Epworth grinned, and glanced at Joan. Joan’s eyes twinkled merrily.
“Most assuredly, Moawha, we will help you,” she replied for Epworth. “To the bitter end but we will hope that it will be a happy end.”
“If your king will help me my people will win,” Moawha declared emphatically. “He is a greater man than the giant.”
She put her hand timidly on Epworth’s shoulder, and looked into his eyes inquiringly. The young man turned his head in embarrassment.
“You can count on me,” he replied soberly. “But when you put me up against Toplinsky you are making a mistake. He is unquestionably the greatest scientist, and the most ruthless robber and scoundrel that ever lived.”
“And that is where Julian has him beat,” Joan put in. “God is on the side of right, and Julian is the kind of man who fights always on the side of right so we are bound to win.”
“G’wan, Joan, you embarrass me. Look upward, and note what we are up against.”
Another cloud of crickets was shooting across the sky, and now they could see Toplinsky and Queen Carza riding in state on the backs of four of the largest insects.
CHAPTER XXII
The Wheezing Ramph
They traveled as fast as they could, and when tired they hid in some cave or secret nook. From Moawha the three Americans learned that the country she called Taunan was not very large, the population consisting of about one hundred and fifty thousand men, women and children. Her country, the Land of the Selinites, was much larger, and had a population of three million. It extended from a space on the south, which was open, and had never been explored, to another open space on the northeast. It had perpetual light but Moawha did not know where the light came from, and had never heard of the sun. Both open spaces on the south and northeast she said, were guarded by cricket armies under the direction of the Taunans.