An Encounter with the Driver Ants

taku shimada

Previous on.... An encounter with Driver ant
There was a little opening in the mosquito netting, near the top of the bed, and it was through this gap that the ants had entered. Quickly he fastened the net in, all the way round, round then set to work to kill the ants which were in the bed. There were not more than forty or so, for he had felt them on his head as soon as they began to enter, and this small number was nothing compared to the countless masses outside.
For a long time he watched through the netting as the ants gradually quietened down and returned to their orderly columns, and towards morning he fell asleep again. When he awoke there was no sign of the ants which had entered during the night. They had gone away silently as they had come, and he was thankful.
Later in the day, however, he discovered that the ants had not gone away empty from his compound. They had found a pretty speckled hen where she nested in the corner of the wood shed, and they had devoured her and her little chickens.
Nothing had been left except a scattered heap of bones and feathers.