“I’ve got an idea,” Billy declared breathlessly. “Why not make a lot of gliders, sail out there over the heads of the fighters and lay them low with tear guns, spear thrusts, and arrows? True they can shoot a little but I have an idea that they are not yet sufficient marksmen to stop an army of men over their heads.”
“Fine idea. Call Moawha.”
Moawha was not far distant, and when Billy called she came running.
“I want five hundred thousand of your best workmen, and as many of your bravest soldiers,” Epworth announced seriously. “I want them quickly and I want the material that goes into one hundred thousand gliders—two hundred thousand if we can get it. Rake your country quickly.”
Moawha did not know what kind of material went into a glider but when her scientists and expert mechanics appeared Epworth explained to them what he wanted, and with the assistance of Billy and Joan, put a glider together in five hours. When the glider was finished he sailed it into the air, and explained its workings, how he pedaled it like a bicycle, and the detail of manufacture. The pigmies proved very apt, and the day had not closed before they were turning the sailing crafts out rapidly. In three days they had fifty thousand, and were learning to sail them.
While the Selinites were making gliders under the instructions and guided by Billy, Epworth made a thorough search in the neighborhood for a large salt deposit. He found it—a long stretch of waste land which he reasoned had once been a small sea. With the help of the Selinite scientists he extracted from the salt hundreds of tanks of chlorine gas. By working feverishly he transferred this gas to the fighting front while he had another body of Selinites making chloroform guns. They were small and disappointing. When he first thought of the chlorine gas his heart beat high with hope but this hope was killed by an inability to construct a gas projectile that would throw the gas beyond a point where it would not sweep back into the face of his own men.
He was not certain but he thought that Toplinsky was laboring just as rapidly as he was but he was quite sure that the scientist was working entirely along the gun powder idea, and finally he developed an idea of air attack with the chlorine that he was convinced would put him on a good fighting footing although it did not promise such effect as bombing with great airplanes or throwing gas from a swift moving Zeppelin, or out of a huge cannon.
However he realized that this had narrowed down to a race between him and Toplinsky, and the moment he felt that he had a successful weapon he concluded to open the doors of the border wall and make an attack on the cricket army.
On the evening of the sixth day he had fifty thousand gliders and as many chloroform guns ready for use. By the end of the next day he expected to add ten thousand more to his equipment. Of course he measured time by his watch, which he had managed to keep. With sixty thousand he would make the attack.
He was seated in a palatial room in the palace of Queen Moawha taking a brief rest, and talking over his plans with his three companions when the ground was shaken by a mighty roar—an explosion that reverberated throughout the underground world. Epworth knew instantly what it was but Moawha sprang up screaming with fear.