When the ranks of crickets dropped back, and established a great camp within shooting distance of the copper wall, Epworth was puzzled for a time to understand the object. Finally he concluded that Toplinsky was not yet ready to start his heavy guns to battering down the wall. This meant that the guns were not made.

“It will give me several days,” he told himself, “in which to prepare and take an inventory of the war material on hand.”

“That Toplinsky is hatching something,” Joan said, coming up from the city and looking over his shoulders as he was peering through the wall at the encamped crickets.

“Not at this moment,” Epworth reasoned. “He is getting ready to blow us out with gun cotton but he has not fully completed his preparations.”

“Let us drive them away from the wall before he gets a chance,” Billy suggested. “If we can make them draw back, or if we can defeat them before he is ready to shoot we will be on an equal footing.”

“The only way to drive them off is to kill them!” Epworth replied slowly, “and honestly, I do not like to do that.”

“They are not human beings,” Joan broke out snappily. “It will not be any worse than destroying an ant bed. If these Selinites are to be made happy they must be rid of this terrible menace.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Billy declared breathlessly. “Why not make a lot of gliders, sail out there over the heads of the fighters and lay them low with tear guns, spear thrusts, and arrows? True they can shoot a little but I have an idea that they are not yet sufficient marksmen to stop an army of men over their heads.”

“Fine idea. Call Moawha.”

Moawha was not far distant, and when Billy called she came running.

“I want five hundred thousand of your best workmen, and as many of your bravest soldiers,” Epworth announced seriously. “I want them quickly and I want the material that goes into one hundred thousand gliders—two hundred thousand if we can get it. Rake your country quickly.”

Moawha did not know what kind of material went into a glider but when her scientists and expert mechanics appeared Epworth explained to them what he wanted, and with the assistance of Billy and Joan, put a glider together in five hours. When the glider was finished he sailed it into the air, and explained its workings, how he pedaled it like a bicycle, and the detail of manufacture. The pigmies proved very apt, and the day had not closed before they were turning the sailing crafts out rapidly. In three days they had fifty thousand, and were learning to sail them.

While the Selinites were making gliders under the instructions and guided by Billy, Epworth made a thorough search in the neighborhood for a large salt deposit. He found it—a long stretch of waste land which he reasoned had once been a small sea. With the help of the Selinite scientists he extracted from the salt hundreds of tanks of chlorine gas. By working feverishly he transferred this gas to the fighting front while he had another body of Selinites making chloroform guns. They were small and disappointing. When he first thought of the chlorine gas his heart beat high with hope but this hope was killed by an inability to construct a gas projectile that would throw the gas beyond a point where it would not sweep back into the face of his own men.

He was not certain but he thought that Toplinsky was laboring just as rapidly as he was but he was quite sure that the scientist was working entirely along the gun powder idea, and finally he developed an idea of air attack with the chlorine that he was convinced would put him on a good fighting footing although it did not promise such effect as bombing with great airplanes or throwing gas from a swift moving Zeppelin, or out of a huge cannon.

However he realized that this had narrowed down to a race between him and Toplinsky, and the moment he felt that he had a successful weapon he concluded to open the doors of the border wall and make an attack on the cricket army.

On the evening of the sixth day he had fifty thousand gliders and as many chloroform guns ready for use. By the end of the next day he expected to add ten thousand more to his equipment. Of course he measured time by his watch, which he had managed to keep. With sixty thousand he would make the attack.

He was seated in a palatial room in the palace of Queen Moawha taking a brief rest, and talking over his plans with his three companions when the ground was shaken by a mighty roar—an explosion that reverberated throughout the underground world. Epworth knew instantly what it was but Moawha sprang up screaming with fear.

“Take it easy,” Billy soothed, putting his hand gently on her arm. “We are still here.”

“W-w-what was it?” she cried hysterically. “Is the whole world blowing up?”

“It is Toplinsky’s first big gun.”

“Run out to the gliders, and get the men in flying shape,” Epworth commanded quietly. “I will get the gunners and have the gas ready. Fortunately we have fifty thousand of the gliders armed, and the aviators have some idea of what we intend to do. We must not waste a second. Toplinsky will batter down that wire wall in ten minutes.”

“B-b-but,” Moawha hesitated.

“You have the only orders that will save your country. I am going to make for the borderland, and see if I can keep them from coming in on the women and children.”

He rushed out of the building, ran hurriedly to the house where the gun aviators were waiting in case of a call, and sent them hurriedly to join Billy and Moawha. Then he got one of the largest gliders, strapped the planes to his shoulders, and lifted into the air. As he whirled upward in a great circle another glider left the earth and came rapidly toward him.

Who was following him without orders? He frowned. He had set a task for himself. If he was killed Billy and Moawha could go on with their fight and possibly win the war. This party who was following him was getting in the way.

“Why are you trailing me?” he broke out angrily, slowing up a little in his pedaling. “I gave explicit orders to——”

“I happen to be an individual who does not take orders.” He looked around and found his sister, Joan, grinning at him. “I know that you are flying off at a tangent for some purpose, and I want to help.”

“Women are always getting in the way,” he ejaculated, somewhat annoyed. “I am going on a dangerous task, and you increase the danger.”

“I am no weakling,” she answered sharply. “I am thrown into a strange world without any friends except my brother. If he is killed I am left alone. I do not want to be alone. I am sticking right by your side until we find a resting spot where we can live without a constant threat of death.”

They arrived at the summit of the pass. Before them, huddled together like sheep, were many Selinite soldiers speeding toward their homes, and throwing away their arms as they hurried along.

“Hold! Stop!” Epworth shouted from the air. “Do you want your women and children to fall into the hands of these flesh-eating crickets? Turn back, and be men. Help me hold the wall.”

“A demon is belching at us,” one of the men cried out in broken English. “He is hiding behind an immense block of rock and with each breath he blows away our wall.”

“If you are men face the danger. If you are cowards run away. If you conclude to stay, pause behind this mountain side and if the crickets come in stay them if you can until re-enforcements arrive.”

The Selinites stopped, turned around and gathered up their weapons. Slowly but determinedly they backed against the mountain Epworth pointed out, and waited to see if their enemies came in. Here they were protected from the big guns, and Epworth and Joan topped the summit and sailed toward the copper wall. The defenders had departed as one man but the crickets had made no attempt to enter. They were waiting orders which were to come later.

Epworth had been bothered during his flight up to the wall about getting out. He had been rushed to an extent that he had had little time for the details of battle, and now he found that there were no Selinites to open and close the wall gates for the gliders, which he expected to shove out and start into the air on the other side.

However there was no necessity to open the gates. Toplinsky’s big gun, fired only twice, had ripped the wall in a dozen places, and just as they came up another discharge rent the air. The gun scattered and the heavy slugs of rock, which Toplinsky was using instead of lead, whistled by on all sides. While another strip of wall fell the explosion only served to direct Epworth’s gaze to its hidden resting spot.

“I am going to silence that gun,” he called to Joan in a low voice. “Go back.”

“Not me,” Joan replied bravely. “I am going to aid you.”

“It is probably manned by Taunans.”

“Unlucky for them. I have my chloroform gun.”

The Taunans and crickets did not see the camouflaged gliders slip softly out of the border gap, and sail slowly toward the smoking gun nest. They were ramming another load into the breech when suddenly from above them came a stream of greenish gas. When they looked up a strange bird-like animal was hanging over their heads, and sprinkling their faces with some mysterious fluid that smelt——

This was as far as they got in their cogitations. Under the powerful stroke of chlorine gas they fell on the ground unconscious, and Epworth dropped silently by the side of the monstrous cannon. Around him were scattered numerous cartridges stuffed with stones and gun cotton, and separating himself from his glider, with desperate haste he began to tear the roughly made cartridges to bits. Presently he had a large pile of gun cotton beneath the breech of the gun and stretched along the barrel. Then he strapped on his glider and took to the air, circled slowly around the gun and dropped a lighted match in the gun cotton.

It was a reckless act, and he knew it. The second the match left his hand he whirled his bicycle motor rapidly and pedaled with all of his strength.

He was lucky. The gun cotton did not blow up until he was out of the danger zone, and the explosion destroyed the usefulness of the cannon. With a grim smile Epworth sailed back to the borderland. He was just in time to meet an army of planes headed by Moawha and Billy.

His orders were for the pigmies to fight in pairs. One soldier, armed with a chlorine gun, was to fly over a cricket, discharge his gun into his face, and another Selinite was instructed to lean out of his glider as he passed over and spear the crickets as they staggered. The gliders, it is well to state, were made large enough to carry two of the small Selinites, and the soldiers were equipped with gas masks.

Epworth had hoped to assault the crickets at a time when they were not expecting a battle but in this he was unsuccessful. Toplinsky had already begun the battle. However, in compliance with his orders when the gun was put out of commission a horde of Selinite soldiers rushed up to aid in the defense of the wall.

The fight began with a clear sky but the explosion of the heavy gun seemed to shake the air and send clouds of blackened powder upward, and long before the gliders were in good action a dark cloud spread across the sky. This aided the men in the air, and they sailed over the cricket army with very few fatalities. Their execution was terrible.

When the gliders reached the end of the cricket army they sent up rockets, and then darted hither and yon over the rear ranks shooting chloroform in great quantities on all sides. Thousands of crickets began to rush pell mell to and fro. While they were ready to obey their masters and fight anything on the ground this mysterious smell that came out of the air above them from winged birds that did not flap their wings was something they could not understand, and they threw down their arms and began to seek safety.

When this movement was completed and Epworth discovered that they had the crickets frightened he sent up more orders in the way of rockets which brought the Selinites in vast numbers charging down the side of the mountain with chloroform guns and spears in their hands.

And it was then that Toplinsky awoke to a bedlam of defeat around him. Everywhere his army was seeking safety; everywhere crickets were chirping wildly, demoralized, frightened; rushing over each other and crushing their pigmy officers. Toplinsky waved his arms and howled, cursed loudly, and hammered crickets with his great fists to force them back into battle; promised them victory, wheeled, fought and anathematized. But it was all in vain. A swarm of hopping insects shot by him on their way to the dark caves of Agrippa.

Presently the giant paused in manhandling his men, and sniffed the air. At the moment a Selinite glided by and shot a stream of wet stuff into his face. He closed his nostrils, and struck a mighty blow at the Selinite who was trying to gas him from the glider. Instantly he was surrounded by men, and recognizing the fact that he had been chloroformed he suppressed his breath and charged into the Selinites who were upon him.

Toplinsky was in truth a mighty fighter—a giant of matchless courage, and single handed he stemmed the tide of opposition.

“Ah, ha, ho, ho,” he howled like a madman. “That cursed American! He is smart. How I hate him. Come out of the air, you coward, and fight like a man.”

Epworth, who was sailing near by, heard him.

“I am here, Toplinsky, and this is final.”

He dropped out of the air by the side of the giant, releasing his glider. Toplinsky charged with a bellow like a stuck bull. Epworth side stepped and slammed a terrific right into the giant’s face, and then a left into his side.

“Same old tactics,” sneered the scientist, “but you can’t get me that way.”

He jerked his gun. But he was destined never to fire. Moawha, with a host of her fighting men swept between them, and brandished their spears in the giant’s face.

“Hold!” Epworth shouted loudly. “Do not kill him. Take him alive. He is the only man who can pilot a ship back to the earth.”

“Ha, ha, ho, ho, the bantam wishes to return. He shall not.”

With a laugh like a demon the giant swept the small figures aside, whirled, and lifting Queen Carza upon his shoulders, leaped away into the night.

The rout of the crickets was complete. When the morning came and the clouds rolled away the field was a shambles and crickets lay gassed in piles. And Moawha and her soldiers were chasing the crickets in every direction. Across the arid wastes of Carza’s kingdom, on to her capital, a handsome city of twenty thousand inhabitants, and up to the mouth of the great crater that shot upward out of the inner world of the moon toward the unknown skies, Moawha’s soldiers followed the crickets.

But now the crickets were in the air, and when they came to the Agrippa Crater the little people were stopped. True they had been able to capture the entire land of the Taunans, and make prisoners of the leading military commanders but Carza and Toplinsky, convoyed by a band of winged crickets, had deserted the field of action and were flying rapidly toward the crater. Epworth, Joan and Moawha chased them to the opening, and stopped. Their gliders, while strong enough to support them in the inner atmosphere, were not able to fly up through that dark forbidding hole.

Toplinsky, although defeated for the moment, discovered this, and stopped his band of crickets at the entrance.

“Ah, ha, ho! ho!” he shouted in his shrill loud voice that carried far into the inner world. “For the moment the American bantam triumphs. But the war has only begun. Soon I shall come again. The next time my valiant crickets and brave Taunans shall be armed with gases and guns that will slay millions. Until that time——”

Epworth and Moawha saw him wave his hands as if in high spirits. His action cast a damper over Moawha’s spirits, and Joan also was troubled.

“W-w-what would you advise?” Moawha asked of Epworth with much anxiety. “Never before have my soldiers been this far, and it seems to me if the crickets pour out of that hole over our heads, armed as that giant asserts they will be, they can creep upon us when we are asleep, and totally annihilate my forces.”

“It is a serious problem,” Epworth replied thoughtfully. “You say that you have a million fighting men?”

“About that number.”

“Then we’ve got to go up into that hole, and clean out that nest before Toplinsky has time to arm them. Give him three weeks and he will certainly destroy your country.”