_At Bay_
Bram put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, a shrill whistle, yet
audible to Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia. Instantly three pairs of beetles
appeared out of the throng. Their tentacles went out, and the two men
and the girl found themselves hoisted separately upon the backs of the
pairs. Next moment they were flying side by side, high in the air above
the surrounding swarm.
They could see one another, but it was impossible for them to make their
voices heard above the rasping of the beetles' legs. Hours went by,
while the moon crossed the sky and dipped toward the horizon. Tommy knew
that the moon would set about the hour of dawn. And the stars were
already beginning to pale when he saw a line of telegraph poles, then
two lines of shining metals, then a small settlement of stone and brick
houses.
Tommy was not familiar with the geography of Australia, but he knew this
must be the transcontinental line.
Whirling onward, the cloud of beetles suddenly swooped downward. For a
moment Tommy could see the frightened occupants of the settlement
crowding into the single street, then he shuddered with sick horror as
he saw them obliterated by the swarm.
There was no struggle, no attempt at flight or resistance. One moment
those forty-odd men were there--the next minute they existed no longer.
There was nothing but a swarm of beetles, walking about like men with
shells 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 beetle
guards, the military police of beetledom, and, lashing fiercely with
their tentacles, they drove back all the swarm that sought to join their
companions in their ghoulish feast. There was just so much food and no
more; the rest must seek theirs further.
* * * * *
But even beetles, it may be presumed, are not entirely under discipline
at all times. The pair of beetles that bore Tommy, suddenly swooped
apart, ten or a dozen feet from the ground, and dashed into the thick of
the struggling, frenzied mass, flinging their rider to earth.
Tommy struck the soft sand, sat up, half dazed, saw his shell lying a
few feet away from him, and retrieved it just as a couple of the
monsters came swooping down at him.
He looked about him. Not far away stood Dodd and Haidia, with their
shells on their backs. They recognized Tommy and ran toward him.
Not more than twenty yards away stood the railroad station, with several
crates of goods on the platform. Next to it was a substantial house of
stone, with the front door open.
Tommy pointed to it, and Dodd understood and shouted something that was
lost in the furious buzz of the beetles' wings as they devoured their
prey. The three raced for the entrance, gained it unmolested, and closed
the door.
There was a key in the door, and it was light enough for them to see a
chain, which Dodd pulled into position. There was only one story, and
there were three rooms, apparently, with the kitchen. Tommy rushed to
the kitchen door, locked it, too, and, with almost super-human efforts,
dragged the large iron stove against it. He rushed to the window, but it
was a mere loophole, not large enough to admit a child. Nevertheless, he
stood 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 a
bed-sitting room, with a heavy wardrobe, and the wooden bedstead,
jamming the two pieces sidewise against the wall, so that they could not
be forced apart without being demolished. He was now busy in the smaller
room, which seemed to be the station-master's office, dragging an iron
safe across the floor. But the window was criss-crossed with iron bars,
and it was evident that the safe, which was locked, contained at times
considerable money, for the window could hardly have been forced save by
a charge of nitro-glycerine or dynamite. However, it was against the
door 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 was
talking about?
The sun had risen. A long shaft shot into the room. Outside the beetles
were still buzzing as they turned over the vestiges of their prey. There
were as yet no signs of attack. Suddenly Tommy grasped Dodd's arm.
"Look!" he shouted, pointing to a corner which had been in gloom a
moment before.
There was a table there, and on it a telegraphic instrument. Telegraphy
had been one of Tommy's hobbies in boyhood. In a moment he was busy at
the table.
Dot-dash-dot-dash! Then suddenly outside a furious hum, and the impact
of beetle bodies against the front door.
* * * * *
Tommy got up, grinning. That was the first, interrupted message from
Tommy that was received.
Through the barred window the three could see the furious efforts of the
beetles to force an entrance. But the very tensile strength of the
beetle-shells, which rendered them impervious to bullets, required a
laminate construction which rendered them powerless against brick or
stone.
Desperately the swarm dashed itself against the walls, until the ground
outside was piled high with stunned beetles. Not the faintest impression
was 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, for
as Tommy reached the kitchen the swarm came dashing against door and
window, always recoiling. Tommy came back, grinning all over his face.
"You were right, Haidia," he said. "We've held them all right, and the
tables are turned on Bram. Also I got a message through, I think," he
added 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 beetles
hammered now on one door, now on another, now on the windows. Then Tommy
got up.
"It was some station down the line," he said. "I've told them, and
they're sending a man up here to replace the telegraphist, also a couple
of cops. They think I'm crazy. I told them again. That's the best I
could do."
* * * * *
"Dodd! Travers! For the last time--let's talk!"
The cloud of beetles seemed to have thinned, for the sun was shining
into the room. Bram's voice was perfectly audible, though he himself was
invisible; probably he thought it likely that the defenders had obtained
firearms.
"Nothing to say to you, Bram," called Dodd. "We've finished our
discussion 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 resist
answering. "You'll be lonelier yet before you're through."
"Dodd, I didn't bring that swarm up here. I swear it. I've been trying
to control them from the beginning. I saw what was coming. I believe I
can 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 quarrel
over 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's
final."
"Damn you," shrieked Bram. "I'll batter down this house. I'll--"
"You'll do nothing, Bram, because you can't," Dodd answered. "Travers
has wired full information about your devil-horde, and likewise about
you, and all Australia will be prepared to give you a warm reception
when you arrive."
"I tell you I'm invincible," Bram screamed. "In three days Australia
will be a ruin, a depopulated desert. In a week, all southern Asia, in
three 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 and
throw the slops over you."
* * * * *
Bram's screech rose high above the droning of the wings. In another
moment the interior of the room had grown as black as night. The rattle
of the beetle shells against the four walls of the house was like the
clattering of stage thunder.
All through the darkness Dodd could hear the unhurried clicking of the
key.
At last the rattling ceased. The sun shone in again. The ground all
around the house was packed with fallen beetles, six feet high, a
writhing mass that creaked and clattered as it strove to disengage
itself.
Bram's voice once more: "I'm leaving a guard, Dodd. They'll get you if
you try to leave. But they won't eat you. I'm going to have you three
sliced into little pieces, the Thousand Deaths of the Chinese. The
beetles will eat the parts that are sliced away--and you'll live to
watch them. I'll be back with a stick or two of dynamite to-morrow."
"Yeah, but listen, Bram," Dodd sang out. "Listen, you old marsupial
tiger. When those pipe dreams clear away, I'm going to build a gallows
of beetle-shells reaching to the moon, to hang you on!"
Bram's screech of madness died away. The strident rasping of the
beetles' legs began again. For hours the three heard it; it was not
until nightfall that it died away.
* * * * *
Bram had made good his threat, for all around the house, extending as
far 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 long
periods 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! The
swarm's in South Australia, destroying every living thing, wiping out
whole towns and villages! And they--they believe me now!"
He sank into a chair. For the first time the strain of the awful past
seemed 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 that
Dodd could get out of her. But again the key began to click, and Tommy
staggered to the table. Dot--dash--dash--dot. Presently he looked up
once more.
"The swarm's halfway to Adelaide," he said. "They want to know if I can
help them. Help them!" He burst into hysterical laughter.
Toward evening he came back after an hour at the key. "Line must be
broken," he said. "I'm getting nothing."
* * * * *
In the moonlight they could see the huge compound eyes of the beetle
guards glittering like enormous diamonds outside. They had not been
conscious of thirst during the day, but now, with the coming of the cool
night their desire for water became paramount.
"Tommy, there must be water in the station," said Dodd. "I'm going to
get a pitcher from the kitchen and risk it, Tommy. Take care of Haidia
if--" 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 had
never learned the significance of an interrogation. She only repeated
her 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 for
the 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 themselves
free from sleep. And now the eyes were gone.
But there was immense activity among the beetles. They were scurrying to
and fro, and, as they watched, Dodd and Tommy began to see some
significance in their movements.
"Why, they're digging trenches!" Tommy shouted. "That's horrible, Jimmy!
Are they intending to conduct sapping operations against us like
engineers, or what?"
Dodd did not reply, and Tommy hardly expected any answer. As the two
men, now joined by Haidia, watched, they saw that the beetles were
actually digging themselves into the sand.
* * * * *
Within the space of an hour, by the time the first shafts of sunlight
began 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, you
do not need the shells," she added. "The beetles are finish. It is as
the wise men of my people told me."
Wondering, hesitating, Tommy and Dodd unlocked the front door. They
stood upon the threshold ready to bolt back again. But there was no
stirring among the beetle hosts.
Growing bolder, they advanced a few steps; then, shamed by Haidia's
courage, they followed her, still cautiously to the station.
Dodd shouted as he saw a water-tank, and a receptacle above it with a
water-cock. They let Haidia drink, then followed suit, and for a few
moments, as they appeased their thirst, the beetles were forgotten.
Then they turned back. There had been no movement in that line of shells
that glinted in the morning sunlight.
"Come, I shall show you," said Haidia confidently, advancing toward the
trench.
Dodd would have stopped her, but the girl moved forward quickly, eluded
him 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 yelled
to him excitedly. Tommy ran forward--and then he understood.
The shells were empty. The swarm, whose life cycle Bram had admitted he
did not understand, had just moulted!
It had moulted because the bodies, gorged with food, had grown too large
for the shells. In time, if left alone, the monsters would grow larger
shells, become invincible again. But just now they were defenseless as
new-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, bestial
creatures, waving helpless tentacles and squirming over one another as
they strove to find shelter and security.
A sudden madness came over Tommy and Dodd. "Dynamite--there must be
dynamite!" Dodd shouted, as he ran back to the station.
"Something better than dynamite," shouted Tommy, holding up one of a
score of drums of petrol!