Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/405

 bell-wether; but with us all came the army of bees, stinging, stinging, stinging, for the life.

I was thoroughly winded by the time I took to the water, and it was impossible to keep under for more than a few seconds; yet when I rose to the surface the bees were still there more angry than ever, and I was driven under again, while my lungs pumped and sobbed painfully. Again I rose, again was set upon, again was driven under water. My heart was leap- ing about in my body like some wild thing seeking to escape; I was so distressed for breath that my senses. were reeling; I was rapidly becoming desperate. It flashed across my mind that to be drowned or stung to death in a puddle by a swarm of insignificant in- sects was about as ridiculous and as ignominious a way of making one's exit from life as could well be conceived; yet, at the moment, it seemed almost certain that this was the preposterous lot which a capricious fate had assigned to me.

As I came sobbing to the surface to meet yet another furious assault, I heard Saleh, my head boatman, cry aloud:

"Throw a bough for them to alight upon!"

The words were in my ears as I was again driven to dive, and in a flash their meaning was made clear to me. I struggled toward the bank, tugged off a branch from an overhanging tree, threw it on the surface of the stream, and dived once more. One or two of my men followed suit, and when, having remained under water as long as I could, I rose once more in a state of pitiful exhaustion, I saw half a