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First, because he had gone up and then because he had passed through the hail of iron and won. There was no one among us who did not earnestly wish he had tried and succeeded in what Termite had just done. But assuredly we did not a bit understand this strange soldier. A lull had come in the bombardment. "It's over," we concluded.
But, Jim, I tell you, I'd give years of my life to be able to do what all entomologists are wild to do study the depths of a termite mound. God! What wouldn't I give for the privilege of shrinking to ant-size, and roaming loose in that secretive-looking mound behind us!" He laughed again, and slapped Holden's broad back. "There would be a thrill for you, you bored adventurer!
But a shade more quickly, Jim sidestepped the terrible mandibles, leaped back along the armored body till he had reached the unarmored rear, and thrust his spear home with all his force. The hideous guard reared with pain and rage. But this was no worker termite, to be killed with a thrust. As though nothing had happened, the huge hulk wheeled around.
They knew that they were very near the ruler's lair now, on the lowest level, deep in the foundations of the vast pile. Dennis wiped perspiration, caused as much by emotion as by heat, from his face. He alone of all students on earth was going to penetrate the very heart of the termite mystery.
If you knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't dismiss the termite so casually! These 'ordinary little bugs' are the most intelligent, the most significant and highly organized of all the insect world. "Highly organized?" he repeated himself, his voice deepening. "They're like a race of intelligent beings from another planet superior even to Man, in some ways. They have a king and queen.
He says to our adjutant as soon as he finds him: "Six fatigue men wanted." The adjutant's bulk rises and yawns: "Butsire, Vindame, Margat, Termite, Paulin, Rémus!" he orders as he goes to sleep again. We emerge from the cave; and more slowly, from our drowsiness. We find ourselves standing in a village street.
Obeying another wordless order, one of the ghastly, syringe-headed monsters had stepped out of line with the start of the short struggle. This one bounded on Jim just as he leaned over for his weapon. Denny shouted a warning, started to run to his friend's aid. The dying termite, with a last burst of incredible vitality, caught his leg and held him. In an instant it was done.
The worker termite finally began to rush back and forth, antennae whipping from side to side, patently trying to discover the cause of the tragedy.
In the centre and underneath the spacious dome is the recess for the queen a hideous creature, with the head and thorax of an ordinary termite, but a body swollen to a hundred times its usual and proportionate bulk, and presenting the appearance of a mass of shapeless pulp.
Slowly the end of the bar dulled with swift oxidation; slowly it turned brownish and flaked away, almost entirely consumed. The acid if that was what the red stuff was was awesomely powerful, at least with inorganic substances. The termite team turned away from the bar, as if it were now a matter of indifference to the bloated brain borne on their backs. It approached the men again.
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