“It will not do, my great lord and master,” Carza whispered to him in an undertone, “to permit the killing of so many crickets. See they are piled up in heaps in front of that copper wall. I have led my people to think that you can defeat the Selinites easily, and give them the new green world with few fatalities. They are already mumbling to themselves. There have been killed——”
“Twenty thousand, I should roughly estimate,” Toplinsky interrupted abruptly. “They should have been more careful but I, the great Herman Toplinsky, will teach these people much. Draw back the army for a week, and at the end of that time I promise that there will be something doing. We will go through that wall as if it were not there.”
CHAPTER XXV
Gunpowder vs. Chlorine Gas
When the ranks of crickets dropped back, and established a great camp within shooting distance of the copper wall, Epworth was puzzled for a time to understand the object. Finally he concluded that Toplinsky was not yet ready to start his heavy guns to battering down the wall. This meant that the guns were not made.
“It will give me several days,” he told himself, “in which to prepare and take an inventory of the war material on hand.”
“That Toplinsky is hatching something,” Joan said, coming up from the city and looking over his shoulders as he was peering through the wall at the encamped crickets.
“Not at this moment,” Epworth reasoned. “He is getting ready to blow us out with gun cotton but he has not fully completed his preparations.”
“Let us drive them away from the wall before he gets a chance,” Billy suggested. “If we can make them draw back, or if we can defeat them before he is ready to shoot we will be on an equal footing.”
“The only way to drive them off is to kill them!” Epworth replied slowly, “and honestly, I do not like to do that.”
“They are not human beings,” Joan broke out snappily. “It will not be any worse than destroying an ant bed. If these Selinites are to be made happy they must be rid of this terrible menace.”