CHAPTER XXV
Gunpowder vs. Chlorine Gas
When the ranks of crickets dropped back, and established a great campwithin shooting distance of the copper wall, Epworth was puzzled for atime to understand the object. Finally he concluded that Toplinsky wasnot yet ready to start his heavy guns to battering down the wall. Thismeant that the guns were not made.
“It will give me several days,” he told himself, “in which to prepareand take an inventory of the war material on hand.”
“That Toplinsky is hatching something,” Joan said, coming up from thecity and looking over his shoulders as he was peering through the wallat the encamped crickets.
“Not at this moment,” Epworth reasoned. “He is getting ready to blowus out with gun cotton but he has not fully completed hispreparations.”
“Let us drive them away from the wall before he gets a chance,” Billysuggested. “If we can make them draw back, or if we can defeat thembefore he is ready to shoot we will be on an equal footing.”
“The only way to drive them off is to kill them!” Epworth repliedslowly, “and honestly, I do not like to do that.”
“They are not human beings,” Joan broke out snappily. “It will not beany worse than destroying an ant bed. If these Selinites are to bemade happy they must be rid of this terrible menace.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Billy declared breathlessly. “Why not make a lotof gliders, sail out there over the heads of the fighters and lay themlow with tear guns, spear thrusts, and arrows? True they can shoot alittle but I have an idea that they are not yet sufficient marksmen tostop 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 ofyour bravest soldiers,” Epworth announced seriously. “I want themquickly and I want the material that goes into one hundred thousandgliders—two hundred thousand if we can get it. Rake your countryquickly.”
Moawha did not know what kind of material went into a glider but whenher scientists and expert mechanics appeared Epworth explained to themwhat he wanted, and with the assistance of Billy and Joan, put aglider together in five hours. When the glider was finished he sailedit into the air, and explained its workings, how he pedaled it like abicycle, and the detail of manufacture. The pigmies proved very apt,and the day had not closed before they were turning the sailing craftsout rapidly. In three days they had fifty thousand, and were learningto sail them.
While the Selinites were making gliders under the instructions andguided by Billy, Epworth made a thorough search in the neighborhoodfor a large salt deposit. He found it—a long stretch of waste landwhich he reasoned had once been a small sea. With the help of theSelinite scientists he extracted from the salt hundreds of tanks ofchlorine gas. By working feverishly he transferred this gas to thefighting front while he had another body of Selinites makingchloroform guns. They were small and disappointing. When he firstthought of the chlorine gas his heart beat high with hope but thishope was killed by an inability to construct a gas projectile thatwould throw the gas beyond a point where it would not sweep back intothe face of his own men.
He was not certain but he thought that Toplinsky was laboring just asrapidly as he was but he was quite sure that the scientist was workingentirely along the gun powder idea, and finally he developed an ideaof air attack with the chlorine that he was convinced would put him ona good fighting footing although it did not promise such effect asbombing with great airplanes or throwing gas from a swift movingZeppelin, or out of a huge cannon.
However he realized that this had narrowed down to a race between himand Toplinsky, and the moment he felt that he had a successful weaponhe concluded to open the doors of the border wall and make an attackon the cricket army.
On the evening of the sixth day he had fifty thousand gliders and asmany chloroform guns ready for use. By the end of the next day heexpected to add ten thousand more to his equipment. Of course hemeasured time by his watch, which he had managed to keep. With sixtythousand he would make the attack.
He was seated in a palatial room in the palace of Queen Moawha takinga brief rest, and talking over his plans with his three companionswhen the ground was shaken by a mighty roar—an explosion thatreverberated throughout the underground world. Epworth knew instantlywhat it was but Moawha sprang up screaming with fear.
“Take it easy,” Billy soothed, putting his hand gently on her arm. “Weare still here.”
“W-w-what was it?” she cried hysterically. “Is the whole world blowingup?”
“It is Toplinsky’s first big gun.”
“Run out to the gliders, and get the men in flying shape,” Epworthcommanded quietly. “I will get the gunners and have the gas ready.Fortunately we have fifty thousand of the gliders armed, and theaviators have some idea of what we intend to do. We must not waste asecond. 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 tomake for the borderland, and see if I can keep them from coming in onthe women and children.”
He rushed out of the building, ran hurriedly to the house where thegun aviators were waiting in case of a call, and sent them hurriedlyto join Billy and Moawha. Then he got one of the largest gliders,strapped the planes to his shoulders, and lifted into the air. As hewhirled upward in a great circle another glider left the earth andcame rapidly toward him.
Who was following him without orders? He frowned. He had set a taskfor himself. If he was killed Billy and Moawha could go on with theirfight and possibly win the war. This party who was following him wasgetting in the way.
“Why are you trailing me?” he broke out angrily, slowing up a littlein his pedaling. “I gave explicit orders to——”
“I happen to be an individual who does not take orders.” He lookedaround and found his sister, Joan, grinning at him. “I know that youare flying off at a tangent for some purpose, and I want to help.”
“Women are always getting in the way,” he ejaculated, somewhatannoyed. “I am going on a dangerous task, and you increase thedanger.”
“I am no weakling,” she answered sharply. “I am thrown into a strangeworld without any friends except my brother. If he is killed I am leftalone. I do not want to be alone. I am sticking right by your sideuntil we find a resting spot where we can live without a constantthreat of death.”
They arrived at the summit of the pass. Before them, huddled togetherlike 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 womenand 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 brokenEnglish. “He is hiding behind an immense block of rock and with eachbreath he blows away our wall.”
“If you are men face the danger. If you are cowards run away. If youconclude to stay, pause behind this mountain side and if the cricketscome 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 Epworthpointed out, and waited to see if their enemies came in. Here theywere protected from the big guns, and Epworth and Joan topped thesummit and sailed toward the copper wall. The defenders had departedas one man but the crickets had made no attempt to enter. They werewaiting orders which were to come later.
Epworth had been bothered during his flight up to the wall aboutgetting out. He had been rushed to an extent that he had had littletime for the details of battle, and now he found that there were noSelinites to open and close the wall gates for the gliders, which heexpected to shove out and start into the air on the other side.
However there w
as no necessity to open the gates. Toplinsky’s big gun,fired only twice, had ripped the wall in a dozen places, and just asthey came up another discharge rent the air. The gun scattered and theheavy slugs of rock, which Toplinsky was using instead of lead,whistled by on all sides. While another strip of wall fell theexplosion only served to direct Epworth’s gaze to its hidden restingspot.
“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 slipsoftly out of the border gap, and sail slowly toward the smoking gunnest. They were ramming another load into the breech when suddenlyfrom above them came a stream of greenish gas. When they looked up astrange bird-like animal was hanging over their heads, and sprinklingtheir faces with some mysterious fluid that smelt——
This was as far as they got in their cogitations. Under the powerfulstroke of chlorine gas they fell on the ground unconscious, andEpworth dropped silently by the side of the monstrous cannon. Aroundhim were scattered numerous cartridges stuffed with stones and guncotton, and separating himself from his glider, with desperate hastehe began to tear the roughly made cartridges to bits. Presently he hada large pile of gun cotton beneath the breech of the gun and stretchedalong 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 guncotton.
It was a reckless act, and he knew it. The second the match left hishand he whirled his bicycle motor rapidly and pedaled with all of hisstrength.
He was lucky. The gun cotton did not blow up until he was out of thedanger zone, and the explosion destroyed the usefulness of the cannon.With a grim smile Epworth sailed back to the borderland. He was justin time to meet an army of planes headed by Moawha and Billy.
His orders were for the pigmies to fight in pairs. One soldier, armedwith a chlorine gun, was to fly over a cricket, discharge his gun intohis face, and another Selinite was instructed to lean out of hisglider as he passed over and spear the crickets as they staggered. Thegliders, it is well to state, were made large enough to carry two ofthe small Selinites, and the soldiers were equipped with gas masks.
Epworth had hoped to assault the crickets at a time when they were notexpecting a battle but in this he was unsuccessful. Toplinsky hadalready begun the battle. However, in compliance with his orders whenthe gun was put out of commission a horde of Selinite soldiers rushedup to aid in the defense of the wall.
The fight began with a clear sky but the explosion of the heavy gunseemed to shake the air and send clouds of blackened powder upward,and long before the gliders were in good action a dark cloud spreadacross the sky. This aided the men in the air, and they sailed overthe cricket army with very few fatalities. Their execution wasterrible.
When the gliders reached the end of the cricket army they sent uprockets, and then darted hither and yon over the rear ranks shootingchloroform in great quantities on all sides. Thousands of cricketsbegan to rush pell mell to and fro. While they were ready to obeytheir masters and fight anything on the ground this mysterious smellthat came out of the air above them from winged birds that did notflap their wings was something they could not understand, and theythrew down their arms and began to seek safety.
When this movement was completed and Epworth discovered that they hadthe crickets frightened he sent up more orders in the way of rocketswhich brought the Selinites in vast numbers charging down the side ofthe 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 werechirping wildly, demoralized, frightened; rushing over each other andcrushing their pigmy officers. Toplinsky waved his arms and howled,cursed loudly, and hammered crickets with his great fists to forcethem back into battle; promised them victory, wheeled, fought andanathematized. But it was all in vain. A swarm of hopping insects shotby him on their way to the dark caves of Agrippa.
Presently the giant paused in manhandling his men, and sniffed theair. At the moment a Selinite glided by and shot a stream of wet stuffinto his face. He closed his nostrils, and struck a mighty blow at theSelinite who was trying to gas him from the glider. Instantly he wassurrounded by men, and recognizing the fact that he had beenchloroformed he suppressed his breath and charged into the Seliniteswho 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! Heis smart. How I hate him. Come out of the air, you coward, and fightlike 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 hisglider. Toplinsky charged with a bellow like a stuck bull. Epworthside stepped and slammed a terrific right into the giant’s face, andthen a left into his side.
“Same old tactics,” sneered the scientist, “but you can’t get me thatway.”
He jerked his gun. But he was destined never to fire. Moawha, with ahost of her fighting men swept between them, and brandished theirspears in the giant’s face.
“Hold!” Epworth shouted loudly. “Do not kill him. Take him alive. Heis 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 intothe night.
The rout of the crickets was complete. When the morning came and theclouds rolled away the field was a shambles and crickets lay gassed inpiles. And Moawha and her soldiers were chasing the crickets in everydirection. Across the arid wastes of Carza’s kingdom, on to hercapital, a handsome city of twenty thousand inhabitants, and up to themouth of the great crater that shot upward out of the inner world ofthe moon toward the unknown skies, Moawha’s soldiers followed thecrickets.
But now the crickets were in the air, and when they came to theAgrippa Crater the little people were stopped. True they had been ableto capture the entire land of the Taunans, and make prisoners of theleading military commanders but Carza and Toplinsky, convoyed by aband of winged crickets, had deserted the field of action and wereflying rapidly toward the crater. Epworth, Joan and Moawha chased themto the opening, and stopped. Their gliders, while strong enough tosupport them in the inner atmosphere, were not able to fly up throughthat dark forbidding hole.
Toplinsky, although defeated for the moment, discovered this, andstopped his band of crickets at the entrance.
“Ah, ha, ho! ho!” he shouted in his shrill loud voice that carried farinto the inner world. “For the moment the American bantam triumphs.But the war has only begun. Soon I shall come again. The next time myvaliant crickets and brave Taunans shall be armed with gases and gunsthat will slay millions. Until that time——”
Epworth and Moawha saw him wave his hands as if in high spirits. Hisaction cast a damper over Moawha’s spirits, and Joan also wastroubled.
“W-w-what would you advise?” Moawha asked of Epworth with muchanxiety. “Never before have my soldiers been this far, and it seems tome if the crickets pour out of that hole over our heads, armed as thatgiant 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 thatyou have a million fighting men?”
“About that number.”
“Then we’ve got to go up into that hole, and clean out that nestbefore Toplinsky has time to arm them. Give him three weeks and hewill certainly destroy your c
ountry.”