Suddenly, as he set himself against making the least stir of a muscle, he heard from the jungle through the broken covering of the trap, the same far-reaching whisper of death which had sounded when he was hunting with Pinto. A moment later, with staring eyes, he saw a black stream move sibilantly down the opposite wall of the pit, and realized that the blind black ants of the jungle were upon him--and that there was no escape.
Slowly the head of the moving column approached the bottom of the pit, and Will remembered in sick horror how the ants had torn away shred after shred of living flesh from the tortured body of the agouti. As the insatiable, inexorable mass rolled toward him, the bushmaster seemed either to hear or scent its approach. Instantly its tense coils relaxed, and it hurried around and around three sides of the pit, lashing upward against the perpendicular walls in a vain attempt to escape. In its paroxysm of terror, it came so close to the motionless boy that its rough, sharp scales rippled against his legs. Only when the van of the ant-army actually reached the floor of the pit and began to encircle its whole circumference did the great serpent seem to remember Will's presence. Then, as if entreating the help of a human being, it forced itself back of him, and, as the ants came nearer, even wound its way around Will's waist in an attempt to escape.
For a moment the fearful head towered level with the boy's face. Instinctively, Will's hand flashed out and caught the bushmaster by the neck. It made no attempt to strike, nor even struggled under the boy's choking grip; only the coiled body vibrated as if trembling at the approach of the deadly horde. For a moment the advance of the ant-army seemed to stop, but it was only because, in accordance with its tactics, the head of the column began to spread out until the base of the pit was a solid mass of moving ants and the black tide lapped at Will's very feet. Half-turning, and placing his ankles instead of his heels against the sides of the wall, the boy gained a few inches on the rising pool of death that stretched out before him, while the straining body of the bushmaster vibrated like a tuning-fork.