bunnu looked past him to see giant flatworms creeping along the mud of the banks , some burrowing out of holes in the ground , some descending downward in a spiral along the trunk of a tree : all of them converging on the tree branch from which hung the sacred pigthe lesser bison-144 ratherwho was now in the process of giving his own lecture in a voice that could best be described as a droll attempt at an academic sounding accent of indeterminate origin .