He did not tell her that his heart was blue with dark forebodings; that he believed that they would never again see the sun or get out of the awful darkness that encompassed them.
The only hope that he could hold out to himself was that they were wearing a peculiar head gear that enabled them to see what was going on around them notwithstanding the darkness. It was little to build hope upon but he grasped it, and determined that he would go down into this strange, terrible world with as much courage as possible.
CHAPTER XXI
Crickets Swarming to War
On and on, fluttering side by side, the two gliders descended, circling hour after hour with sufficient motor power to keep them from tumbling into a crack up, but continuing steadily downward—slowly but surely. There was no possible escape. They would go on downward forever or fall through the moon.
Through the mysterious cavern lamps which Moawha had taken from the heads of the pigmies who attacked them in the cave they could see quite plainly although everything appeared very strange. For a long time Epworth watched the red planes of Joan’s glider anxiously but finally ascertaining that she was following him closely and imitating his movements he turned to Billy.
“Well, young fellow, give an account of yourself. We went to the cave to find you and you had disappeared and taken with you all of our supplies.”
“I disappeared but I did not take the supplies,” Billy replied. “Some fairy got the supplies. I expect if you raked his back you would find a cricket.”
And then he told of what had happened to him. Shortly after Epworth and Joan went to the Aerolite, while he was standing by his glider working with the bicycle pedals an army of crickets came out of the rear of the cave and surrounded him so stealthily that he did not know they were present until they had made him a prisoner. They carried him back into the cave, moved the supplies quickly, and closed up the cave with heavy boulders. Then they took him on a long journey through numerous and winding dark caves, conveying him on the back of two of the crickets bound hands and feet.
“Boy,” Billy whispered in awe, “that journey was ghostly. Two large crickets lined up on each side of me, and believe it or not their backs gave out a phosphorous glow that lighted up that cavern, and made the journey easy for my captors. I have been wondering all this time how it was that two crickets could give out a glow and the others were black as midnight.”
“Easy, lad. They had rubbed some of that phosphorous mineral on their backs. A mineral powerful enough to light up a whole crater miles in circumference could readily be utilized as a personal light.”