling the hordes of the Shining Slave Makers to war. In due course they returned, bringing information that they were coming. Their colonies also had been attacked. Later the warriors of the allied tribes began to put in an appearance.
It was a gathering of legions. The paths in the forests about resounded with their halloos. With the arrival of the first cohorts of these friendly colonies, there was a minor encounter with an irritant host of the Sanguineæ foraging hereabout, who were driven back and destroyed. Later there were many minor encounters and deaths before the hosts were fully assembled, but the end was not yet. All knew that. The Sanguineæ had fled, but not in cowardice. They would return.
The one problem with this vast host, now that it was assembled, was food. Eventually they expected to discover this in the sacked homes of the Sanguineæ, but temporarily other provision must be made. The entire region had to be scoured. Colonies of Fuscæ and Schauffusi living in nearby territory were attacked and destroyed. Their storehouses were ransacked and the contents distributed. Every form of life was attacked and still there was not enough.
Both McEwen and Ermi, now inseparable, joined in one of these raids. It was upon a colony of Fuscæ, who had their home in a neighboring forest. The company went singing on their way until within a short distance of the colony, when they became silent.
“Let us not lose track of one another,” said McEwen.
“No,” said Ermi, “but they are nothing. We will take all they possess without a struggle. See them running.”
As he said this, he motioned in the direction of several Fuscæ that were fleeing toward their portals in terror. The Lucidi set up a shout, and darted after, plunging into the open gates, striking and slaying as they went. In a few minutes those first in came out again carrying their booty. Others were singly engaged in fiercest battle with large groups of the weaker Fuscæ. Only a few of the latter were inclined to fight. They seemed for the most part dazed by their misfortunes. Numbers hung from the topmost blades of the towering sword-trees, and the broad, floor-like leaves of the massive weeds, about their caves where they had taken refuge, holding in their jaws baby larvæ and cocoons rescued from the invaders, with which they had hurriedly fled to these nearest elevated objects.
Singly, McEwen pursued a dozen, and reveled in the sport of killing them. He tumbled them with rushes of his body, crushed them with his mandibles, and poisoned them with his formic sting.
“Do you need help?” called Ermi once, who was always near and shouting.
“Yes,” called McEwen scornfully, “bring me more of them.”
Soon the deadly work was over and the two comrades, gathering a mass of food, joined the returning band, singing as they went.
“To-morrow,” said Ermi, as they went along, “we will meet the Sanguineæ. It is agreed. The leaders are conferring now.”
McEwen did not learn where these latter were, but somehow he was pleased. An insane lust of combat was now upon him.
“They will not be four to two this time,” he laughed exultingly.
“No, and we will not be barricading against them, either,” laughed Ermi, the lust of war simmering in his veins.
As they came near their camp, however, they found a large number of the assembled companies already in motion. Thousands upon thousands of those who had arrived were already assembled in one group or another and were prepared for action. There were cries and sounds of fighting, and long lines of Lucidi hurrying hither and thither.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ermi excitedly.
“The Sanguineæ,” was the answer. “They are returning.”
Instantly McEwen became sober. Ermi turned to him affectionately.
“Now,” he said solemnly, “courage. We’re in for it.”
A tremendous hubbub followed. Already vast legions of the Lucidi were bearing away to the east. McEwen and Ermi, not being able to find their own, fell in with a strange company.
“Order!” shouted a voice in their ears. “Fall in line. We are called.”
The twain mechanically obeyed, and dropped behind a regular line. Soon they were winding along with other long lines of warriors through the tall sword trees, and in a little while reached a huge, smooth, open plain where already the actual fighting had begun. Thousands were here, apparently hundreds of thousands. There was little order, and scarcely any was needed apparently, since all contacts were individual or between small groups. It all depended now on numbers, and the results of the contests between individuals, or at the most, these small groups. Ermi, McEwen, and several other Lucidi were about to seize upon one Sanguinea, who was approaching them, when an amazing rush of the latter broke them, and McEwen found himself separated from Ermi with a red demon snapping at his throat. Dazed by the shock and clamor, he almost fell a prey to this first charge. A moment later, however, his courage and daring returned. With a furious bound, he recovered himself and forced himself upon his adversary, snapping his neck in his jaws.
“Take that!” he said to the tumbling carcass.
He had no sooner ended one foe, however, than another clutched him. They were on every hand, hard, merciless fighters like himself and Ermi who rushed and tore and sawed with amazing force. McEwen faced his newest adversary swiftly. While the latter was seeking for McEwen’s head and antennæ with his mandibles, the former with a quick snap seized his foe by the neck. Turning up his abdomen, he ejected formic acid into the throat of the other. That finished him.
Meanwhile the battle continued on every hand with the same mad vehemence. Already the dead clogged the ground. Here, single combatants struggled—there, whole lines moved and swayed in deadly combat. Ever and anon new lines were formed, and strange hosts of friends or enemies came up, falling upon the combatants of both sides with murderous enthusiasm. McEwen, in a strange daze and lust of death, seemed to think nothing of it. He was alone now—lost in a tossing sea of war, and terror seemed to have forsaken him. It was wonderful, he thought, mysterious——
As enemy after enemy assailed him, he fought them as he best knew, an old method to him, apparently, and as they died, he wished them to die—broken, poisoned, sawed in two. He began to count and exult in the numbers he had slain. It was at last as though he were dreaming, and all around was a vain, dark, surging mass of enemies.
Finally, four of the Sanguineæ seized upon him in a group, and he went down before them, almost helpless. Swiftly they tore at his head and body, endeavoring to dispose of him quickly. One seized a leg, another an antenna. A third jumped and sawed at his neck. Still he did not care. It was all war, and he would struggle to the last shred of his strength, eagerly, enthusiastically. At last he seemed to lose consciousness.
When he opened his eyes again, Ermi was beside him.
“Well?” said Ermi.
“Well?” answered McEwen.
“You were about done for, then.”
“Was I?” he answered. “How are things going?”
“I cannot tell yet,” said Ermi. “All I know is that you were faring badly when I came up. Two of them were dead, but the other two were killing you.”
“You should have left me to them,” said McEwen, noticing now for the first time Ermi’s wounds. “It does not matter so much—one Lucidi more or less—what of it? But you have been injured.”
“I—oh, nothing. You are the one to complain. I fear you are badly injured.”
“Oh, I,” returned McEwen heavily, feeling at last the weight of death upon him, “I am done for. I cannot live. I felt myself dying some time ago.”
He closed his eyes and trembled. In another moment——
McEwen opened his eyes. Strangely enough he was looking out upon jingling carriages and loitering passersby in the great city park. It was all so strange, by comparison with that which he had so recently seen, the tall buildings in the distance, instead of the sword trees, the trees, the flowers. He jumped to his feet in astonishment, then sank back again in equal amaze, a passerby eyeing him curiously the while.
“I have been asleep,” he said in a troubled way. “I have been dreaming. And what a dream!”
He shut his eyes again, wishing, for some strange reason—charm, sympathy, strangeness—to regain the lost scene. An odd longing filled his heart, a sense of comradeship lost, of some friend he knew missing. When he opened his eyes again he seemed to realize something more of what had been happening, but it was fading, fading.
At his feet lay the plain and the ants with whom he had recently been—or so he thought. Yes, there, only a few feet away in the parched grass, was an arid spot, over-run with insects. He gazed upon it, in amazement, searching for the details of a lost world. Now, as he saw, coming closer, a giant battle was in progress, such a one, for instance, as that in which he had been engaged in his dream. The ground was strewn with dead ants. Thousands upon thousands were sawing and striking at each other quite in the manner in which he had dreamed. What was this?—a revelation of the spirit and significance of a lesser life or of his own—or what? And what was life if the strange passions, moods and necessities which conditioned him here could condition those there on so minute a plane?
“Why, I was there,” he said dazedly and a little dreamfully, “a little while ago. I died there—or as well as died there—in my dream. At least I woke out of it into this or sank from that into this.”
Stooping closer he could see where lines were drawn, how in places the forces raged in confusion, and the field was cluttered with the dead. At one moment an odd mad enthusiasm such as he had experienced in his dream-world lay hold of him, and he looked for the advantage of the Shining Slave Makers—the blacks—as he thought of the two warring hosts as against the reds. But finding it not, the mood passed, and he stood gazing, lost in wonder. What a strange world! he thought. What worlds within worlds, all apparently full of necessity, contention, binding emotions and unities—and all with sorrow, their sorrow—a vague, sad something out of far-off things which had been there, and was here in this strong bright city day, had been there and would be here until this odd, strange thing called life had ended.