At the end of a day’s hard fighting the work was done. Not a single ramph was left to start another race of monsters, and Epworth, opening the tunnel on the opposite side, led his soldiers out of the terrifying place, and sealed it up again in order that the fumes should be confined to the area occupied by the lizards.
Then, after a long rest, he turned his face toward that nightmare of horror—the home of the crickets. Here he expected to meet Toplinsky armed with gun cotton, huge guns, and powerful explosives, an intelligent man leading a multiple host of soulless insects—insects that ate flesh of all kinds of men and animals.
CHAPTER XXVII
Carza’s Use of Lava Streams
While he was backed by an army of Selinites, Epworth felt as he came to a halt in front of a crude stone wall as if the lives of thousands of little children were in his hands. Under his leadership these little men could be brave and victorious. Without him he imagined that they would melt like snow before the onrush of the crickets, and the vicious Taunan dwarfs. To protect them he concluded to go ahead and reconnoiter.
He recognized the corridor. It was the place where he and Joan had had their first encounter with a ramph. He shivered again as he thought of the uncanny feeling that had swept over him at the time.
They discovered that the wall which blocked their way was of recent construction, and that it cut them off from the Lava Chamber. When they attempted to remove the heavy stones they proved burdensome although no attempt had been made to cement the stones into position.
Finally Epworth and Joan removed their gas masks and cavern lamps, and thrust their heads through the new-made hole in the wall. As they expected they found that the little stream of spluttering, moving fire sent out a dim light that created ghostly shadows, and dark spots, deepened by the fact that their eyes were not accustomed to any light except that given by the photographing of dark images on the ofen glass and rhodamine dye by the cavern lamps.
The chamber appeared empty, and Epworth stepped through the wall into the chamber.
“Come on,” he said to Joan, “everything seems all right.”
Joan obeyed quickly, and the two turned to step across the chamber toward the lava stream. As they moved away Billy and Moawha, who had been aiding them in removing the loose stones, ran back to join the Selinite army. This left the man and girl alone to spy out the situation.