For out of the cloud dropped what seemed to be a phalanx of beetle guards, the military police of beetledom, and, lashing fiercely with their tentacles, they drove back all the swarm that sought to join their companions in their ghoulish feast. There was just so much food and no more; the rest must seek theirs further.
BUT even beetles, it may be presumed, are not entirely under discipline at all times. The pair of beetles that bore Tommy, suddenly swooped apart, ten or a dozen feet from the ground, and dashed into the thick of the struggling, frenzied mass, flinging their rider to earth.
Tommy struck the soft sand, sat up, half dazed, saw his shell lying a few feet away from him, and retrieved it just as a couple of the monsters came swooping down at him.
He looked about him. Not far away stood Dodd and Haidia, with their shells on their backs. They recognized Tommy and ran toward him.
Not more than twenty yards away stood the railroad station, with several crates of goods on the platform. Next to it was a substantial house of stone, with the front door open.
Tommy pointed to it, and Dodd understood and shouted something that was lost in the furious buzz of the beetles' wings as they devoured their prey. The three raced for the entrance, gained it unmolested, and closed the door.
There was a key in the door, and it was light enough for them to see a chain, which Dodd pulled into position. There was only one story, and there were three rooms, apparently, with the kitchen. Tommy rushed to the kitchen door, locked it, too, and, with almost superhuman efforts, dragged the large iron stove against it. He rushed to the window, but it was a mere loophole, not large chough to admit a child. Nevertheless, he stood the heavy table on end so that it covered it. Then he ran back.
DODD had already barricaded the window of the larger room, which was a bed-sitting room, with a heavy wardrobe, and the wooden bedstead, jamming the two pieces sidewise against the wall, so that they could not be forced apart without being demolished. He was now busy in the smaller room, which seemed to be the station-master's office, dragging an iron safe across the floor. But the window was criss-crossed with iron bars, and it was evident that the safe, which was locked, contained at times considerable money, for the window could hardly have been forced save by a charge of nitro-glycerine or dynamite. However, it was against the door that Dodd placed the safe, and he stood back, panting.
"Good," said Haidia. "That will hold them."
The two men looked at her doubtfully. Did Haidia know what she was talking about?
The sun had risen. A long shaft shot into the room. Outside the beetles were still buzzing as they turned over the vestiges of their prey. There were as yet no signs of attack. Suddenly Tommy grasped Dodd's arm.
"Look!" he shouted, pointing to a corner which had been in gloom a moment before.
There was a table there, and on it a telegraphic instrument. Telegraphy had been one of Tommy's hobbies a boyhood. In a moment he was busy at the table.
Dot—dash—dot—dash! Then suddenly outside a furious hum, and the impact of beetle bodies against the front door.
TOMMY got up, grinning. That was the first, interrupted message from Tommy that was received.
Through the barred window the three could see the furious efforts of the beetles to force an entrance. But the very tensile, strength of the beetle-shells, which rendered them impervious to bullets, required a laminate construc-
