He hung in the little window for a moment, despairing. Then he saw the bulk of his captor a little distance away, waiting patiently for its poison to work and its prey to cease struggling. The tarantula was no more than shuddering now. Soon it would be quite still and the black-bellied creature would approach for its meal.
Burl withdrew his head and thrust desperately at the sticky stuff about his loins and legs. The oil upon his hands kept them free. The silk shroud gave a little. Burl grasped at the thought as at a straw. He grasped the fish and tore it, pushing frantically at his own body with the now-rancid, scaly, odorous mass. He scraped gum from his legs with the fish, smearing the rancid oils all over them in the process.
He felt the web tremble again. To the spider Burl's movements meant that its poison had not taken full effect. Another sting seemed to be necessary. This time it would not insert its sting into the quiescent tarantula, but where there was still life. It would send its venom into Burl.
He gasped and drew himself toward his window as if he would have pulled his legs from his body. His head emerged. His shoulders--half his body was out of the hole.
The great spider surveyed him and made ready to cast more of its silken stuff upon him. The spinnerets became active. A leg gathered it up--
The sticky stuff about Burl's feet gave way.
He shot out of the opening and fell heavily, sprawling upon the earth below and crashing into the shrunken shell of a flying beetle that had blundered into the snare and not escaped as he had done.
Burl rolled over and over and then sat up. An angry, foot-long ant stood before him, its mandibles extended threateningly, while a shrill stridulation filled the air.
In ages past, back on Earth--where most ants were to be measured in fractions of an inch--the scientists had debated gravely whether their tribe possessed a cry. They believed that certain grooves upon the body of the insect, like those upon the great legs of the cricket, might be the means of making a sound too shrill for human ears to catch. It was greatly debated, but evidence was hard to obtain.
Burl did not need evidence. He knew that the stridulation was caused by the insect before him, though he had never wondered how it was produced. The cry was emitted to summon other ants from its city to help it in difficulty or good fortune.