He did not know—had no time to find out—for with a rush, the strange beings were all around them.
toddard levelled his pistol and called on them to halt, but they came on—scores, hundreds now, seeming to pour out of some unseen aperture of the earth.
Once or twice he fired, over their heads, but it failed to halt them. They closed in, jabbering shrilly.
But though their words were a babel, their actions were plain enough. Swarming up, they overpowered the explorers by sheer numbers, and herded them with jabs of sharp, tiny knives toward a cavern mouth that opened presently amid those eery crags.
Led underground, they found themselves proceeding along a frosty passage lit every few yards by a great chunk of diamond. Their dim glow seemed to be refracted from some central point beyond.
This point they soon reached—a great, vaulted chamber whose brilliance was at first dazzling.
Its source, after the first moment or so, was obvious. It was coming from the roof, which was one vast diamond.
"You see where we are?" whispered Stoddard. "Under the Diamond Thunderbolt! These people have tunneled beneath the meteor. Or else—"