They went on and on and on, talking endlessly, and driving the entity
which had conquered a planet by painstakingly recalled sections of
Mother Goose, and by haphazard recollections of ancient history, the
mythology of ancient Greece and Rome, and the care and feeding of
domestic cats.
When dawn came, Borden was speaking rather hoarsely into the
microphone, and the creature was plainly in sight before them. It
writhed and struggled spasmodically. It flung masses of itself insanely
about. It knitted itself into intricate spires and pinnacles, with
far-flung bridges, which shuddered and dissolved.
* * * * *
The sun rose, and the thing should have been able to destroy them.
But it could not. It still writhed. It still shuddered. It twisted in
monstrous, weary, lunatic gyrations. Ellen regarded it with eyes of
loathing.
"It acts like it's gone mad," she said in revulsion.
"It may have," said Borden. "It's certainly exhausted. But we're
getting pretty tired, too." He said into the microphone, "You probably
don't understand this that I'm saying, any more then you understand any
of the rest. But you had this coming to you."
He handed the microphone to Jerry, who had suddenly remembered an
oration, _Spartacus to the Gladiators_. Jerry began to recite it.
But the writhings of the mountainous mass of jelly became more terribly
weary, more quiveringly effortful. There came a time when it quivered
only very, very faintly. Those quiverings ceased.
"I think it's dead, sir," said Jerry.
Borden snapped off the walkie-talkie. He snapped it on again. The
horrible, half-cubic-mile of jelly did not flinch.