The Raid on the Termites

ap

nswer to something that had troubled him a great deal before their entr

He had been afraid he would be forced to stumble blindly in unlit depths, able to see nothing at all, on a

ly phosphorescent. And that simple natural fact was probably going to mean all the difference between life and death: it gave the two men at least

d, didn't seem enough to account for the immunity granted the two men as they began

em, were hordes of the worker termites, and dozens of the frightful soldiers. Yet on the two men mov

and noted as different from theirs," whispered Dennis. "Yet they pay no at

wanted to make our inward path easy. I wonder-if it's

id look almost as though they were encouraging their two unheard-of visitors from another world to go on deeper and deepe

ted, and that he had a chance at first hand to make observation

comparatively feeble body of the worker was wriggling right in the center of the great claws which, with a twitch, could have

mously that they can't feed themselves. The workers, who digest food for the whole tribe, feed them re

al stomach to three or four other people! More

indeed. Rather, they half fell into it, for it lay down a few feet and came as a complete surprise in the dimness; and not till they had recovered from their near fall an

t made the largest of man-made domes

overhead, lost in distance, reared the arched roof. A twenty-stor

gave further cause for wonderment: new-hatched larvae about the size of pumpkins but a sickly white in color-feeble,

tting close to the real, old-fashioned hell instead of an artificial, insect-made

ees warmer in here than it is outdoors. How-how-can these insects regulate the temperatu

ore prophetically than he knew. "Hello-we can't get out throug

, like a questing, gigantic vise, were opening and closing regularly and rapidly across the opening of the portal.

through that exit!" Dennis agr

on either side of them-a soldier appeared at that door, too. Like the first, it stationed itself there, and began the s

-cracker before it smashed shut on us," said Jim dubiously

hird soldier appeared to block the way o

hile he hesitated whether to try an attack on the fearful guard o

wn in the earth, Something is able to see us through solid walls, read in our minds our intentions

t that they're now bigger than we are, and much better armed, doesn't keep

ast exit from the giant chamber. And here there was no guard. They were ab

in a certain direction, and for a certain reaso

moment later, when he glanced

rom side to side, moved a body of the soldiers. As the men mov

oldiers stopped, too. Dennis walked back t

give ground, either; and as Denny got to within a few yards of them

from Denny's torso-a clear warning to g

bunched into knots, standing on the balls of his fee

-but I'm beginning to get awfully doubtful about the fate these things have in store for us. I ca

ed, looking at the nightmare jaws of their guard. Two s

s difficult for them to keep their footing. Then, yards below the level of the horrible nursery, the tunnel narrowed-and wid

n. "Here, I guess, we're going to wait for the po

d these guards might be; but no living thing, even though it bristled with eyes, could creep out unscathed through the animated threshing machine those jaws made of that doorway. The two men were more securely held in their prison