Speaker 1: Escape.
Speaker 2: You are located on a remote plantation in the crawling
Speaker 2: Amazon jungle, and an immense army of ravenous ants is
Speaker 2: closing in on you, swarming in to eat you alive,
Speaker 2: A deadly black army from which there is no escape.
Speaker 3: Escape designed to free you from the four walls of today.
Speaker 3: For a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 2: Tonight, at the request of many of our listeners, we
Speaker 2: bring you a repeat performance of one of the most
Speaker 2: gripping escape stories. Tonight, we escaped to the Amazon Jungle
Speaker 2: and to a creeping, crawling terror. As Carl Stephenson told
Speaker 2: it in his famous story Liningen Versus the Ants.
Speaker 4: I first met Liningen while performing my duty as district Commissioner.
Speaker 4: As my boat near his plantation landing, I saw him
Speaker 4: upon the river bank, regarding me with mild interest. A
Speaker 4: great hulk of a man with bristling gray hair, bulky nose,
Speaker 4: and pale eyes. His entire appearance somehow suggested an aging
Speaker 4: and shabby eager. He escorted me to the terrace and
Speaker 4: had drinks brought. I came quickly to the point of
Speaker 4: my visit and issued my warning. Liningen puffed placidly at
Speaker 4: a huge cigar and listened as I said. And unless
Speaker 4: they alter their course, and there's no reason why they should,
Speaker 4: they'll reach your plantation in two days at the latest.
Speaker 2: Well, Commissioner, it was decent of Hill paddling all this
Speaker 2: way just to give me the tip. But I heard
Speaker 2: of crocodiles. Couldn't drive me from this plantation of mine.
Speaker 4: No, no, you do not understand at all. These aren't
Speaker 4: creatures you can fight. They're an elemental force, a gigantic catastrophe,
Speaker 4: ten miles long, two miles wide, ants nothing but ants,
Speaker 4: and each one as big as your thumb. Unless you
Speaker 4: clear out it once, there'll be nothing left to do
Speaker 4: but a skeleton picked as clean as your own plantation
Speaker 4: will be.
Speaker 2: I'm not an old woman, Commissioner. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: make a run for it just because trouble is on
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 4: But it isn't just chap.
Speaker 2: You don't think I'm the kind of fathead who tries
Speaker 2: to beat off lightning with my fists either. I've got
Speaker 2: a better weapon, Commissioner intelligence with me. The brain isn't
Speaker 2: just a second appendix. I know what it's there for.
Speaker 2: Can't I make you want to stamp the hideous Submissioner.
Speaker 2: All my life, I have lived by one motto. The
Speaker 2: human brain needs only to become fully aware of its
Speaker 2: power to conquer even the elements.
Speaker 4: Line, you are a madman. I've done my best. Your
Speaker 4: obstinacy is endangering not only your own life, but the
Speaker 4: lives of your four hundred workers. You don't know these ants,
Speaker 4: I tell you, you do not know these ants. Liningen merely
Speaker 4: set a puffing at his cigar and regarding me with
Speaker 4: a sardonic green And I knew it was hopeless. As
Speaker 4: I bought it my launch and cast off. I turned
Speaker 4: to look once more at this madman who calmly intended
Speaker 4: to defy one of the world's greatest scourgures. I felt
Speaker 4: a sudden resentment for him. Yet it was something else.
Speaker 4: I had never met a man like that, and I
Speaker 4: could not hit on.
Speaker 2: One bank of the river, watching the Commissioner's launch until
Speaker 2: it rounded a bend and was lost to sight. There
Speaker 2: was a strange look in the Commissioner's eyes as he
Speaker 2: stood on the deck, steering back at me. Clearly he
Speaker 2: thought me insane. Well, he would not have been the
Speaker 2: first to think so. But I Linejohn knew my own
Speaker 2: powers and was sure of myself. I knew that intelligence
Speaker 2: directed a right always makes man the master of his fate.
Speaker 2: That night, I called my four hundred Indian workers together
Speaker 2: in the front of the plantation house. I saw their
Speaker 2: faces go ashen with terror as I told them the
Speaker 2: ants were coming. Watched them as they milled around, muttering.
Speaker 2: I said nothing more to them. Finally one of the
Speaker 2: men stepped forward, blast the foreman.
Speaker 5: We we have worked hard here for these three years,
Speaker 5: all of us, we have built Why in this plantation,
Speaker 5: in this district, we all share in it. It has
Speaker 5: been a home for all of us and our families.
Speaker 5: Now the ants cop those ditches we dug last year.
Speaker 5: The pipe we put in the ground that was for
Speaker 5: the ants.
Speaker 2: That was for the ants.
Speaker 5: If we moved our families across the river, the ants
Speaker 5: could not reach them.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 5: And you, the ants are mighty. We know what they
Speaker 5: can do. All of us think that you are mormighty.
Speaker 5: We will stay with you and fight against the ants.
Speaker 2: I knew that the men would give me that answer
Speaker 2: and counted on it. Suddenly I thought of the commissioner
Speaker 2: and wondered what he would say at such unquestioning confidence.
Speaker 2: Would he still think I was insane.
Speaker 6: Please thank you Ncent out in my mind, one man
Speaker 6: who calmly evaluated his chances against him deadly menace wholly
Speaker 6: decided he could win, and was willing to stake his
Speaker 6: life on it, to risk our horrible death.
Speaker 4: For it was terrifying, and yet it was fascinating. When
Speaker 4: dawn came, I sent for my assistant. Together we went
Speaker 4: to the huge map on the district, which hung from
Speaker 4: a wall of my office. What was the last reported
Speaker 4: position of the ants appeared about seventy miles above this
Speaker 4: fork in the river, traveling southeast, Yes, directly toward lion Engine.
Speaker 4: To the homester, that plantation of the bend in the
Speaker 4: river belongs to a man named lin Engene. Oh when
Speaker 4: would you say the ants will reach there?
Speaker 1: I don't know it. I imagine about it.
Speaker 4: Tomorrow noon, tomorrow noon, Still time, still time?
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 4: Nothing? Never mind.
Speaker 1: What I mean?
Speaker 4: Still time for what for liningdon to flee? Or still
Speaker 4: time for me to Even as I rejected the thought
Speaker 4: with horror, I knew that the fascination of that man
Speaker 4: was more than I could resist. That Liningen's flight was
Speaker 4: drawing my mind, drawing me back toward that plantation and death.
Speaker 4: I knew past all doubt that I was going back
Speaker 4: to Liningen's plantation. I had to. It was ten o'clock
Speaker 4: in the morning when I rounded the bend and saw
Speaker 4: Lynden's plantation before me. I put into the dark and
Speaker 4: tied up the launch. Then I saw him standing on
Speaker 4: the bank above me, arms fold and stopped his cigar
Speaker 4: in his mouth, and I start down a green on
Speaker 4: his face.
Speaker 2: I made my way up to him, back for another warning. Commissioner, no,
Speaker 2: back to stay.
Speaker 4: Well, yes, no, you you don't seem very surprised.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 4: You expected me.
Speaker 2: I thought you'd be back. Come along, we'll get some horses.
Speaker 2: You want to ride around the plantation. Take a look
Speaker 2: at the defenses I've breaked up.
Speaker 4: Yes, I will want to see the defenses.
Speaker 2: And the ants will be getting a glimpse of them
Speaker 2: before long. I should think yes, and the ant come along.
Speaker 1: Then.
Speaker 4: The defences lining Gen had devised but quite impressive, surrounding
Speaker 4: three sides of the plantation like a huge horseshoe with
Speaker 4: a twelve foot wide ditch. The end of this horseshoe
Speaker 4: shaped ditch ran into the river, which formed the fourth
Speaker 4: side of the plantation, and at the up river entrance
Speaker 4: to the ditch, Lningen had constructed a dam by which
Speaker 4: river water could be diverted into the ditch. A large
Speaker 4: handhel controlled the flood gate of the dam, and apparently
Speaker 4: Laningen had already opened immediately after my arrival. For as
Speaker 4: we now approached the ditch and rolled along it, I
Speaker 4: could see that was nearly full.
Speaker 2: How do you like my first line of defense, Commissioner.
Speaker 4: When it's reassuring, like a moat around a castle.
Speaker 2: Unless the ants know how to build rafts, they won't
Speaker 2: reached the plantation. But this is only the automoat. That's
Speaker 2: a better one than that. Come along, we'll go after
Speaker 2: the high ground where the buildings are and get a
Speaker 2: veil from man.
Speaker 4: Langen.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 4: I didn't see any women or children around the plantations,
Speaker 4: or any animals.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, both of them across the river.
Speaker 4: I might have known.
Speaker 2: Ah nothing, Ah, here we are here.
Speaker 4: You see the ditch much smaller than the other.
Speaker 2: You have noticed how all the buildings around this piece
Speaker 2: of high ground that's in a ditch, surround them lined
Speaker 2: with concrete, but even filled with water.
Speaker 4: This is no barrier. It's not big enough. Why if
Speaker 4: the ants get.
Speaker 2: This far, they would still get no farther. This ditch
Speaker 2: wasn't built for water, Commissioner. See the pipes leading into it.
Speaker 2: See those storage tanks up on the hill. Lamp petrol.
Speaker 2: We can throw up a wall of flame. They aren't
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: I hope you are right. Look at the edge of
Speaker 4: the jung All those animals.
Speaker 2: Running like the wind, everything from the jaguars to monkeys,
Speaker 2: hoo weapons. Remember they don't have any ditches.
Speaker 4: Then they escape, they'll be.
Speaker 2: All right as long as they don't get caught between
Speaker 2: the river and the ants. They cannot run the crawlers.
Speaker 2: But if they get trapped, it's either the ants or
Speaker 2: the crocodiles. Look look, Commissioner, Look over there on the horizon,
Speaker 2: there are your ants.
Speaker 1: Look at them.
Speaker 4: It was a sight I will never forget. Over the
Speaker 4: range of hills, as far as I could see, crept
Speaker 4: a darkening hem ever longer and broader, until the shadows
Speaker 4: spread across the entire slope, then downward downward, unkennely swift,
Speaker 4: and all the green herbage on the entire slope was
Speaker 4: being mown as by a giant sickle. Leaving only the
Speaker 4: vast moving shadow, extending, deepening, and moving rapidly nears. We
Speaker 4: can't last against that. Look at them, where they could
Speaker 4: fill your ditches with their corpses and still have enough
Speaker 4: to destroy.
Speaker 1: Every one of us.
Speaker 4: We've got to run.
Speaker 2: They haven't gotten those yet, they never will.
Speaker 4: The hostile army was approaching in perfect formation. No human battalions,
Speaker 4: however well drilled, could ever hope to rival the precision
Speaker 4: of that advanced along the front had moved forward as
Speaker 4: uniformly as a straight line. The ants drew nearer and
Speaker 4: nearer to the water ditch as they approached. Two outlying
Speaker 4: wings of the army detached themselves from the main body
Speaker 4: and started marching along the sides of the ditch, no
Speaker 4: doubt expecting at some point to find a crossing. And
Speaker 4: during this hour long flanking movement, the main army remained
Speaker 4: still across the scant twelve feet of ditch. I stared
Speaker 4: at him, and they stared back me, a solid mass,
Speaker 4: every one as big as my thumb, with a reddish
Speaker 4: black body and long legs. Suddenly, a sound so unearthly
Speaker 4: as to freeze our blood, jerked our heads in the
Speaker 4: direction of the jungle on the far side of the ditch.
Speaker 4: Coming toward the ditch in the stumbling gallop was a
Speaker 4: stag covered over and over were ants. Lin Engene threw
Speaker 4: up his rifles and the stag fell lifeless to the ground.
Speaker 4: Its eggon is at an end. Horrified as I was,
Speaker 4: my curiosity impelled me to glance at my watch. I
Speaker 4: had to know how long the ants would take. After
Speaker 4: six minutes, only the white, polished bones of the stag remained.
Speaker 4: The Linn and I exchanged glances, and I could see
Speaker 4: a change in him. Gone was the sporting zest of
Speaker 4: the novel contest. In its place was a cold, violent
Speaker 4: purpose to send these vermin back to the hell where
Speaker 4: they belonged. If he did not, we were both only
Speaker 4: too sure of the alternative, And now we even knew
Speaker 4: how long it would take the ants once they got.
Speaker 1: To us.
Speaker 4: Around four in the afternoon, the ants scouts having found
Speaker 4: no crossing, there was a stirring among the main army,
Speaker 4: and then an immense flood of bounds. A glimmering black
Speaker 4: cataract about a hundred yards in width commenced, pouring down
Speaker 4: the fast slope of the ditch. Thousands drowned instantly, but
Speaker 4: the rest began using the bodies as bridges. Lannington immediately
Speaker 4: swung into action.
Speaker 2: And I up, get to the dam up in the
Speaker 2: plant gate more to get the water in the ditch
Speaker 2: moving fast. Senor, Oh, this looks like spot for action.
Speaker 2: The missioner, yes, beginning to say what I was talking about?
Speaker 2: What do you mean about intelligence being more than a
Speaker 2: match for anything it tackles? Take the ants. They've got
Speaker 2: no intelligence they had. They have attacked along the whole
Speaker 2: length of the ditch instead of an arrow front like
Speaker 2: this with the better cross by. Now there so bad
Speaker 2: for them. I'm not running the campaign for them.
Speaker 4: You can joke about it like that with the ants
Speaker 4: halfway across the deeps all right, man visible the shovels now,
Speaker 4: dump some sand and cloths on them, and see how
Speaker 4: they like that.
Speaker 2: You're the petrol strenklers start pumping.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: I don't like it, Commissioner, I don't like it.
Speaker 4: A bed look at them, yes, but look at the
Speaker 4: ones on the far side of the ditch, whole clumps
Speaker 4: of them rolling into the water. The rest are using
Speaker 4: them for bridges, Commissioner.
Speaker 2: Commissioner, the water is working faster than now denial, But
Speaker 2: the flood gate op. Yes, look at the ants. They
Speaker 2: can't hold there on against the carrot now and then
Speaker 2: washed away. Ah, look at them, Commissioner, the water is
Speaker 2: carrying them away. I beat them way what.
Speaker 4: It was true, Linden had won at least the opening round.
Speaker 4: The floodgates were left open to four stall any night crossing,
Speaker 4: I suppose. I hoped that the ants would go on
Speaker 4: pass us by. But when dawn came, the dark blanket
Speaker 4: was still there, motionless across the ditch. Then we noticed
Speaker 4: a feverish activity on the other side of the plantation.
Speaker 4: Here a grove of tamline trees lying the far end
Speaker 4: of the ditch, and every tree swarmed with the crawling insects.
Speaker 4: But instead of eating the leaves, they were merely gnawing
Speaker 4: through the stems, so that a thick green shower fell
Speaker 4: steadily to the ground. Well, it looks as if it's
Speaker 4: feeding time for our friends, Eh and Blass.
Speaker 2: Have all the petrol prompts brought here and get every
Speaker 2: one of heir except to look us on the other side,
Speaker 2: and that passed out the shovel. Yes, Senor, looks like
Speaker 2: I underestimated them. When I said they didn't have intelligence,
Speaker 2: What you mean, I said, if they wanted to get across,
Speaker 2: they'd have to have rats. That's just what they've got.
Speaker 7: Those leaves are their rats.
Speaker 4: Even as he spoke to leave, when tumbling down the
Speaker 4: far bank by the thousands, the current drew them away
Speaker 4: from the bank, and each leave carried several ants were as.
Speaker 2: Long as you keep sprying them and shoveling down on
Speaker 2: the rafts the cat lands.
Speaker 4: But their wealthy, Tonett, It's true you look more leaves
Speaker 4: than the dias all the time. Why didn't have a
Speaker 4: solid carpet to walk with? Cross in minutes?
Speaker 2: Not so fast, commissioner. I've still got to trick up
Speaker 2: my sleigh for them.
Speaker 4: The water this is drying up.
Speaker 2: Of course it's drying up. That's the plan. Those are
Speaker 2: the orders I said to the dam. Are you mad?
Speaker 2: As soon as he's empty?
Speaker 1: What to prevent the ants?
Speaker 4: Look, the water's way down, it's as dry. They'll be
Speaker 4: able to crawl across the bottom.
Speaker 2: They'll not make it up. The man at the dam
Speaker 2: carries out his orders. He should have opened the gates again.
Speaker 2: Man now to flood the ants? Right, But what a
Speaker 2: chance to take if anything should happen, Ah, Commissioner, here
Speaker 2: it comes here, come to the water. Now he'll get
Speaker 2: the crawlers a ditch, a good ride out in the river.
Speaker 2: Look at him, look at him.
Speaker 1: Go.
Speaker 4: Lin Engine's tactics were successful. At first, the violent flow
Speaker 4: of water at the original get raced to the ditch,
Speaker 4: overwhelming leaves and ants and sweeping them along. Three times
Speaker 4: the ditch was emptied, three times the ants raced across
Speaker 4: its bottom, and three times the rushing water, riding just
Speaker 4: in time, carried them away. But the fourth time, as
Speaker 4: the water lowered nearly to the bottom of the ditch,
Speaker 4: we waited in vain for the rusty waters, and then.
Speaker 2: Senory, what's the matter? What's gone wrong to dam?
Speaker 8: Then just as they monitored them, Lord the water almost
Speaker 8: to the bottom, they answer attacked. Before he could open
Speaker 8: the flood gate, he was almost surrounded, and he ran
Speaker 8: after there across the ditch.
Speaker 4: Lin Engines stood motionless, absorbing the news of his defeat
Speaker 4: without a word. Then simply he raised his pistol and
Speaker 4: fired three shots into the air, the pre arranged signal
Speaker 4: for all mental retreat instantly to the second line of defense,
Speaker 4: the concrete ditches more than a mile from the point
Speaker 4: of invasion. Soon after we arrived there, the natives commence
Speaker 4: straggling in silently. Lionine waited until all of them had gathered.
Speaker 4: Then he spoke to them.
Speaker 2: Lads, we won the first round, last the second. But
Speaker 2: we'll smash the crawlers.
Speaker 1: Yet.
Speaker 2: Anyone who thinks otherwise can draw us pain and push off.
Speaker 2: There are wraps on up on the river, and plenty
Speaker 2: of time.
Speaker 4: Still arrange them.
Speaker 2: You'll stay, then, Wood, your lads, and you, Commissioner.
Speaker 4: I can't persuade you to give up the fight.
Speaker 2: You cannot.
Speaker 4: Then I stay two.
Speaker 2: I knew if you have the answer. I reached the
Speaker 2: ditch they're trying to get across. I didn't think they would.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of food out there for them crops I've
Speaker 2: spent three years and raising, but the last until morning.
Speaker 9: Anyway, Yes, we were safe for the moment, But the
Speaker 9: next morning the black swarm was solid around us, and
Speaker 9: their shot troops were hard at work.
Speaker 4: They were dropping shreds of bark and twigs and leaves
Speaker 4: into the petrol filled ditches, forming a floating bridge across
Speaker 4: the surface of the liquid. Linen stood silently watching this operation,
Speaker 4: and I could see a grudging admiration on his face. Then,
Speaker 4: after several hours, the attack came down the ditch. They poured,
Speaker 4: millions of them, and across the bridge of twigs rapidly
Speaker 4: approached the inner side. Liningen sat motionless watching them. Linen,
Speaker 4: for the love of God, don't sit like a statue.
Speaker 4: I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: In a moment.
Speaker 2: Have them fell at first? Now, all right, everyone back
Speaker 2: from the ditch. Last hand me the torch. Ah, we'll
Speaker 2: see our friends like a little hayde around rum.
Speaker 4: The flames from the ditch shot up into the air,
Speaker 4: devouring ants by the millions. But as they returned to
Speaker 4: the assault time after time, a slow, sickening horror clipped
Speaker 4: into my mind. I look quickly at Langen, then at
Speaker 4: the petrol tanks. He read my gaze and nodded slowly.
Speaker 2: That's right, Commissioner. We could hold them up forever if
Speaker 2: our supply of petrol was unlimited. But it isn't. We've
Speaker 2: got only enough to fill the ditch once more.
Speaker 4: Linger. Isn't there any way any way at all? We've
Speaker 4: got to do something.
Speaker 2: I know. I know there must be away, There must
Speaker 2: be something on earth that will drive this devil spun
Speaker 2: back to the hell they came from. Yes them, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: what is it? We'll flood the whole plantation. Flood but
Speaker 2: now the rivers higher than any point except this high
Speaker 2: ground we're on. Now the river was damned all the way.
Speaker 2: It would overflow that stone breakwater and flood the whole plantation.
Speaker 2: We've got to close the flood gate at the dam.
Speaker 2: That'll do it.
Speaker 4: You're mad. The dam is nearly two miles away, two
Speaker 4: miles of ants.
Speaker 2: Lads, listen to me, lessen, lads, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2: Now there's still a chance. By shutting the flood gates
Speaker 2: and the dam and flooding the whole plantation from the
Speaker 2: river the moment I'm over the debts, set fire to it.
Speaker 2: That'll allow time for the flood to wash away the ants.
Speaker 2: Then all you have to do is wait for me.
Speaker 4: It is impossible. You can't get to the dam, let
Speaker 4: alone get back.
Speaker 2: That's why you're wrong, Commissioner. I'll get there and i'll
Speaker 2: get back. Take care of things while I'm gone.
Speaker 4: I've watched him as he calmly pulled on high leather
Speaker 4: boots to gauntlet over his hands and stuff the spaces
Speaker 4: between breeches and boots, gauntlets and arms with peckful so raggs.
Speaker 4: He shielded his eyes with close fitting mosquito goggles and
Speaker 4: plugged his nostrils and ears with cotton. Then the nature
Speaker 4: was drenched his clothes with petrol blars, who acted his
Speaker 4: doctor to the men, smearede a sab over him. And
Speaker 4: finally Liningen was ready. And as he stood calmly surveying.
Speaker 2: The run, and I realized this was as it should be.
Speaker 2: High lin Engen would meet the ants and defeat them
Speaker 2: or be defeated by them. No Liningen versus the ants. Yes,
Speaker 2: it was right that it should be like this. But
Speaker 2: now there was no more time for thought, only action.
Speaker 2: I took a deep breath and then bounded across the
Speaker 2: ditch and among the ants.
Speaker 1: I ran.
Speaker 2: I ran on long, equal strides, with one thought, one
Speaker 2: sensation in my being. I must get through. I dodged
Speaker 2: all trays and shrubs, and except for the split second
Speaker 2: my souls touched the ground, the ants had no opportunity
Speaker 2: to allide on me. I ran on. I was half
Speaker 2: way to the dam before I felt hands under my
Speaker 2: clothes and a few on my face. I struck at
Speaker 2: the mechanically scarcely, conscious of their bites, and the dam
Speaker 2: drew toward me slowly. The distance grew less and less hardly,
Speaker 2: only one hundred yards away, then fifty. Then I was there.
Speaker 2: I gripped the ancovered wheel, but hardly, and I seized it.
Speaker 2: When a hold of ants flowed over my hands and arms,
Speaker 2: I screamed, and slowly, slowly the wheel turned. It turned more.
Speaker 2: The flood gate was swinging slowly shut.
Speaker 4: And then it was shut.
Speaker 2: The water was rising, rising behind the breakwater, closer to
Speaker 2: the top courser, and then it was spilling over the
Speaker 2: flooding of the plantation of the gandy. I let go
Speaker 2: of the wheel, and for the first time I realized
Speaker 2: I was coated from head to foot. With the feet
Speaker 2: tongues of fire stabbed at me as they bit into
Speaker 2: my flesh. I almost lost my head with a pain
Speaker 2: as I ran, knocking ants from my body, brushing them
Speaker 2: from my bloody face, and then one bit me just
Speaker 2: below the rim of my goggles. I managed to tear
Speaker 2: it away, but the agony of the bite and its
Speaker 2: venom drilled into the iron herds. I saw now through
Speaker 2: circles of fire into a milky mist. I was almost blinded,
Speaker 2: but I knew that if I tripped and fell, I
Speaker 2: ran on my heart pounding as if it would burst,
Speaker 2: blood roaring in my ears, A giant spist battering my lungs.
Speaker 2: And then I could see dimmly that wall of flame
Speaker 2: at the ditch, but it was too far away. I
Speaker 2: could not last half that distance.
Speaker 4: I stumbled, I fell.
Speaker 2: I felt myself being swarmed over the god it tried
Speaker 2: rise of great weight, and then suddenly a vision of
Speaker 2: the half the herd stag in my brain. Six minutes
Speaker 2: then nothing but bones.
Speaker 1: I couldn't let that.
Speaker 2: Happen to me.
Speaker 1: I couldn't die like that.
Speaker 2: To my feet, my feet dragged myself.
Speaker 7: Oh turn the flame the ditch rang a flame coarser,
Speaker 7: a little farther, ten steps.
Speaker 2: Eh.
Speaker 4: We had waited four hours, and all at once, through
Speaker 4: the blazing ring around us, an apparition hurtled and fell
Speaker 4: full length on the ground. He was lying and alive
Speaker 4: with ants, unconscious, with blazing eyes and lacerated face. We
Speaker 4: rushed to him, stripped off his clothes and tore at
Speaker 4: the ants that covered him. His body seemed almost one
Speaker 4: open would in one place I could see a white bone. Later,
Speaker 4: as the curtain of flame lowered, I looked out where
Speaker 4: that blanket of ant had been, and saw only a
Speaker 4: vast expanse of water, covering the entire plantation and working
Speaker 4: its way to within a few feet of the concrete ditch.
Speaker 4: The ants were gone, drowned, and Liningen had won. Liningen
Speaker 4: lay on his bed, his body swathed from head to
Speaker 4: foot with bandages, but alive. Every thing and order they
Speaker 4: are gone.
Speaker 2: I told you I'd come back, even if I am
Speaker 2: of a streamline er.
Speaker 4: He grinned and shut his eyes.
Speaker 1: He slept.
Speaker 3: Escape is produced and directed by Norman mac Donald and
Speaker 3: to Night brought you Liningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stepinson,
Speaker 3: adapted for radio by Robert Rife, with Bill Conrad as
Speaker 3: Liningen and Jane of Vello as the commissioner. Music was
Speaker 3: conceived by Cyfure and conducted by Wilbur Hatch.
Speaker 2: Next week, you are stealthily stalking into a silent desert fortress,
Speaker 2: walking into what you know may be a trap. Around
Speaker 2: you'll stand a legion of dead men, and over you
Speaker 2: hangs a menace unseen but felt, a menace from which
Speaker 2: you cannot escape.
Speaker 3: Next week we escape with Percival Wren's immortal story Bogest
Speaker 3: good Night. Then until the same time next week, when
Speaker 3: once again we offer you escape. This is CBS, the
Speaker 3: Columbia Broadcasting System.