r whim. An
overwhelming cataclysm descended suddenly upon the tiny world of the
pitcher-plant. The soft, furry feet of some bounding monster--rabbit,
fox, or wildcat--came down amongst the clustered pitchers, crushing
several to bits and scattering wide the contents of all the rest. Among
these latter was that which contained the little black ant. Drenched,
astonished, but unhurt, she found herself lying in a tuft of splashed
grass, once more free. Above her, on a grass-top, clung the bewildered
spider. As it hung there, conspicuous to all the foraging world, a great
black-and-yellow wasp pounced upon it, stung it into helplessness, and
carried it off on heavily humming wing.

The Prowlers

Heeling under a stiff breeze, the sloop rose joyously to the long
Caribbean rollers. Soon after midnight Mahoney awoke. He went to the
tiller at once, and let the stalwart Jamaican nigger, who constituted
his crew, take a turn of sleep. The wind was steady, the sea was clear,
there was no island, reef, or shoal between himself and Cuba, and
Mahoney had little to do but hold the tiller and dream. Presently clouds
gathered, obscuring the moon, and thickened till the light which
filtered through them was rather a deceit than an illumination. Far-off
waves seemed close at hand, and waves so near they were about to break
over the bow appeared remote. Strange shapes made and unmade themselves
among the shifting surfaces, dark, solid forms which melted into
flowing, hissing water. Mahoney's eyes amused themselves with these
fantastic wave-shadows and phantoms of the fluent deep. Then, suddenly,
one of the dark, submerged shapes broke the rules of the game. It
refused to melt and flow. With a gasp Mahoney jammed his helm hard
round, and let go his sheet on the run. There was a shuddering shock.
The boat reared, like a frightened horse struggling to climb a bank.
Then, with a kind of sickening deliberation, she turned clean over.
There was a choking yell from the rudely awakened darky; and Mahoney
found himself plunged into the smother of the broken waves.

When he came to the surface and shook the water out of his eyes, Mahoney
clutched the stern and pulled himself up to see what had happened. He
had run upon a huge fragment of a broken-up wreck. From the heavy,
steady motion, he concluded that the boat was caught on a sunken portion
of the wreck. Some fifteen feet away a space of deck, with a few feet of
bulwarks, rose just clear