Free and Other Stories

THEODORE DREISER

This particular ant was progressing urgently, now to the right, now to the left, stopping here and there, but never for more than a second. Its energy, the zigzag course it pursued, the frequency with which it halted to examine something, enlisted his interest. As he gazed, the path grew in imagination until it assumed immense proportions.

Suddenly he bestirred himself, took a single glance and then jumped, rubbing his eyes. He was in an unknown world, strange in every detail. The branched and many-limbed trees had disappeared. A forest of immense flat swords of green swayed in the air above him. The ground between lacked its carpet of green and was roughly strewn with immense boulders of clay. The air was strong with an odor which seemed strange and yet familiar. Only the hot sun streaming down and a sky of faultless blue betokened a familiar world. In regard to himself McEwen felt peculiar and yet familiar. What was it that made these surroundings and himself seem odd and yet usual? He could not tell. His three pairs of limbs and his vigorous mandibles seemed natural enough. The fact that he sensed rather than saw things was natural and yet odd. Forthwith moved by a sense of duty, necessity, and a kind of tribal obligation which he more felt than understood, he set out in search of food and prey and presently came to a broad plain, so wide that his eye could scarce command more than what seemed an immediate portion of it. He halted and breathed with a feeling of relief. Just then a voice startled him.

“Anything to eat hereabout?” questioned the newcomer in a friendly and yet self-interested tone.

McEwen drew back.

“I do not know,” he said, “I have just – “

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“Terrible,” said the stranger, not waiting to hear his answer. “It looks like famine. You know the Sanguineæ have gone to war.”

“No,” answered McEwen mechanically.

“Yes,” said the other, “they raided the Fuscæ yesterday. They’ll be down on us next.”

With that the stranger made off. McEwen was about to exclaim at the use of the word us when a ravenous craving for food, brought now forcibly to his mind by the words of the other, made him start in haste after him.

Then came another who bespoke him in passing.

“I haven’t found a thing to-day, and I’ve been all the way to the Pratensis region. I didn’t dare go any further without having some others with me. They’re hungry, too, up there, though they’ve just made a raid. You heard the Sanguineæ went to war, didn’t you?”

“Yes, he told me,” said McEwen, indicating the retreating figure of the stranger.

“Oh, Ermi. Yes, he’s been over in their territory. Well, I’ll be going now.”

McEwen hastened after Ermi at a good pace, and soon overtook him. The latter had stopped and was gathering in his mandibles a jagged crumb, almost as large as himself.

“Oh!” exclaimed McEwen eagerly, “where did you get that?”

“Here,” said Ermi.

“Will you give me a little?”

“I will not,” said the other, and a light came in his eye that was almost evil.

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“All right,” said McEwen, made bold by hunger and yet cautious by danger, “which way would you advise me to look?”

“Wherever you please,” said Ermi, “why ask me? You are not new at seeking,” and strode off.

“The forest was better than this,” thought McEwen; “there I would not die of the heat, anyhow, and I might find food. Here is nothing,” and he turned and glanced about for a sight of the jungle whence he had come.

Far to the left and rear of him he saw it, those great upstanding swords. As he gazed, revolving in his troubled mind whether he should return or not, he saw another like himself hurrying toward him out of the distance.

He eagerly hailed the newcomer, who was yet a long way

off.

“What is it?” asked the other, coming up rapidly. “Do you know where I can get something to eat?”

“Is that why you called me?” he answered, eyeing him angrily. “Do you ask in time of famine? Certainly not. If I had anything for myself, I would not be out here. Go and hunt for it like the rest of us. Why should you be asking?”

“I have been hunting,” cried McEwen, his anger rising. “I have searched here until I am almost starved.”

“No worse off than any of us, are you?” said the other. “Look at me. Do you suppose I am feasting?”

He went off in high dudgeon, and McEwen gazed after him in astonishment. The indifference and sufficiency were at once surprising and yet familiar. Later he found himself falling rapidly into helpless lassitude from both hunger and heat, when a voice, as of one in pain, hailed him.

“Ho!” it cried.

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“Hello!” he answered.

“Come, come!” was the feeble reply.

McEwen started forward at once. When he was still many times his own length away he recognized the voice as that of his testy friend of a little while before, but now sadly changed. He was stretched upon the earth, working his mandibles feebly.

“What is it?” asked McEwen solicitously. “What ails you? How did this happen?”

“I don’t know,” said the other. “I was passing along here when that struck me,” indicating a huge boulder. “I am done for, though. You may as well have this food now, since you are one of us. The tribe can use what you do not eat,” he sighed.

“Oh, nothing of the sort,” said McEwen solicitously, the while he viewed the crushed limbs and side of the sufferer. “You’ll be all right. Why do you speak of death? Just tell me where to take you, or whom to go for.”

“No,” said the other, “it would be no use. You see how it is. They could do nothing for me. I did not want your aid. I merely wanted you to have this food here. I shall not want it now.”

“Don’t say that,” returned McEwen. “You mustn’t talk about dying. There must be something I can do. Tell me. I don’t want your food.”

“No, there isn’t anything you could do. There isn’t any cure, you know that. Report, when you return, how I was killed. Just leave me now and take that with you. They need it, if you do not.”

McEwen viewed him silently. This reference to a colony or tribe or home seemed to clarify many things for him. He remembered now apparently the long road he had come, the im-

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mense galleries of the colony to which he belonged under the earth, the passages by which he had made his way in and out, the powerful and revered ant mother, various larvæ to be fed and eggs to be tended. To be sure. That was it. He was a part of this immense colony or group. The heat must have affected his sensory powers. He must gather food and return there – kill spiders, beetles, grubs, and bring them back to help provision the colony. That was it. Only there were so few to be found here, for some reason.

The sufferer closed his eyes in evident pain, and trembled convulsively. Then he fell back and died.

McEwen gazed upon the now fast stiffening body, with all but indifference, and wondered. The spectacle seemed so familiar as to be all but commonplace. Apparently he had seen so many die that way. Had he not, in times past, reported the deaths of hundreds?

“Is he dead?” asked a voice at his side.

“Yes,” said McEwen, scarcely bringing himself out of his meditation sufficiently to observe the newcomer.

“Well, then, he will not need this, I guess,” said the other, and he seized upon the huge lump with his mandibles, but McEwen was on the alert and savage into the bargain, on the instant. He, too, gripped his mandibles upon it.

“I was called by him to have this, before he died,” he shouted “and I propose to have it. Let go.”

“That I will not,” said the other with great vigor and energy. “I’ll have some of it, at least,” and, giving a mighty wrench, which sent both himself and McEwen sprawling, he tore off a goodly portion of it and ran, gaining his feet so quickly that he was a good length off before McEwen arose. The latter was

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FREE AND OTHER STORIES

too hungry, however, to linger in useless rage, and now fell to and ate before any other should disturb him. Then, feeling partially satisfied, he stretched himself languorously and continued more at his leisure. After a time he shook himself out of his torpor which had seized on him with his eating, and made off for the distant jungle, in which direction, as he now felt, lay the colony home.

He was in one of the darkest and thickest portions of the route thither when there was borne to him from afar the sound of feet in marching time, and a murmuring as of distant voices. He stopped and listened. Presently the sounds grew louder and more individual. He could now tell that a great company was nearing him. The narrow path which he followed was clear for some distance, and open to observation. Not knowing what creatures he was about to meet, he stepped out of it into a thicket, at one side and took up a position behind a great boulder. The tramp of many feet was now so close as to bode contact and discovery, and he saw, through the interstices of green stalks, a strange column filing along the path he had left. They were no other than a company of red warriors – slave makers like himself, only of a different species, the fierce Sanguineæ that Ermi had spoken of as having gone to war.

To war they certainly had been, and no doubt were going again. Nearly every warrior carried with him some mark of plunder or of death. Many bore in their mandibles dead bodies of the enemy or their larvæ captured from a Fuscan colony. Others bore upon their legs the severed heads of the poor blacks who had been slain in the defense of their home, and whose jaws still clung to their foes, fixed in the rigor of death. Still others dragged the bodies of their victims, and shouted as

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they went, making the long, lonely path to ring with uncanny sounds as they disappeared in the distance.

McEwen came furtively out after a time and looked after them. He had gotten far to the left of the warriors and somewhat to the front of them, and was just about to leave the shadow of one clump of bushes to hurry to a neighboring stone, when there filed out from the very shelter upon which he had his eye fixed, the figure of one whom he immediately recognized as Ermi. The latter seemed to await a favorable opportunity when he should not be observed, and then started running. McEwen followed. In the distance could be seen a group of the Sanguineæ, who had evidently paused for something, moving about in great excitement, in groups of two or three, gesticulating and talking. Some of those not otherwise engaged displayed a sensibility of danger or a lust of war by working their jaws and sawing at heavy stones with their mandibles. Presently one gazed in the direction of Ermi, and shouted to the others.

Immediately four warriors set out in pursuit. McEwen hastened after Ermi, to see what would become of him. Discreetly hidden himself, he could do this with considerable equanimity. As he approached, he saw Ermi moving backward and forward, endeavoring to close the entrance to a cave in which he had now taken refuge. Apparently that warrior had become aware that no time was to be lost, since he also could see the pursuing Sanguineæ. With a swiftness born of daring and a keen realization of danger, he arranged a large boulder at the very edge of the portal as a key, and then others in such position that when the first should topple in the others would fol-

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low. Then he crawled deftly inside the portal, and pulling the keystone, toppled the whole mass in after him.

This was hardly done when the Sanguineæ were upon him. They were four cruel, murderous fighters, deeply scarred. One, called by the others Og, had a black’s head at his thigh. One of his temples bore a scar, and the tip of his left antenna was broken. He was a keen old warrior, however, and scented the prey at once.

“Hi, you!” he shouted to the others. “Here’s the place.” Just then another drew near to the portal which Ermi had

barricaded. He looked at it closely, walked about several times, sounded with his antennæ and then listened. There was no answer.

“Hist!” he exclaimed to the others.

Now they came up. They also looked, but so well had Ermi done his work that they were puzzled.

“I’m not sure,” said Og, “it looks to me more like an abandoned cave than an entrance.”

“Tear it open, anyway,” advocated Ponan, the second of the quartette, speaking for the first time. “There may be no other exit.”

“Aha!” cried Og, “Good! We will see anyhow.”

“Come on!” yelled Maru, a third, seizing the largest boulder, “Mandibles to!”

“Out with him!” cried Om, jumping eagerly to work. “We will have him out in a jiffy!”

It was not an easy task, as the boulders were heavy and deep, but they tore them out. Later they dragged forth Ermi, who, finding himself captured, seized the head of Maru with his mandibles. Og, on the other hand, seized one of Ermi’s

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legs in his powerful jaws. The others also had taken hold. The antennae of all were thrown back, and the entire mass went pushing and shoving, turning and tumbling in a whirl.

McEwen gazed, excited and sympathetic. At first he thought to avoid it all, having a horror of death, but a moment later decided to come to his friend’s rescue, a feeling of tribal relationship which was overwhelming coming over him. Springing forward, he clambered upon the back of Og, at whose neck he began to saw with his powerful teeth. Og, realizing a new adversary, released his hold upon Ermi’s limb and endeavored to shake off his new enemy. McEwen held tight, however. The others, however, too excited to observe the newcomer, still struggled to destroy Ermi. The latter had stuck steadily to his labor of killing Maru, and now, when Og’s hold was loosened, he gave a powerful crush and Maru breathed his last. This advantaged him little, however, for both Ponan and Om were attacking his sides.

“Take that!” shouted Om, throwing himself violently upon Ermi and turning him over. “Saw off his head, Ponan.”

Ponan released his hold and sprang for Ermi’s head. There was a kicking and crushing of jaws, and Ponan secured his grip.

“Kill him!” yelled Om. “Come, Og! Come!”

At this very moment Og’s severed head fell to the ground, and McEwen leaping from his back, sprang to the aid of Ermi.

“Come!” he shouted at Ponan, who was sawing at Ermi’s head. “It’s two to two now,” and McEwen gave such a wrench to Ponan’s side that he writhed in pain, and released his hold on Ermi.

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