Again Stern fired.
He could see quick spurts of water jet up along the edge of the sand, and one of the creatures fell, but this was only a chance shot.
At that distance, firing from a swift-skimming plane, he knew he could do no execution, and with a curse slid the pistol back again into its place.
“Oh, for a dirigible and a few Pulverite bombs, same as we had in the tower!” he wished. “I'd clean the blighters out mighty quick!”
But now Beatrice was pointing, with a cry of dismay, down, away at the bungalow itself, which had for a moment become visible at the far end of the clearing as the Pauillac scudded past.
Even as Stern thought: “Odd, but they're not afraid of us--a flying-machine means nothing to them, does not terrify them as it would human savages. They're too debased even to feel fear!”--even as this thought crossed his brain he, too, saw the terrible thing that the girl had cried out at sight of.
“My God!” he shouted. “This--this is too much!”
All about the bungalow, their home, the scene of such happy hours, so many dreams and hopes, such heart-enthralling labors, hundreds of the Horde were swarming.
Like vicious parasites attacking prey, they overran the garden, the grounds, even the house itself.
As in a flash, Stern knew all his work of months must be undone--the fruit-trees he had rescued from the forest be cut down or broken, the bulbs and roots in the garden uptorn, even the hedges and fences trampled flat.