Now the torch fired the fuse, and the blaze spluttered along toward the great magazine like a swiftly crawling snake. Toplinsky saw it, and dashed recklessly at the fuse to stamp it out. He did not pause to lower the queen, who was sitting on his shoulders.
He ran like the wind. Swiftly spluttered the fuse. Great beads of sweat slipped out of the giant’s face. It was a race with death.
Faster and faster raced the fuse. Toplinsky, in his hurry, forgot the gravity of the moon. He lifted his foot as if running in an Olympic meet. The act caused him to topple over although it carried him nearer the goal. Staggering to his feet, with the queen still clinging to his shoulders, he made another attempt.
Now the spluttering fire was almost to the magazine. Epworth shuddered and jerked Joan back. If Toplinsky failed——
The giant was almost on the fuse; he lifted his foot upward to stamp out the fire. Again in his excitement he overlooked the moon’s light gravity. His foot came down on the opposite side of the spluttering fire.
There came a terrific explosion. It sounded like an inside volcano blowing off the top of the moon.
Epworth and Joan were lucky. They were standing in a corridor Toplinsky had set apart as a safety valve for the men who fired the fuse if commanded. Crouching down they saw the interior of the tremendous cavern shoot upward. Then rocks and debris began to fall with loud crashes.
The sides and roof of the cavern had caved in, and the debris was showering down like falling snow.
The vast horde of crickets that had been rushing around arming themselves and pushing guns forward to drive out the Selinites disappeared as if by magic.
Toplinsky, their scientific leader, had brought annihilation to himself and his whole colony of crickets by his shrewd attempts to slay others.