Fred M. White

Name: The Lesson the Ants Taught
Author: Fred M. White

The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

Summary

“The Lesson the Ants Taught”, published in 1916, is a work by Fred M. White. It explores elements such as Crosfield, Costigan and Cape Town.

Quotes from The Lesson the Ants Taught (Fred M. White)

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ It was getting late now—so late that Costigan accepted an invitation to share the evening meal and a blanket for the night by the camp fire. And, as he talked on, Crosfield, opposite him, grew more and more quiet and thoughtful, as if he were debating some heavy problem in his mind. He sat there gazing into the fire, until presently Norton, who knew his every mood and fancy, saw a sudden gleam in his eyes and the faint whimsical smile that trembled on his lips.
"Costigan," he said suddenly, "you were always a good sportsman. Did you ever shoot an elephant?" ”

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Source: Wikisource

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ CROSFIELD looked across the camp fire at his friend Norton with the light of battle gleaming in his eyes. They were away up there on the veldt, not a hundred miles from Kimberley, and the fruits of three years' unremitting toil lay in the hollow of Crosfield's hand. To the untutored eye they represented no more than half a dozen round stones like big marbles, but an expert would have had no difficulty in recognising the fact that those pebbles were diamonds of the purest quality—six bits of glorified glass that represented a king's ransom. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ Norton said. "Why this interesting ceremony?"
"Well," Crosfield smiled, "we have come after our diamonds, which I told you were so safely hidden that no man could find them. And so they are. They are down there in that hole under that heap of bones. Ants can destroy most things, but they, can't eat diamonds. Now, don't stand there staring at me. Lend a hand and get all those logs and brushwood away, and help me to remove the skeleton. And go gently, because in the dust there the diamonds are lying, or we are the two unluckiest chaps in Africa to-day." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ Very soon Costigan's regular breathing testified of the fact that he was asleep. Norton turned over and edged himself a little nearer to the side of his companion.
"What's the little game, old man?" he whispered.
"You leave that to me," Crosfield replied. "We are going to the Cape, and there we're going to stay as long as the authorities care to detain us. But they won't find those stones, because they will be hidden where no man on earth will ever find them, and you can gamble on that." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ Norton asked.
"Well, there ought to be fifty thousand pounds for us each here," Crosfield replied; "and, by every moral law, these stones belong to us."
"It isn't moral law we've got against us," Norton said dryly. "You may depend upon it that that rascal Blatter won't leave a stone unturned to get those diamonds back. He knows by this time that they are in our possession—in fact, he told me so last night. When D'Jin came here and sold us our own stones, we ought to have kept him and taken him down to Cape Town with us. It is fatal to have paid him before we had booked our passages." ”

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Source: Wikisource

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ They represented something more than that—they stood for the entire worldly wealth of those men, they stood for three years' unremitting toil and danger, thirty-six sweating, blistering months endured under a tropical sun and accompanied by every hardship and danger that is known in the vocabulary of the pioneer. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ News had come in that the big rogue had raided a mealie field by the side of the waterhole during the night, and he was now resting in a patch of scrub half a mile or so on the other side of the stream. This being so, it would be no great matter to rouse the big beast and drive him in the direction of the scrub.
"All right," Crosfield said. "You can go and work the beast round to the scrub, and dig a pit in front. Do you hear? If anything goes, wrong, he will flounder into it, and we shall have him safe. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Fred M. White, The Lesson the Ants Taught (1916)

“ He says he bought all the land that Jan van Beers trekked in 1874, and that slim Dutchman is ready to back him up. There's only one thing to be done."
Crosfield's lips tightened ominously. They had sunk every penny they had there, and it was only quite lately that they had found traces of diamonds on that hitherto despised patch of ground of theirs; and this corner of the property they had reserved when, sick at heart and in desperate need of money, they had sold their holding to the wily Karl Blatter. But that slim German had known what he was doing, and he had laid his plans accordingly. ”

Fred M. White

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