reflect no longer on what they would do. I preferred taking my
chance with the wildebeest. I would leap down. Perhaps some lucky
accident might aid me. I would battle with the gnoo, using my gun.
Perhaps I might succeed in escaping to some other hill. Perhaps--

"I was actually on the spring to leap down, when a new thought came into
my mind; and I wondered I had been so silly as not to think of it
before. What was to hinder me from keeping off the termites? They had
no wings--the soldiers have none--nor the workers neither, for that
matter. They could not fly upon me. They could only crawl up the cone.
With my jacket I could brush them back. Certainly I could--why did I
not think of it before?

"I was not long in taking off my jacket. I laid aside my useless gun,
dropping it upon one of the lower terraces. I caught the jacket by the
collar; and, using it as a duster, I cleared the sides of the cone in a
few moments, having sent thousands of the termites tumbling headlong
below.

"Pshaw! how simply the thing was done! why had I not done it before? It
cost scarcely an effort to brush the myriads away, and a slight effort
would keep them off as long as I pleased.

"The only annoyance I felt now was from the few that had got under my
trousers, and that still continued to bite me; but these I would get rid
of in time.

"Well--I remained on the apex, now bending down to beat back the
soldiers that still swarmed upward, and then occupying myself in trying
to get rid of the few that crawled upon me. I felt no longer any
uneasiness on the score of the insects--though I was not a bit better
off as regarded the bull, who still kept guard below. I fancied,
however, that he now showed symptoms of weariness, and would soon raise
the siege; and this prospect made me feel more cheerful.

"A sudden change came over me. A new thrill of terror awaited me.

"While jumping about upon the top of the cone, my footing suddenly gave
way--the baked clay broke with a dead crash, and I sank through the
roof. My feet shot down into the hollow dome--till I thought I must
have crushed the great queen in her chamber--and I stood buried to the
neck.

"I was surprised, and a little terrified, not by the shock I had
experienced in the sudden descent. That was natural enough, and a few
moments would have restored my equanimity; but it was something else
that frightened me. It was something that moved under my feet as they
to