by Various
The Beetle Horde
_By Victor Rousseau_
Bullets, shrapnel, shell--nothing can stop the trillions of famished, man-sized beetles which, led by a madman, sweep down over the human race.
_The hideous monsters leaped into the cockpits and begantheir abominable meal._]
CONCLUSION
Tommy Travers and James Dodd, of the Travers Antarctic Expedition, crashin their plane somewhere near the South Pole, and are seized by a swarmof man-sized beetles. They are carried down to Submundia, a world underthe earth's crust, where the beetles have developed their civilizationto an amazing point, using a wretched race of degenerated humans, whomthey breed as cattle, for food.
The insect horde is ruled by a human from the outside world--adrug-doped madman. Dodd recognizes this man as Bram, the archaeologistwho had been lost years before at the Pole and given up for dead by aworld he had hated because it refused to accept his radical scientifictheories. His fiendish mind now plans the horrible revenge of leadinghis unconquerable horde of monster insects forth to ravage the world,destroy the human race and establish a new era--the era of the insect.
The world has to be warned of the impending doom. The two, with Haidia,a girl of Submundia, escape, and pass through menacing dangers to withintwo miles of the exit. There, suddenly, Tommy sees towering over him acreature that turns his blood cold--a gigantic praying mantis. Before hehas time to act, the monster springs at them!
CHAPTER VII
_Through the Inferno_
Fortunately, the monster miscalculated its leap. The huge legs, whirlingthrough the air, came within a few inches of Tommy's head, but passedover him, and the mantis plunged into the stream. Instantly the waterwas alive with leaping things with faces of such grotesque horror thatTommy sat paralyzed in his rocking shell, unable to avert his eyes.
Things no more than a foot or two in length, to judge from the slender,eel-like bodies that leaped into the air, but things with catfish headsand tentacles, and eyes waving on stalks; things with clawlikeappendages to their ventral fins, and mouths that widened to fearfulsize, so that the whole head seemed to disappear above them, disclosingfangs like wolves'. Instantly the water was churned into phosphorescentfire as they precipitated themselves upon the struggling mantis, whoseenormous form, extending halfway from shore to shore, was covered withthe river monsters, gnawing, rending, tearing.
Luckily the struggles of the dying monster carried it downstream insteadof up. In a few moments the immediate danger was past. And suddenlyHaidia awoke, sat up.
"Where are we?" she cried. "Oh, I can see! I can see! Something hasburned away from my eyes! I know this place. A wise man of my peopleonce came here, and returned to tell of it. We must go on. Soon we shallbe safe on the wide river. But there is another way that leads to here.We must go on! We must go on!"
Even as she spoke they heard the distant rasping of the beetle-legs. Andbefore the shells were well in mid-current they saw the beetle hordecoming round the bend; in the front of them Bram, reclining on his shellcouch, and drawn by the eight trained beetles.
* * * * *
Bram saw the fugitives, and a roar of ironic mirth broke from his lips,resounding high above the strident rasping of the beetle-legs, androaring over the marshes.
"I've got you, Dodd and Travers," he bellowed, as the trained beetleshovered above the shell canoes. "You thought you were clever, but you'reat my mercy. Now's your last chance, Dodd. I'll save you still if you'llsubmit to me, if you'll admit that there were fossil monotremes beforethe pleistocene epoch. Come, it's so simple! Say it after me: 'Themarsupial lion--'"
"You go to hell!" yelled Dodd, nearly upsetting his shell as he shookhis fist at his enemy.
High above the rasping sound came Bram's shrill whistle. Just audible tohuman ears, though probably sounding like the roar of thunder to thoseof the beetles, there was no need to wonder what it was.
It was the call to slaughter.
Like a black cloud the beetles shot forward. A serried phalanx coveredthe two men and the girl, hovering a few feet overhead, the long legsdangling to within arm's reach. And a terrible cry of fear broke fromHaidia's lips.
Suddenly Tommy remembered Bram's cigarette-lighter. He pulled it fromhis pocket and ignited it.
Small as the flame was, it was actinically much more powerful than thebrighter phosphorescence of the fungi behind them. The beetle-cloudoverhead parted. The strident sound was broken into a confused buzzingas the terrified, blinded beetles plopped into the stream.
None of them, fortunately, fell into either of the three shells, but themass of struggling monsters in the water was hardly less formidable tothe safety of the occupants than that menacing cloud overhead.
"Get clear!" Tommy yelled to Dodd, trying to help the shell along withhis hands.
* * * * *
He heard Bram's cry of baffled rage, and, looking backward, could notrefrain from a laugh of triumph. Bram's trained steeds had taken frightand overset him. Bram had fallen into the red mud beside the stream,from which he was struggling up, plastered from head to feet, andshaking his fists and evidently cursing, though his words could not beheard.
"How about your marsupial lion now, Bram?" yelled Dodd. "No monotremesbefore the pleistocene! D'you get that? That's my slogan now and forever more!"
Bram shrieked and raved, and seemed to be inciting the beetles to arenewed assault. The air was still thick with them, but Tommy was wavingthe cigarette-lighter in a flaming arc, which cleared the way for them.
Then suddenly came disaster. The flame went out! Tommy closed thelighter with a snap and opened it. In vain. In his excitement he musthave spilled all the contents, for it would not catch.
Bram saw and yelled derision. The beetle-cloud was thickening. Tommy,now abreast of his companions on the widening stream, saw the imminentend.
* * * * *
And then once more fate intervened. For, leaping through the air out ofthe places where they had lain concealed, six mantises launchedthemselves at their beetle prey.
Those awful bounds of the long-legged monsters, the scourges of theinsect world, carried them clear from one bank to the other--fortunatelyfor the occupants of the shells. In an instant the beetle-clouddissolved. And it had all happened in a few seconds. Before Dodd orTommy had quite taken in the situation, the mantises, each carrying avictim in its grooved legs, had vanished like the beetles. There was nosign of Bram. The three were alone upon the face of the stream, whichwent swirling upward into renewed darkness.
Tommy saw Dodd bend toward Haidia as she lay on her shell couch. Heheard the sound of a noisy kiss. And he lay back in the hollow of hisshell, with the feeling that nothing that could happen in the futurecould be worse than what they had passed through.
* * * * *
Days went by, days when the sense of dawning freedom filled their heartswith hope. Haidia told Dodd and Tommy that, according to the legends ofher people, the river ran into the world from which they had been drivenby the floods, ages before.
There had been no further signs of Bram or the beetle horde, and Doddand Tommy surmised that it had been disorganized by the attack of themantises, and that Bram was engaged in regaining his control over it.But neither of them believed that the respite would be a long one, andfor that reason they rested ashore only for the briefest intervals, justlong enough to snatch a little sleep, and to eat some of the shrimpsthat Haidia was adept at finding--or to pull some juicy fruitsurreptitiously from a tree.
Incidents there were, nevertheless, during those days. For hours theirshells were followed by a school of the luminous river monsters, which,nevertheless, made no attempt to attack them. And once, hearing a cryfrom Haidia, as she was gathering shrimps, Dodd ran forward to see herbattling furiously with a luminous scorpion, eight feet in length, thathad sprung at her from its lurking place behind a pear shrub.
Dodd succeeded in stunning and dispatching the monster without sufferingany injury from it, but the strain of the period was beginning to tellon all of them. Worst of all, they seemed to have left all the luminousvegetation behind them, and were entering a region of almost totaldarkness, in which Haidia had to be their eyes.
* * * * *
Something had happened to the girl's sight in the journey over thepetrol spring. As a matter of fact, the third, or nictitating membrane,which the humans of Submundia possessed, in common with birds, had beenburned away. Haidia could see as well as ever in the dark, but she couldbear more light than formerly as well. Unobtrusively she assumed commandof the party. She anticipated their wants, dug shrimps in the darkness,and fed Tommy and Dodd with her own hands.
"God, what a girl!" breathed Dodd to his friend. "I've always had thereputation of being a woman-hater, Tommy, but once I get that girl tocivilization I'm going to take her to the nearest Little Church Aroundthe Corner in record time."
"I wish you luck, old man, I'm sure," answered Tommy. Dodd's words didnot seem strange to him. Civilization was growing very remote to him,and Broadway seemed like a memory of some previous incarnation.
The river was growing narrower again, and swifter, too. On the last day,or night, of their journey--though they did not know that it was to betheir last--it swirled so fiercely that it threatened every moment tooverset their beetle-shells. Suddenly Tommy began to feel giddy. Hegripped the side of his shell with his hand.
"Tommy, we're going round!" shouted Dodd in front of him.
There was no longer any doubt of it. The shells were revolving in avortex of rushing, foaming water.
"Haidia!" they shouted.
The girl's voice came back thickly across the roaring torrent. Thecircles grew smaller. Tommy knew that he was being sucked nearer andnearer to the edge of some terrific whirlpool in that inky blackness.Now he could no longer hear Dodd's shouts, and the shell was tipping sothat he could feel the water rushing along the edge of it. But for theexercise of centrifugal force he would have been flung from his perilousseat, for he was leaning inward at an angle of forty-five degrees.
* * * * *
Then suddenly his progress was arrested. He felt the shell being drawnto the shore. He leaped out, and Haidia's strong hands dragged the shellout of the torrent, while Tommy sank down, gasping.
"What's the matter?" he heard Dodd demanding.
"There is no more river," said Haidia calmly. "It goes into a hole inthe ground. So much I have heard from the wise men of my people. Theysay that it is near such a place that they fled from the flood in yearsgone by."
"Then we're near safety," shouted Tommy. "That river must emerge as astream somewhere in the upper world, Dodd. I wonder where the roadlies."
"There is a road here," came Haidia's calm voice. "Let us put on ourshells again, since who knows whether there may not be beetles here."
"Did you ever see such a girl as that?" demanded Dodd ecstatically."First she saves our lives, and then she thinks of everything. Goodlord, she'll remember my meals, and to wind my watch for me, and--and--"
But Haidia's voice, some distance ahead, interrupted Dodd's soliloquy,and, hoisting the beetle-shells upon their backs, they started along therough trail that they could feel with their feet over the stony ground.It was still as dark as pitch, but soon they found themselves travelingup a sunken way that was evidently a dry watercourse. And now and againHaidia's reassuring voice would come from in front of them.
* * * * *
The road grew steeper. There could no longer be any doubt that they wereascending toward the surface of the earth. But even the weight of thebeetle-shells and the steepness could not account for the feeling ofintense weakness that took possession of them. Time and again theystopped, panting.
"We must be very near the surface, Dodd," said Tommy. "We've surelypassed the center of gravity. That's what makes it so difficult."
"Come on," Haidia said in her quiet voice, stretching out her handthrough the darkness. And for very shame they had to follow her.
On and on, hour after hour, up the steep ascent, resting only longenough to make them realize their utter fatigue. On because Haidia wasleading them, and because in the belief that they were about to leavethat awful land behind them their desires lent new strength to theirlimbs continuously.
Suddenly Haidia uttered a fearful cry. Her ears had caught what becameapparent to Dodd and Jimmy several seconds later.
Far down in the hollow of the earth, increased by the echoes that camerumbling up, they heard the distant, strident rasp of the beetle swarm.
Then it was Dodd's turn to support Haidia and whisper consolation in herears. No thought of resting now. If they were to be overwhelmed at lastby the monsters, they meant to be overwhelmed in the upper air.
* * * * *
It was growing insufferably hot. Blasts of air, as if from a furnace,began to rush up and down past them. And the trail was growing steeperstill, and slippery as glass.
"What is it, Jim?" Tommy panted, as Dodd, leaving Haidia for a moment,came back to him.
"I'd say lava," Dodd answered. "If only one could see something! I don'tknow how she finds her way. My impression is that we are coming outthrough the interior of an extinct volcano."
"But where are there volcanoes in the south polar regions?" inquiredTommy.
"There are Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, in South Victoria Land, activevolcanoes discovered by Sir James Ross in 1841, and again byBorchgrevink, in 1899. If that's where we're coming out--well, Tommy,we're doomed, because it's the heart of the polar continent. We might aswell turn back."
"But we won't turn back," said Tommy. "I'm damned if we do."
"We're damned if we don't," said Dodd.
"Come along please!" sang Haidia's voice high up the slope.
They struggled on. And now a faint luminosity was beginning to penetratethat infernal darkness. The rasping of the beetle-legs, too, was nolonger audible. Perhaps they had thrown Bram off their track! Perhaps inthe darkness he had not known which way they had gone after leaving thewhirlpool!
That thought encouraged them to a last effort. They pushed theirflagging limbs up, upward through an inferno of heated air. SuddenlyDodd uttered a yell and pointed upward.
"God!" ejaculated Tommy. Then he seized Dodd in his arms and nearlycrushed him. For high above them, a pin-point in the black void, theysaw--a star!
They were almost at the earth's surface!
One more effort, and suddenly the ground seemed to give beneath them.They breathed the outer air, and went sliding down a chute of sand, andstopped, half buried, at the bottom.
CHAPTER VIII
_Recaptured_
"Where are we?" each demanded of the other, as they staggered out.
It was a moonless night, and the air was chill, but they were certainlynowhere near the polar regions, for there was no trace of snow to beseen anywhere. All about them was sand, with here and there a spinyshrub standing up stiff and erect and solitary.
When they had disengaged themselves from the clinging sand they couldsee that they were apparently in the hollow of a vast crater, that musthave been half a mile in circumference. It was low and worn down to anelevation of not more than two or three hundred feet, and evidently thevolcano that had thrown it up had been extinct for millennia.
"Water!" gasped Dodd.
They looked all about them. They could see no signs of a springanywhere, and both were parched with thirst after their terrific climb.
"We must find water, Haidia," said Tommy. "Why, what's the matter?"
Haidia was pointing upward at the starry heaven, and shivering withfear. "Eyes!" she cried. "Big beetles waiting for us up there!"
"No, no, Haidia," Dodd explained. "Those are stars. They areworlds--places where people l
ive."
"Will you take me up there?" asked Haidia.
"No, this is our world," said Dodd. "And by and by the sun will rise,that's a big ball of fire up there. He watches over the world and givesus light and warmth. Don't be afraid. I'll take care of you."
"Haidia is not afraid with Jimmydodd to take care of her," replied thegirl with dignity. "Haidia smells water--over there." She pointed acrossone side of the crater.
"There we'd better hurry," said Tommy, "because I can't hold out muchlonger."
* * * * *
The three scrambled over the soft sand, which sucked in their feet tothe ankle at every step. It was with the greatest difficulty that theysucceeded in reaching the crater's summit, low though it was. Then Dodduttered a cry, and pointed. In front of them extended a long pool ofwater, with a scrubby growth around the edges.
The ground was firmer here, and they hurried toward it. Tommy was thefirst to reach it. He lay down on his face and drank eagerly. He hadtaken in a quart before he discovered that the water was saline.
At the same time Dodd uttered an exclamation of disgust. Haidia, too,after sipping a little of the fluid, had stood up, chattering excitedlyin her own language.
But she was not chattering about the water. She was pointing toward thescrub. "Men there!" she cried. "Men like you and Tommy, Jimmydodd."
Tommy and Dodd looked at each other, the water already forgotten intheir excitement at Haidia's information, which neither of them doubted.
Brave as she was, the girl now hung back behind Dodd, letting the twomen take precedence of her. The water, saline as it was, had partlyquenched their thirst. They felt their strength reviving.
And it was growing light. In the east the sky was already flecked withyellow pink. They felt a thrill of intense excitement at the prospect ofmeeting others of their kind.
"Where do you think we are?" asked Tommy.
* * * * *
Dodd stopped to look at a shrub that was growing near the edge of thepool. "I don't think, I know, Tommy," he answered. "This is wattle."
"Yes?"
"We're somewhere in the interior regions of the Australiancontinent--and that's not going to help us much."
"Over there--over there," panted Haidia. "Hold me, Jimmydodd. I can'tsee. Ah, this terrible light!"
She screwed her eyelids tightly together to shut out the pale light ofdawn. The men had already discovered that the third membrane had beenburned away.
"We must get her out of here," whispered Dodd to Tommy. "Somewhere whereit's dark, before the sun rises. Let's go back to the entrance of thecrater."
But Haidia, her arm extended, persisted, "Over there! Over there!"
Suddenly a spear came whirling out of a growth of wattle beside thepool. It whizzed past Tommy's face and dropped into the sand behind.Between the trunks of the wattles they could see the forms of a party ofblackfellows, watching them intently.
Tommy held up his arms and moved forward with a show of confidence thathe was far from feeling. After what he had escaped in the underworld hewas in no mood to be massacred now.
* * * * *
But the blacks were evidently not hostile. It was probable that thespear had not been aimed to kill. At the sight of the two white men, andthe white woman, they came forward doubtfully, then more fearlessly,shouting in their language. In another minute Tommy and Dodd were thecenter of a group of wondering savages.
Especially Haidia. Three or four gins, or black women, had crept out ofthe scrub, and were already examining her with guttural cries, andfingering the hair garment that she wore.
"Water!" said Tommy, pointing to his throat, and then to the pool, witha frown of disgust.
The blackfellows grinned, and led the three a short distance to a placewhere a large hollow had been scooped in the sandy floor of the desert.It was full of water, perfectly sweet to the taste. The three drankgratefully.
Suddenly the edge of the sun appeared above the horizon, gilding thesand with gold. The sunlight fell upon the three, and Haidia uttered aterrible cry of distress. She dropped upon the sand, her hands pressedto her eyes convulsively. Tommy and Dodd dragged her into the thickestpart of the scrub, where she lay moaning.
They contrived bandages from the remnants of their clothing, and these,damped with cold water, and bound over the girl's eyes, alleviated hersuffering somewhat. Meanwhile the blackfellows had prepared a meal ofroast opossum. After their long diet of shrimps, it tasted like ambrosiato the two men.
* * * * *
Much to their surprise, Haidia seemed to enjoy it too. The threesquatted in the scrub among the friendly blacks, discussing theirsituation.
"These fellows will save us," said Dodd. "It may be that we're quitenear the coast, but, any way, they'll stick to us, even if only out ofcuriosity. They'll take us somewhere. But as soon as we get Haidia tosafety we'll have to go back along our trail. We mustn't lose ourdirection. Suppose I was laughed at when I get back, called a liar! Itell you, we've got to have something to show, to prove my statements,before I can persuade anybody to fit out an expedition into Submundia.Even those three beetle-shells that we dropped in the crater won't beconclusive evidence for the type of mind that sits in the chairs ofscience to-day. And, speaking of that, we must get those blacks to carrythose shells for us. I tell you, nobody will believe--"
"What's that?" cried Tommy sharply, as a rasping sound rose above thecries of the frightened blacks.
But there was no need to ask. Out of the crater two enormous beetleswere winging their way toward them, two beetles larger than any thatthey had seen.
Fully seven feet in length, they were circling about each other,apparently engaged in a vicious battle.
The fearful beaks stabbed at the flesh beneath the shells, and theyalternately stabbed and drew back, all the while approaching the party,which watched them, petrified with terror.
It was evident that the monsters had no conception of the presence ofhumans. Blinded by the sun, only one thing could have induced them toleave the dark depths of Submundia. That was the mating instinct. Thebeetles were evidently rival leaders of some swarm, engaged in a duel tothe death.
Round and round they went in a dizzy maze, stabbing and thrusting, jawsclosing on flesh, until they dropped, close-locked in battle, not morethan twenty feet from the little party of blacks and whites, bothsquirming in the agonies of death.
* * * * *
"I don't think that necessarily means that the swarm is on our trail,"said Tommy, a little later, as the three stood beside the shells thatthey had discarded. "Those two were strays, lost from the swarm andmaddened by the mating instinct. Still, it might be as well to wearthese things for a while, in case they do follow us."
"You're right," answered Dodd, as he placed one of the shells aroundHaidia. "We've got to get this little lady to civilization, and we'vegot to protect our lives in order to give this great new knowledge tothe world. If we are attacked, you must sacrifice your life for me,Tommy, so that I can carry back the news."
"Righto!" answered Tommy with alacrity. "You bet I will, Jim."
The glaring sun of mid-afternoon was shining down upon the desert, butHaidia was no longer in pain. It was evident that she was fast becomingaccustomed to the sunlight, though she still kept her eyes screwed uptightly, and had to be helped along by Dodd and Jimmy. In high goodhumor the three reached the encampment, to find that the blacks werefeasting on the dead beetles, while the two eldest members of the partyhad proudly donned the shells.
It was near sunset before they finally started. Dodd and Tommy hadmanaged to make it clear to them that they wished to reach civilization,but how near this was there was, of course, no means of determining.They noted, however, that the party started in a southerly direction.
"I should say," said Dodd, "that we are in South Australia, probablythree or four hundred miles fro
m the coast. We've got a long journeybefore us, but these blackfellows will know how to procure food for us."
* * * * *
They certainly knew how to get water, for, just as it began to growdark, when the three were already tormented by thirst, they stopped atwhat seemed a mere hollow among the stones and boulders that strewed theface of the desert, and scooped away the sand, leaving a hole whichquickly filled with clear, cold water of excellent taste.
After which they made signs that they were to camp there for the night.The moon was riding high in the sky. As it grew dark, Haidia opened hereyes, saw the luminary, and uttered an exclamation, this time not offear, but of wonder.
"Moon," said Dodd. "That's all right, girl. She watches over the night,as the sun does over the day."
"Haidia likes the moon better than the sun," said the girl wistfully."But the moon not strong enough to keep away the beetles."
"If I was you, I'd forget about the beetles, Haidia," said Dodd. "Theywon't come out of that hole in the ground. You'll never see them again."
And, as he spoke, they heard a familiar rasping sound far in thedistance.
"How the wind blows," said Tommy, desperately resolved not to believehis ears. "I think a storm's coming up."
But Haidia, with a scream of fear, was clinging to Dodd, and the blackswere on their feet, spears and boomerangs in their hands, lookingnorthward.
Out of that north a little black cloud was gathering. A cloud thatspread gradually, as a thunder-cloud, until it covered a good part ofthe sky. And still more of the sky, and still more. All the while thatfaint, distant rasping was audible, but it did not increase in volume.It was as if the beetles had halted until the full number of the swarmhad come up out of the crater.
* * * * *
Then the cloud, which by now covered half the sky, began to takegeometric form. It grew square, the ragged edges seemed to trimthemselves away, streaks of light shot through it at right angles, as ifit was marshaling itself into companies.
The doomed men and the girl stood perfectly still, staring at thatphenomenon. They knew that only a miracle could save them. They did noteven speak, but Haidia clung more tightly to Dodd's arm.
Then suddenly the cloud spread upward and covered the face of the moon.
"Well, this is good-by, Tommy," said Dodd, gripping his friend's hand."God, I wish I had a revolver, or a knife!" He looked at Haidia.
Suddenly the rasping became a whining shriek. A score of enormousbeetles, the advance guards of the army, zoomed out of the darkness intoa ray of straggling moonlight. Shrieking, the blacks, who had watchedthe approaching swarm perfectly immobile, threw away the two shells andbolted.
"Good Lord," Dodd shouted, "did you see the color of their shells,Tommy?" Even in that moment the scientific observer came uppermost inhim. "Those red edges? They must be young ones, Tommy. It's the newbrood! No wonder Bram stayed behind! He was waiting for them to hatch!The new brood! We're doomed--doomed! All my work wasted!"
The blackfellows did not get very far. A hundred yards from the placewhere they started to run they dropped, their bodies hidden beneath theclustering monsters, their screams cut short as those frightful beakssought their throats, and those jaws crunched through flesh and bone.
* * * * *
Circling around Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia, as if puzzled by theirappearance, the beetles kept up a continuous, furious droning thatsounded like the roar of Niagara mixed with the shrieking of a thousandsirens. The moon was completely hidden, and only a dim, nebulous lightshowed the repulsive monsters as they flew within a few feet of theheads of the fugitives. The stench was overpowering.
But suddenly a ray of white light shot through the darkness, and, with achanged note, just perceptible to the ears of the two men, but doubtlessof the greatest significance to the beetles, the swarm fled apart toright and left, leaving a clear lane, through which appeared--Bram,reclining on his shell-couch above his eight trained beetle steeds!
Hovering overhead, the eight huge monsters dropped lightly to the groundbeside the three. Bram sat up, a vicious grin upon his twisted face. Inhis hand he held a large electric bulb, its sides sheathed in a roughlycarved wooden frame; the wire was attached to a battery behind him.
"Well met, my friends!" he shouted exultantly. "I owe you more thanksthan I can express for having so providentially left the electricalequipment of your plane undamaged after you crashed at the entrance toSubmundia. I had a hunch about it--and the hunch worked!"
* * * * *
He grinned more malevolently as he looked from one man to the other.
"You've run your race," he said. "But I'm going to have a little funwith you before you die. I'm going to use you as an object lesson.You'll find it out in a little while."
"Go ahead, go ahead, Bram," Dodd grinned back at him. "Just a fewmillion years ago, and you were a speck of protoplasm--in thatpre-pleistocene age--swimming among the invertebrate crustaceans thatcharacterized that epoch."
"Invertebrates and monotremes, Dodd," said Bram, almost wistfully. "Themammals were already existent on the earth, as you know--" Suddenly hebroke off, as he realized that Dodd was spoofing him. A yell ofexecration broke from his lips. He uttered a high whistle, and instantlythe whiplike lashes of a hundred beetles whizzed through the darknessand remained poised over Dodd's head.
"Not even the marsupial lion, Bram," grinned Dodd, undismayed. "Goahead, go ahead, but I'll not die with a lie upon my lips!"
CHAPTER IX
_The Trail of Death_
"There's sure some sort of hoodoo on these Antarctic expeditions,Wilson," said the city editor of _The Daily Record_ to the star rewriteman. He glanced through the hastily typed report that had come throughon the wireless set erected on the thirty-sixth story of the RecordBuilding. "Tommy Travers gone, eh? And James Dodd, too! There'll be woeand wailing along the Great White Way to-night when this news gets out.They say that half the chorus girls in town considered themselvesengaged to Tommy. Nice fellow, too! Always did like him!"
"Queer, that curtain of fog that seems to lie on the actual site of thesouth pole," he continued, glancing over the report again. "So Stormthinks that Tommy crashed in it, and that it's a million to one againsttheir ever finding his remains. What's this about beetles? Shells ofenormous prehistoric beetles found by Tommy and Dodd! That'll make goodcopy, Wilson. Let's play that up. Hand it to Jones, and tell him toscare up a catching headline or two."
* * * * *
He beckoned to the boy who was hurrying toward his desk, a flimsy in hishand, glanced through it, and tossed it toward Wilson.
"What do they think this is, April Fool's Day?" he asked. "I'm surprisedthat the International Press should fall for such stuff as that!"
"Why, to-morrow is the first of April!" exclaimed Wilson, tossing backthe cable dispatch with a contemptuous laugh.
"Well, it won't do the I. P. much good to play those tricks on theirsubscribers," said the city editor testily. "I'm surprised, to say theleast. I guess their Adelaide correspondent has gone off his head orsomething. Using poor Travers's name, too! Of course that fellow didn'tknow he was dead, but still...."
That was how _The Daily Record_ missed being the first to give outcertain information that was to stagger the world. The dispatch, whichhad evidently outrun an earlier one, was as follows:
ADELAIDE, South Australia, March 31.--Further telegraphic communications arriving almost continuously from Settler's Station, signed by Thomas Travers, member of Travers Antarctic Expedition, who claims to have penetrated earth's interior at south pole and to have come out near Victoria Desert. Travers states that swarm of prehistoric beetles, estimated at two trillion, and as large as men, with shells impenetrable by rifle bullets, now besieging Settler's Station, where he and Dodd and Haidia, woman of subterranean race whom they brought away, are
shut up in telegraph office. Bram, former member of Greystoke Expedition, said to be in charge of swarm, with intention of obliterating human race. Every living thing at Settler's Station destroyed, and swarm moving south.
It was a small-town paper a hundred miles from New York that took achance on publishing this report from the International Press, in spiteof frantic efforts on the parts of the head office to recall it after ithad been transmitted. This paper published the account as an AprilFool's Day joke, though later it took to itself the credit for havingbelieved it. But by the time April Fool's Day dawned all the world knewthat the account was, if anything, an under-estimate of the fearfulthings that were happening "down under."
* * * * *
It was known now that the swarm of monsters had originated in the GreatVictoria Desert, one of the worst stretches of desolation in the world,situated in the south-east corner of Western Australia. Their numberswere incalculable. Wimbush, the aviator, who was attempting to cross thecontinent from east to west, reported afterward that he had flown forfour days, skirting the edge of the swarm, and that the whole of thattime they were moving in the same direction, a thick cloud that left atrail of dense darkness on earth beneath them, like the path of aneclipse. Wimbush escaped them only because he had a ceiling of twentythousand feet, to which apparently the beetles could not soar.
And this swarm was only about one-fourth of the whole number of themonsters. This was the swarm that was moving westward, and subsequentlytotally destroyed all living things in Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, Perth,and all the coastal cities of Western Australia.
Ships were found drifting in the Indian Ocean, totally destitute ofcrews and passengers; not even their skeletons were found, and it wasestimated that the voracious monsters had carried them away bodily,devoured them in the air, and dropped the remains into the water.
All the world knows now how the sea elephant herd on Kerguelen Islandwas totally destroyed, and of the giant shells that were found lyingeverywhere on the deserted beaches, in positions that showed themonsters had in the end devoured one another.
Mauritius was the most westerly point reached by a fraction of theswarm. A little over twenty thousand of the beetles reached that lovelyisland, by count of the shells afterward, and all the world knows now ofthe desperate and successful fight that the inhabitants waged againstthem. Men and women, boys and girls, blacks and whites, finding that thedevils were invulnerable against rifle fire, sallied forth boldly withknives and choppers, and laid down a life for a life.
* * * * *
On the second day after their appearance, the main swarm, a trillion anda half strong, reached the line of the transcontinental railway, andmoved eastward into South Australia, traveling, it was estimated, at therate of two hundred miles an hour. By the next morning they were inAdelaide, a city of nearly a quarter of a million people. By nightfallevery living thing in Adelaide and the suburbs had been eaten, exceptfor a few who succeeded in hiding in walled-up cellars, or in thesurrounding marshes.
That night the swarm was on the borders of New South Wales and Victoria,and moving in two divisions toward Melbourne and Sydney.
The northern half, it was quickly seen, was flying "wild," with noparticular objective, moving in a solid cohort two hundred miles inlength, and devouring game, stock, and humans indiscriminately. It wasthe southern division, numbering perhaps a trillion, that was undercommand of Bram, and aimed at destroying Melbourne as Adelaide had beendestroyed.
Bram, with his eight beetle steeds, was by this time known and execratedthroughout the world. He was pictured as Anti-Christ, and the fulfilmentof the prophecies of the Rock of Revelations.
And all this while--or, rather, until the telegraph wires werecut--broken, it was discovered later, by perching beetles--ThomasTravers was sending out messages from his post at Settler's Station.
* * * * *
Soon it was known that prodigious creatures were following in the wakeof the devastating horde. Mantises, fifteen feet in height, wingedthings like pterodactyls, longer than bombing airplanes, followed,preying on the stragglers. But the main bodies never halted, and theinroads that the destroyers made on their numbers were insignificant.
Before the swarm reached Adelaide the Commonwealth Government had takenaction. Troops had been called out, and all the available airplanes inthe country had been ordered to assemble at Broken Hill, New SouthWales, a strategic point commanding the approaches to Sydney andMelbourne. Something like four hundred airplanes were assembled, withseveral batteries of anti-aircraft guns that had been used in the GreatWar. Every amateur aviator in Australia was on the spot, with machinesranging from tiny Moths to Handley-Pages--anything that could fly.
Nocturnal though the beetles had been, they no longer feared the lightof the sun. In fact, it was ascertained later that they were blind. Anopacity had formed over the crystalline lens of the eye. Blind, theywere no less formidable than with their sight. They existed only todevour, and their numbers made them irresistible, no matter which waythey turned.
As soon as the vanguard of the dark cloud was sighted from Broken Hill,the airplanes went aloft. Four hundred planes, each armed with machineguns, dashed into the serried hosts, drumming out volleys of lead. In along line, extending nearly to the limits of the beetle formation, thusgiving each aviator all the room he needed, the planes gave battle.
* * * * *
The first terror that fell upon the airmen was the discovery that, evenat close range, the machine gun bullets failed to penetrate the shells.The force of the impact whirled the beetles around, drove them togetherin bunches, sent them groping with weaving tentacles through theair--but that was all. On the main body of the invaders no impressionwas made whatever.
The second terror was the realization that the swarm, driven down hereand there from an altitude of several hundred feet, merely resumed theirprogress on the ground, in a succession of gigantic leaps. Within a fewminutes, instead of presenting an inflexible barrier, the line ofairplanes was badly broken, each plane surrounded by swarms of themonsters.
Then Bram was seen. And that was the third terror, the sight of thefamous beetle steeds, four pairs abreast, with Bram reclining like aRoman emperor upon the surface of the shells. It is true, Bram had noinclination to risk his own life in battle. At the first sight of theaviators he dodged into the thick of the swarm, where no bullet couldreach him. Bram managed to transmit an order, and the beetles drewtogether.
Some thought afterward that it was by thought transference he effectedthis maneuver, for instantly the beetles, which had hitherto flown inloose order, became a solid wall, a thousand feet in height, closing inon the planes. The propellers struck them and snapped short, and as theplanes went weaving down, the hideous monsters leaped into the cockpitsand began their abominable meal.
* * * * *
Not a single plane came back. Planes and skeletons, and here and there ashell of a dead beetle, itself completely devoured, were all that wasfound afterward.
The gunners stayed at their posts till the last moment, firing roundafter round of shell and shrapnel, with insignificant results. Theirskeletons were found not twenty paces from their guns--where theGunners' Monument now stands.
Half an hour after the flight had first been sighted the news was beingradioed to Sydney, Melbourne, and all other Australian cities, advisinginstant flight to sea as the only chance of safety. That radio messagewas cut short--and men listened and shuddered. After that came thecrowding aboard all craft in the harbors, the tragedies of the _Eustis_,the _All Australia_, the _Sepphoris_, sunk at their moorings. Theinnumerable sea tragedies. The horde of fugitives that landed in NewZealand. The reign of terror when the mob got out of hand, the burningof Melbourne, the sack of Sydney.
And south and eastward, like a resistless flood, the beetle swarm camepouring. Well had Bram boasted that
he would make the earth a desert!
* * * * *
A hundred miles of poisoned carcasses of sheep, extended outsideSydney's suburbs, gave the first promise of success. Long mounds ofbeetle shells testified to the results; moreover, the beetles that fedon the carcasses of their fellows, were in turn poisoned and died. Butthis was only a drop in the bucket. What counted was that the swiftadvance was slowing down. As if exhausted by their efforts, or elsesatiated with food, the beetles were doing what the soldiers did.
They were digging in!
Twenty-four miles from Sydney, eighteen outside Melbourne, the advancewas stayed.
Volunteers who went out from those cities reported that the beetlesseemed to be resting in long trenches that they had excavated, so thatonly their shells appeared above ground. Trees were covered withclinging beetles, every wall, every house was invisible beneath thebeetle armor.
Australia had a respite. Perhaps only for a night or day, but stilltime to draw breath, time to consider, time for the shiploads offugitives to get farther from the continent that had become a shambles.
And then the cry went up, not only from Australia, but from all theworld, "Get Travers!"
CHAPTER X
_At Bay_
Bram put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, a shrill whistle, yetaudible to Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia. Instantly three pairs of beetlesappeared out of the throng. Their tentacles went out, and the two menand the girl found themselves hoisted separately upon the backs of thepairs. Next moment they were flying side by side, high in the air abovethe surrounding swarm.
They could see one another, but it was impossible for them to make theirvoices heard above the rasping of the beetles' legs. Hours went by,while the moon crossed the sky and dipped toward the horizon. Tommy knewthat the moon would set about the hour of dawn. And the stars werealready beginning to pale when he saw a line of telegraph poles, thentwo lines of shining metals, then a small settlement of stone and brickhouses.
Tommy was not familiar with the geography of Australia, but he knew thismust be the transcontinental line.
Whirling onward, the cloud of beetles suddenly swooped downward. For amoment Tommy could see the frightened occupants of the settlementcrowding into the single street, then he shuddered with sick horror ashe saw them obliterated by the swarm.
There was no struggle, no attempt at flight or resistance. One momentthose forty-odd men were there--the next minute they existed no longer.There was nothing but a swarm of beetles, walking about like men withshells upon their backs.
And now Tommy saw evidences of Bram's devilish control of the swarm.For out of the cloud dropped what seemed to be a phalanx of beetleguards, the military police of beetledom, and, lashing fiercely withtheir tentacles, they drove back all the swarm that sought to join theircompanions in their ghoulish feast. There was just so much food and nomore; the rest must seek theirs further.
* * * * *
But even beetles, it may be presumed, are not entirely under disciplineat all times. The pair of beetles that bore Tommy, suddenly swoopedapart, ten or a dozen feet from the ground, and dashed into the thick ofthe struggling, frenzied mass, flinging their rider to earth.
Tommy struck the soft sand, sat up, half dazed, saw his shell lying afew feet away from him, and retrieved it just as a couple of themonsters came swooping down at him.
He looked about him. Not far away stood Dodd and Haidia, with theirshells on their backs. They recognized Tommy and ran toward him.
Not more than twenty yards away stood the railroad station, with severalcrates of goods on the platform. Next to it was a substantial house ofstone, with the front door open.
Tommy pointed to it, and Dodd understood and shouted something that waslost in the furious buzz of the beetles' wings as they devoured theirprey. The three raced for the entrance, gained it unmolested, and closedthe door.
There was a key in the door, and it was light enough for them to see achain, which Dodd pulled into position. There was only one story, andthere were three rooms, apparently, with the kitchen. Tommy rushed tothe kitchen door, locked it, too, and, with almost super-human efforts,dragged the large iron stove against it. He rushed to the window, but itwas a mere loophole, not large enough to admit a child. Nevertheless, hestood the heavy table on end so that it covered it. Then he ran back.
* * * * *
Dodd had already barricaded the window of the larger room, which was abed-sitting room, with a heavy wardrobe, and the wooden bedstead,jamming the two pieces sidewise against the wall, so that they could notbe forced apart without being demolished. He was now busy in the smallerroom, which seemed to be the station-master's office, dragging an ironsafe across the floor. But the window was criss-crossed with iron bars,and it was evident that the safe, which was locked, contained at timesconsiderable money, for the window could hardly have been forced save bya charge of nitro-glycerine or dynamite. However, it was against thedoor that Dodd placed the safe, and he stood back, panting.
"Good," said Haidia. "That will hold them."
The two men looked at her doubtfully. Did Haidia know what she wastalking about?
The sun had risen. A long shaft shot into the room. Outside the beetleswere still buzzing as they turned over the vestiges of their prey. Therewere as yet no signs of attack. Suddenly Tommy grasped Dodd's arm.
"Look!" he shouted, pointing to a corner which had been in gloom amoment before.
There was a table there, and on it a telegraphic instrument. Telegraphyhad been one of Tommy's hobbies in boyhood. In a moment he was busy atthe table.
Dot-dash-dot-dash! Then suddenly outside a furious hum, and the impactof beetle bodies against the front door.
* * * * *
Tommy got up, grinning. That was the first, interrupted message fromTommy that was received.
Through the barred window the three could see the furious efforts of thebeetles to force an entrance. But the very tensile strength of thebeetle-shells, which rendered them impervious to bullets, required alaminate construction which rendered them powerless against brick orstone.
Desperately the swarm dashed itself against the walls, until the groundoutside was piled high with stunned beetles. Not the faintest impressionwas made on the defenses.
"Watch them, Jim," said Tom. "I'll go see if the rear's secure."
That thought of his seemed to have been anticipated by the beetles, foras Tommy reached the kitchen the swarm came dashing against door andwindow, always recoiling. Tommy came back, grinning all over his face.
"You were right, Haidia," he said. "We've held them all right, and thetables are turned on Bram. Also I got a message through, I think," headded to Dodd.
Dash--dot--dash--dot from the instrument. Tommy ran to the table again.Dash--dot went back. For five minutes Tommy labored, while the beetleshammered now on one door, now on another, now on the windows. Then Tommygot up.
"It was some station down the line," he said. "I've told them, andthey're sending a man up here to replace the telegraphist, also a coupleof cops. They think I'm crazy. I told them again. That's the best Icould do."
* * * * *
"Dodd! Travers! For the last time--let's talk!"
The cloud of beetles seemed to have thinned, for the sun was shininginto the room. Bram's voice was perfectly audible, though he himself wasinvisible; probably he thought it likely that the defenders had obtainedfirearms.
"Nothing to say to you, Bram," called Dodd. "We've finished ourdiscussion on the monotremes."
"I want you fellows to stand in with me," came Bram's plaintive tones."It's so lonesome all by one's self, Dodd."
"Ah, you're beginning to find that out, are you?" Dodd could not resistanswering. "You'll be lonelier yet before you're through."
"Dodd, I didn't bring that swarm up here. I swear it. I've been tryingto control them from the beginning.
I saw what was coming. I believe Ican avert this horror, drive them into the sea or something like that.Don't make me desperate, Dodd.
"And listen, old man. About those monotremes--sensible men don't quarrelover things like that. Why can't we agree to differ?"
"Ah, now you're talking, Bram," Dodd answered. "Only you're too late.After what's happened here to-day, we'll have no truck with you. That'sfinal."
"Damn you," shrieked Bram. "I'll batter down this house. I'll--"
"You'll do nothing, Bram, because you can't," Dodd answered. "Travershas wired full information about your devil-horde, and likewise aboutyou, and all Australia will be prepared to give you a warm receptionwhen you arrive."
"I tell you I'm invincible," Bram screamed. "In three days Australiawill be a ruin, a depopulated desert. In a week, all southern Asia, inthree weeks Europe, in two months America."
"You've been taking too many of those pellets, Bram," Dodd answered."Stand back now! Stand back, wherever you are, or I'll open the door andthrow the slops over you."
* * * * *
Bram's screech rose high above the droning of the wings. In anothermoment the interior of the room had grown as black as night. The rattleof the beetle shells against the four walls of the house was like theclattering of stage thunder.
All through the darkness Dodd could hear the unhurried clicking of thekey.
At last the rattling ceased. The sun shone in again. The ground allaround the house was packed with fallen beetles, six feet high, awrithing mass that creaked and clattered as it strove to disengageitself.
Bram's voice once more: "I'm leaving a guard, Dodd. They'll get you ifyou try to leave. But they won't eat you. I'm going to have you threesliced into little pieces, the Thousand Deaths of the Chinese. Thebeetles will eat the parts that are sliced away--and you'll live towatch them. I'll be back with a stick or two of dynamite to-morrow."
"Yeah, but listen, Bram," Dodd sang out. "Listen, you old marsupialtiger. When those pipe dreams clear away, I'm going to build a gallowsof beetle-shells reaching to the moon, to hang you on!"
Bram's screech of madness died away. The strident rasping of thebeetles' legs began again. For hours the three heard it; it was notuntil nightfall that it died away.
* * * * *
Bram had made good his threat, for all around the house, extending asfar as they could see, was the host of beetle-guards. To venture out,even with their shells about them, was clearly a hazardous undertaking.There was neither food nor water in the place.
"We'll just have to hold out," said Dodd, breaking one of the longperiods of silence.
Tommy did not answer; he did not hear him, for he was busy at the key.Suddenly he leaped to his feet.
"God, Jimmy," he cried, "that devil's making good his threat! Theswarm's in South Australia, destroying every living thing, wiping outwhole towns and villages! And they--they believe me now!"
He sank into a chair. For the first time the strain of the awful pastseemed to grip him. Haidia came to his side.
"The beetles are finish," she said in her soft voice.
"How d'you know, Haidia?" demanded Dodd.
"The beetles are finish," Haidia repeated quietly, and that was all thatDodd could get out of her. But again the key began to click, and Tommystaggered to the table. Dot--dash--dash--dot. Presently he looked uponce more.
"The swarm's halfway to Adelaide," he said. "They want to know if I canhelp them. Help them!" He burst into hysterical laughter.
Toward evening he came back after an hour at the key. "Line must bebroken," he said. "I'm getting nothing."
* * * * *
In the moonlight they could see the huge compound eyes of the beetleguards glittering like enormous diamonds outside. They had not beenconscious of thirst during the day, but now, with the coming of the coolnight their desire for water became paramount.
"Tommy, there must be water in the station," said Dodd. "I'm going toget a pitcher from the kitchen and risk it, Tommy. Take care of Haidiaif--" he added.
But Haidia laid her hand upon his arm. "Do not go, Jimmydodd," she said."We can be thirsty to-night, and to-morrow the beetles will be finish."
"How d'you know?" asked Dodd again. But now he realized that Haidia hadnever learned the significance of an interrogation. She only repeatedher statement, and again the two men had to remain content.
The long night passed. Outside the many facets of the beetle eyes.Inside the two men, desperate with anxiety, not for themselves, but forthe fate of the world, snatching a few moments' sleep from time to time,then looking up to see those glaring eyes from the silent watchers.
Then dawn came stealing over the desert, and the two shook themselvesfree from sleep. And now the eyes were gone.
But there was immense activity among the beetles. They were scurrying toand fro, and, as they watched, Dodd and Tommy began to see somesignificance in their movements.
"Why, they're digging trenches!" Tommy shouted. "That's horrible, Jimmy!Are they intending to conduct sapping operations against us likeengineers, or what?"
Dodd did not reply, and Tommy hardly expected any answer. As the twomen, now joined by Haidia, watched, they saw that the beetles wereactually digging themselves into the sand.
* * * * *
Within the space of an hour, by the time the first shafts of sunlightbegan to stream into the room, there was to be seen only the massive,rounded shells of the monsters as they squatted in the sand.
"Now you may fetch water," said Haidia, smiling at her lover. "No, youdo not need the shells," she added. "The beetles are finish. It is asthe wise men of my people told me."
Wondering, hesitating, Tommy and Dodd unlocked the front door. Theystood upon the threshold ready to bolt back again. But there was nostirring among the beetle hosts.
Growing bolder, they advanced a few steps; then, shamed by Haidia'scourage, they followed her, still cautiously to the station.
Dodd shouted as he saw a water-tank, and a receptacle above it with awater-cock. They let Haidia drink, then followed suit, and for a fewmoments, as they appeased their thirst, the beetles were forgotten.
Then they turned back. There had been no movement in that line of shellsthat glinted in the morning sunlight.
"Come, I shall show you," said Haidia confidently, advancing toward thetrench.
Dodd would have stopped her, but the girl moved forward quickly, eludedhim with a graceful, mirthful gesture, and stooped down over the trench.
She rose up, raising in her arms an empty beetle-shell!
Dodd, who had reached the trench before Tommy, turned round and yelledto him excitedly. Tommy ran forward--and then he understood.
The shells were empty. The swarm, whose life cycle Bram had admitted hedid not understand, had just moulted!
It had moulted because the bodies, gorged with food, had grown too largefor the shells. In time, if left alone, the monsters would grow largershells, become invincible again. But just now they were defenseless asnew-born babes--and knew it.
Deep underneath the empty shells they had burrowed into the ground.Everywhere at the bottom of the deep trenches were the naked, bestialcreatures, waving helpless tentacles and squirming over one another asthey strove to find shelter and security.
A sudden madness came over Tommy and Dodd. "Dynamite--there must bedynamite!" Dodd shouted, as he ran back to the station.
"Something better than dynamite," shouted Tommy, holding up one of ascore of drums of petrol!
CHAPTER XI
_The World Set Free_
They waited two days at Settler's Station. To push along the line intothe desert would have been useless, and both men were convinced that anairplane would arrive for them. But it was not until the secondafternoon that the aviator arrived, half-dead with thirst and fatigue,and almost incoherent.
His was the last plane on the Australian continent. He brou
ght the newsof the destruction of Adelaide, and of the siege of Melbourne andSydney, as he termed it. He told Dodd and Tommy that the two cities hadbeen surrounded with trenches and barbed wire. Machine guns andartillery were bombarding the trenches in which the beetles had takenshelter.
"Has any one been out on reconnaissance?" asked Tommy.
Nobody had been permitted to pass through the barbed wire, though therehad been volunteers. It meant certain death. But, unless the beetleswere sapping deep in the ground, what their purpose was, nobody knew.
* * * * *
Tommy and Dodd led him to the piles of smoking, stinking debris and toldhim.
That was where the aviator fainted from sheer relief.
"The Commonwealth wants you to take supreme command against thebeetles," he told Tommy, when he had recovered. "I'm to bring you back.Not that they expect me back. But--God, what a piece of news! Forgive myswearing--I used to be a parson. Still am, for the matter of that."
"How are you going to bring us three back in your plane?" asked Tommy.
"I shall stay here with Jimmydodd," said Haidia suavely. "There is notthe least danger any more. You must destroy the beetles before theirshells have grown again, that's all."
"Used to be a parson, you say? Still are?" shouted Dodd excitedly."Thank God! I mean, I'm glad to hear it. Come inside, and come quick. Iwant you too, Tommy!"
Then Tommy understood. And it seemed as if Haidia understood, by someinstinct that belongs exclusively to women, for her cheeks were flushedas she turned and smiled into Dodd's eyes.
Ten minutes later Tommy hopped into the biplane, leaving the happymarried couple at Settler's Station. His eyes grew misty as the planetook the air, and he saw them waving to him from the ground. Dodd andHaidia and he had been through so many adventures, and had reachedsafety. He must not fail.
* * * * *
He did not fail. He found himself at Sydney in command of thirtythousand men, all enthusiastic for the fight for the human race,soldiers and volunteers ready to fight until they dropped. When the newsof the situation was made public, an immense wave of hope ran throughthe world.
National differences were forgotten, color and creed and race grew moretolerant of one another. A new day had dawned--the day of humanity'strue liberation.
Tommy's first act was to call out the fire companies and have thebeetles' trenches saturated with petrol from the fire hoses. Thenincendiary bullets, shot from guns from a safe distance, quicklyconverted them into blazing infernos.
But even so only a tithe of the beetle army had been destroyed. Twohundred planes had already been rushed from New Zealand, and theiraviators went up and scoured the country far and wide. Everywhere theyfound trenches, and, where the soil was stony, millions of the beetlesclustered helplessly beneath great mounds of discarded shells.
An army of black trackers had been brought in planes from all parts ofthe country, and they searched out the beetle masses everywhere alongthe course that the invaders had taken. Then incendiary bombs weredropped from above.
* * * * *
Day after day the beetle massacre went on. By the end of a week thesurvivors of the invasion began to take heart again. It was certain thatthe greater portion of the horde had been destroyed.
There was only one thing lacking. No trace of Bram had been seen sincehis appearance at the head of his beetle army in front of Broken Hill.And louder and more insistent grew the world clamor that he should befound, and put to death in some way more horrible than any yet devised.
The ingenuity of a million minds worked upon this problem. Newspapersall over the world offered prizes for the most suitable form of death.Ingenious Oriental tortures were rediscovered.
The only thing lacking was Bram.
A spy craze ran through Australia. Five hundred Brams were found, andall of them were in imminent danger of death before they were able toprove an alias.
And, oddly enough, it was Tommy and Dodd who found Bram. For Dodd hadbeen brought back east, together with his bride, and given an importantcommand in the Army of Extermination.
* * * * *
Dodd had joined Tommy not far from Broken Hill, where a swarm of ahundred thousand beetles had been found in a little known valley. Themonsters had begun to grow new shells, and the news had excited a freshwave of apprehension. The airplanes had concentrated for an attack uponthem, and Tommy and Dodd were riding together, Tommy at the controls,and Dodd observing.
Dodd called through the tube to Tommy, and indicated a mass that wasmoving through the scrub--some fifty thousand beetles, executing shorthops and evidently regaining some vitality. Tommy nodded.
He signalled, and the fleet of planes circled around and began to droptheir incendiary bombs. Within a few minutes the beetles were ringedwith a wall of fire. Presently the whole terrain was a blazing furnace.
Hours later, when the fires had died away, Tommy and Dodd went down tolook at the destruction that had been wrought. The scene was horrible.Great masses of charred flesh and shell were piled up everywhere.
"I guess that's been a pretty thorough job," said Tommy. "Let's getback, Jim."
"What's that?" cried Dodd, pointing. Then, "My God, Tommy, it's one ofour men!"
* * * * *
It was a man, but it was not one of their men, that creeping, maimed,half-cinder and half-human thing that was trying to crawl into thehollow of a rock. It was Bram, and recognition was mutual.
Bram dropping, moaning; he was only the shell of a man, and it wasincredible how he had managed to survive that ordeal of fire. Theremainder of his life, which only his indomitable will had held in thatshattered body, was evidently a matter of minutes, but he looked up atDodd and laughed.
"So--you're--here, damn you!" he snarled. "And--you think--you've won.I've--another card--another invasion of the world--beside which this ischild's play. It's an invasion--"
Bram was going, but he pulled himself together with a supreme effort.
"Invasion by--new species of--monotremes," he croaked. "Deepdown in--earth. Was saving to--prove you the liar you are.Monotremes--egg-laying platypus big as an elephant--existent longbefore pleistocene epoch--make you recant, you lying fool!"
Bram died, an outburst of bitter laughter on his lips. Dodd stood silentfor a while; then reverently he removed his hat.
"He was a madman and a devil, but he had the potentialities of a god,Tommy," he said.
* * * * *
SUCH WELL-KNOW WRITERS AS
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