Crickets Swarming to War
On and on, fluttering side by side, the two gliders descended,
circling hour after hour with sufficient motor power to keep them from
tumbling into a crack up, but continuing steadily downward—slowly but
surely. There was no possible escape. They would go on downward
forever or fall through the moon.
Through the mysterious cavern lamps which Moawha had taken from the
heads of the pigmies who attacked them in the cave they could see
quite plainly although everything appeared very strange. For a long
time Epworth watched the red planes of Joan’s glider anxiously but
finally ascertaining that she was following him closely and imitating
his movements he turned to Billy.
“Well, young fellow, give an account of yourself. We went to the cave
to find you and you had disappeared and taken with you all of our
supplies.”
“I disappeared but I did not take the supplies,” Billy replied. “Some
fairy got the supplies. I expect if you raked his back you would find
a cricket.”
And then he told of what had happened to him. Shortly after Epworth
and Joan went to the Aerolite, while he was standing by his glider
working with the bicycle pedals an army of crickets came out of the
rear of the cave and surrounded him so stealthily that he did not know
they were present until they had made him a prisoner. They carried him
back into the cave, moved the supplies quickly, and closed up the cave
with heavy boulders. Then they took him on a long journey through
numerous and winding dark caves, conveying him on the back of two of
the crickets bound hands and feet.
“Boy,” Billy whispered in awe, “that journey was ghostly. Two large
crickets lined up on each side of me, and believe it or not their
backs gave out a phosphorous glow that lighted up that cavern, and
made the journey easy for my captors. I have been wondering all this
time how it was that two crickets could give out a glow and the others
were black as midnight.”
“Easy, lad. They had rubbed some of that phosphorous mineral on their
backs. A mineral powerful enough to light up a whole crater miles in
circumference could readily be utilized as a personal light.”
“I’m handing it to you, boy,” Billy exclaimed admiringly. “You’ve got
a brain. I never thought of that.”
“Go on with your story,” Epworth retorted smiling, “and do not ask
questions.”
“I didn’t ask a single question,” Billy snorted. “You butted in with
an answer when I was merely stating a fact. However there is not much
more to the story. I was carried to a large chamber, dumped on the
floor and left. When I was able to look around Moawha was near me
similarly trussed up. My hands being small I after a time succeeded in
working the cords over my wrists and then cut myself free, and freed
Moawha. So far so good. But it was too good to last. About the time we
were ready to try to sneak out of the chamber two pigmies entered. I
shot at them like a rocket but could not get to them in time to stop
the singing chirp they sent out calling the crickets to their
assistance. Of course I put up all the fight that was in me, and
Moawha helped quite a bit but they were too much for us, and again we
were bound and lashed until it was impossible to break loose. In this
condition we were carried to the chamber where you found us, and
shortly after we were thrown on the floor Toplinsky was brought in.
Here we were held prisoners until you came, our food consisting of
dried fruits and water. Not so bad but Lady Baltimore cake and ham
and—would go mighty fine for a change.”
He glanced ahead, and jammed the rudder quickly.
“Watch where you are going,” he bawled out. “You came mighty near
wrecking us on that sharp extension of the crater.”
The glider turned abruptly, and dropped rapidly for several seconds
before Epworth could level out.
“What is getting the matter with these things on my eyes?” Billy
demanded petulantly. “It is getting dark. I can’t see a thing below
us, and ten minutes ago I could see the walls of the crater easily.”
Epworth stared around. It seemed that they had been suddenly engulfed
in a gloom that the night spectacles would not penetrate. Had their
cavern lamps suddenly grown useless from age, or had they been broken
in some way? It was an annoying interrogation. To go on, and on, and
on, through everlasting darkness was appalling, fearful, mentally
destructive.
“Moawha says remove your cavern lamps,” Joan called out. “We must be
drifting into some kind of a light.”
When Epworth removed the head gear, and carefully placed it around his
neck so that he could quickly replace it on his head, he discovered
that the walls of the crater were no longer visible although there was
an eery, mysterious light all around. It was not a phosphorous glow
because there were no rocks or vegetation to give out such a glow. It
was a dim light of day, and they were falling through space.
When he looked downward he saw no land.
“Heavens,” he muttered, “we have dropped entirely through the moon,
and are we now sailing out into space?”
They fell a mile before the interrogation was answered. Then the light
grew brighter and they saw beneath them trees, rivers, green rolling
hills.
“Heaven be praised!” Joan cried out with a shout of joy. “At last we
are getting somewhere. It must be Moawha’s home. She was laughing,
chattering, and cooing to me in an unknown tongue.”
They landed gently on a high hill overlooking a large valley but the
moment she got out of the glider and looked around, Moawha lost her
enthusiasm, and grasping Joan by the arm ran hurriedly to a dense
thicket of undergrowth to hide.
“Come with us,” she called in a low tone to Epworth and Billy. “Hide
the gliders and then hunt cover.”
They followed her instructions, and when they were hidden in the
undergrowth, she caught Epworth by the arm, tiptoed to the edge of the
thicket and pointed down into a part of the valley he had not seen.
His eyes opened wide at what he saw.
Ten thousand pigmy men were marching across the field in military
formation, drilling, shouldering arms, charging an imaginary foe, and
practicing all the arts of war preparatory to engaging in a sham
battle.
“Queen Carza’s soldiers,” Moawha explained briefly. “If we are
captured we will be taken back to the cricket hive. Carza’s soldiers
have succeeded in gaining a complete mastery over the crickets. They
fight us, kill us, and give our bodies to the crickets to eat, and
they pay the crickets by giving them fruits and vegetables. For
thousands of years they have been doing this, and when they succeeded
in kidnaping me they probably demoralized my fighting men, and are now
preparing to make a bold attack on them. With the help of this great
giant that came with you I am fearfully afraid they will make my
people slaves, although there are not more than fifty thousand
pigmies, and there are two million Selinites. With the crickets to aid
them, however, they have a larger fighting force than we have.”
Without replying Epworth returned to the gliders, and pushed them
deeper beneath the foliage of the thicket and planted limbs over, and
around them.
“First,” he remarked, “we must eat, and then sleep. Nature can go very
little farther.”
They lunched from the supplies left in the gliders, and then stretched
out beneath the undergrowth. Joan thought she would never sleep again
because of the nervous strain but in this she was mistaken. She was,
in fact, the first to close her eyes.
They were awakened by a loud chirping of crickets and a whizzing sound
in the air. Moawha started to jump up excitedly but Epworth stopped
her.
“No,” he commanded in a low voice, “lie still. We may be discovered.”
Moawha burst out into tears.
“What is the matter?” Joan asked solicitously.
“The crickets are coming out of the caverns in swarms to attack my
people.”
She pointed upward. When Joan looked up she saw a black cloud sweeping
down from above and shooting far out over the land.
“They are all armed,” Epworth observed thoughtfully, “and to——”
“Get to my people we will have to pass through them, over them or
around them,” Moawha finished, and then added naively: “May I not
expect you two gallant soldiers to aid me in defending my people?”
“You can sure count on me,” Billy asserted quickly. “I am for you,
Moawha, as long as there is life in my body.”
Epworth grinned, and glanced at Joan. Joan’s eyes twinkled merrily.
“Most assuredly, Moawha, we will help you,” she replied for Epworth.
“To the bitter end but we will hope that it will be a happy end.”
“If your king will help me my people will win,” Moawha declared
emphatically. “He is a greater man than the giant.”
She put her hand timidly on Epworth’s shoulder, and looked into his
eyes inquiringly. The young man turned his head in embarrassment.
“You can count on me,” he replied soberly. “But when you put me up
against Toplinsky you are making a mistake. He is unquestionably the
greatest scientist, and the most ruthless robber and scoundrel that
ever lived.”
“And that is where Julian has him beat,” Joan put in. “God is on the
side of right, and Julian is the kind of man who fights always on the
side of right so we are bound to win.”
“G’wan, Joan, you embarrass me. Look upward, and note what we are up
against.”
Another cloud of crickets was shooting across the sky, and now they
could see Toplinsky and Queen Carza riding in state on the backs of
four of the largest insects.