Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 10, 2025
Look out it's slippery!" It was. Their feet slid out from under them on the glazed surface repeatedly. It was with the utmost effort that they finally made their way to the center of the shallow plateau. There, lying beside two heaps of coarse cloth and a mound of horrible-smelling stuff that he recognized as the dab of termite-paste, they saw two glistening steel bars.
Into the patty-dish, so they could be readily located, were placed the bits of wire, the tiny fragments of silk gauze to serve as breech clouts, and a generous dab of termite-paste; and the two men stepped inside the glass dome to share the fate that, the night before, had been the dog's. The bell was lowered around them. They watched the inventor step to the switch and pull it down....
Shields in a figurative more than a literal sense." He set down a small porcelain pot, and opened it. Within was a repulsive-looking, whitish-brown paste. "Ground-up termites," he explained. "If we're to go wandering around in a termitary, we've got to persuade the inmates that we're friends, not foes. So we'll smear ourselves all over with this termite-paste before ever we enter the mound."
Simultaneously the crashing of the fierce horde behind sounded with appalling nearness the noise and odor of the ants preventing the huge termite guard in front of the men from recognizing and approving the smell of the termite-paste that covered their bodies.
However, even the termite-paste, and the fact that the termitary citizens were blind, didn't seem enough to account for the immunity granted the two men as they began to come presently to more crowded passages and tunnels near the center of the mound.
The termite-paste was, in this instance, the most deadly of challenges. Jim stepped to the fore, with his spear point slanted to receive the onslaught, spear butt grounded at his feet. Whether the six-legged horror would have had wit enough to comprehend the nature of the defense offered, and would have striven to circumvent it, had time been given it, is a question that will never be answered.
The soldiers had turned down that tunnel, too. "Are they after us again?" whispered Jim. Denny shrugged. There was still a remnant of the disguising termite-paste on their bodies to fool the insects. It seemed impossible that the ruling brain behind them had survived the cannibalistic rush and taken command of the mound again? But was anything impossible in this world of terror?
And Jim and Dennis rushed back and forth, too, engaged in a deadly game of blind man's buff as they tried to avoid the questing antennae which, registering sensation by touch instead of smell, was not to be fooled by the last disappearing traces of the termite-paste. The game did not last long. One of the feelers whipped against Dennis' legs and hell broke loose!
Word Of The Day
Others Looking