CHAPTER XXIV
Behind a Copper Wall
The sun was sending its rays obliquely into the hole of Taunan whenthe four disguised crickets, still guided by the pigmy soldier, passedthrough a sleeping camp of crickets composing an army that wasbesieging the mountain pass into the Land of the Selinites.Notwithstanding the fact that the crickets had out guards welltrained, their disguises enabled them to reach the beginning of a deepravine that led up to a stretch of copper wire spread across themountain to keep the crickets from getting into the Land of Selinites.This wire was an inch thick and meshed in six inches. It extended upinto the sky as far as the eye could reach, and behind it they couldsee dimly a vast army of small men armed with copper axes, bows andarrows, spears and sharp lances. They were also enclosed in copperarmor.
In the past, Moawha informed them, this armor had proved a greatprotection in battle but she was now afraid of the new methods ofwarfare that Toplinsky would introduce.
“And well may you be afraid,” Joan said. “But fortunately there hasnot yet been a serious attack on the wall, and if you leave things toJulian I am sure he will save your people.”
“G’wan,” Billy snorted indignantly. “I haven’t gone anywhere, and I’msomething of a fighter myself.”
Again they discovered that they were talking too loud. Their guide,when he pointed to the wall, disappeared, and now, when they heard achirping sound behind them, they turned apprehensively. Their fearswere warranted. A band of crickets was entering the ravine behindthem, and hailing them. As they did not understand the cricketchirpings they decided to ignore them.
They hopped quickly toward the wall. Their movements were clumsy, theshells which covered their backs were heavy, and the sharp eyes of thecrickets discovered that they were not what they representedthemselves to be. A sharp, shrill, terrifying chirp went out, and thecrickets rushed at them in a body, brandishing their sharp prongedspears.
Putting forth all their efforts they rushed toward the wall. Thecrickets pursued, chirping angrily, and gradually drawing nearer. Thatthey would be overtaken was obvious.
“Throw off the shells, and run for it,” Epworth urged. “Hurry.”
He was obeyed, and soon the four were fast-footing over the unevenground. They gained some but in discarding their disguises they lostmuch of their original position, and the crickets began to hopdangerously near.
At this moment curious faces were thrust against the copper wall onthe other side. Moawha shouted at them in her language. At first theydid not answer, and several crickets hopped in front of her.
Epworth and Billy acted in concert, firing their pistols. This broughtthem to a stop.
Shoving Moawha and Joan to the front the two men defended the rear.
“Call to your friends to open the wall,” Epworth shouted. “Let themknow in as few words as possible who you are.”
The Selinites heard Moawha’s cries, recognized her, and with loudshouts of joy, threw open a gate, and rushed out in a body and drovethe crickets back. Moawha jumped through the wall opening and pulledJoan with her; Billy and Epworth followed, and the wall door wasslammed and fastened.
With a deep sigh of joy Moawha fell on her knees and extended herhands, palms open upward. That she was offering a prayer to God forher deliverance was obvious, and Billy uncovered his head and stoodreverently by her side.
While Epworth was just as thankful he was a man of action. His firstobservation told him that under the leadership of Toplinsky thecrickets and Taunans would walk through the copper mesh with wirecutters very easily. The wire, while strong enough to hurl back thebodies of the crickets, could be readily cut.
“Come,” he urged. “We have little time to lose. We must put yourborderland in a condition to stand a siege.”
The Selinites were crowding around Moawha, and singing songs of joy,quite plainly establishing her claims to being their lost princess.With an impatient gesture Epworth caught her hand, and started downthe incline toward the city he saw not five miles distant. TheSelinites objected.
“Inform them that they must obey me implicitly,” Epworth instructed.“Tell them that there is grave danger from a new and mysterioussource, and that action cannot be delayed. If they wish to hold areception for you it should come later.”
Moawha obeyed, and the American, lifting her in his strong arms, ranhurriedly down the incline to the city. Going five miles on the moon,it must be remembered, is easier than going half a mile on the earth,and soon they were inside of the city, where they were met by a largeconcourse of people who wanted to take Moawha out of Epworth’s hands.But still holding her he pushed his way through the assemblage, andwent to a building that looked like a power house.
His guess was correct, and he deposited Moawha on the floor and ran toa large coil of copper wire.
“Get busy, Billy,” he insisted anxiously. “This is an electric plant,and we must use the juice to charge that copper wire wall, and lay amine for Toplinsky’s cricket army. If we can hold them outside for atime—until we can get our breath—perhaps we will find a means ofpushing them back permanently.”
Billy, who was a splendid electrician, picked up another coil,attached the wire to a generator, and began to unroll the wire towardthe top of the pass. The pigmies, crowding into the building, watchedthem with annoyance. Who were these white giants with their queen?What did they mean by short circuiting the industries of the city? Whywere they meddling with the central electric plant?
A dozen little men came up to Moawha and protested. Epworth paused inhis work to look at them. They were smaller in size than the Taunansbut were more perfectly built. On their bodies, about the size of aneight year old boy, were handsomely formed heads, and pleasant,friendly faces.
“Explain to them that we are going to stop all their machinery untilwe can run electric juice into the wall that protects them from thecricket army.”
The moment the Selinite scientists understood what the white giantswere doing they joined in the work with enthusiasm, and sent out acall for help. Soon there were ten thousand small men rolling coils ofwire toward the copper fence between the two countries. Never beforehad it entered their minds that they could make the wall deal death totheir enemies. All they had hoped for was to see them fly against themesh and rebound back.
In six hours the copper wall was electrically charged until its touchmeant a shock of death, and Epworth stopped to sleep. While he wassleeping the Selinites recrowned Moawha queen. This was necessarybecause there was a law in the land that if a ruler was absent acertain length of time the crown was forfeited. Moawha had been aprisoner months over the time but they had loved her so dearly thathoping against hope they had not elected her successor.
Epworth was awakened by Joan and Moawha, both of whom were greatlyfrightened.
“Come,” Moawha pleaded, “they are assaulting our wall—or rathergetting ready to.”
When the young man, accompanied by Billy, reached the scene, a greatarmy of crickets was rolling up the mountainside in militaryformation. Epworth pushed into the Selinites at a critical moment. Thecrickets came within twenty feet of the wall and stopped. The pigmies,thinking that they were afraid of their spears and bows and arrows,began to gibe them.
The answer came before Epworth could give instructions. It was in theshape of a storm of lead from the front ranks of the crickets. It wasa terrifying volley. The bullets whistled through the six inch mesh ofcopper and the Selinites were badly demoralized and fled in wilddisorder.
Epworth saw the blast of gun fire with passionate anger. It looked tohim like firing cannons at little children. Nevertheless he shoutedand made a desperate effort to rally the Selinites. But they would notstop. Never before had they heard the report of a gun and although theguns being used were small and of rifle character they had noinclination to stay long to hear another discharge.
Urged on by their pigmy generals the crickets charged the wall. Intheir long feelers, extending from their mouths were strong wirecutter
s, and in their front arms they carried rifles and spears. Forthe safety of the Selinites Epworth had turned on the electric currentonly to see that it was in working condition and had turned it offagain. Now he gave the signal to charge the wall.
The signal was answered from the city just as the first ranks ofcrickets slammed against the copper wire. The charge caught them andhurled tons of them backward against their fellows, who crowdedagainst them with their wire cutters.
Again Epworth signaled to the city, and the juice was cut off.
Not understanding this mysterious power flashed against them a numberof Taunan officers approached the wire wall, and placed their hands onit. Nothing happened, and with puzzled faces they commanded anothercharge. Again Epworth signaled for the juice; again tons of cricketsbutted against the wall only to be hurled back by the invisible forceof electricity.
For the second time the pigmy officers investigated the wall. It stillseemed perfectly harmless, and they mustered up their courage to thepoint of ordering another attack. This time they threw an army ofcrickets against the wall, pushing the nearest crickets forward to thedanger point with regiment after regiment.
The force of the movement was so severe that it bent the wall inwardbut the electric current still held them back.
The pigmy leaders now became genuinely alarmed at the fall of so manycrickets, and drew the belligerent army back sullenly several hundredyards. For a time they stood in battle array just beyond the reach ofthe arrows from the wall, and waited until a messenger could be sentback inland to Toplinsky.
“Ah, ha,” Toplinsky muttered to himself when he heard the news, “theseSelinites have recently received some scientific advice on war. Iwonder if it is possible that those two Americans escaped from thecaves, and landed here? If so——”
He clenched his right hand and put his left arm around Queen Carza’swaist.
“It will not do, my great lord and master,” Carza whispered to him inan undertone, “to permit the killing of so many crickets. See they arepiled up in heaps in front of that copper wall. I have led my peopleto think that you can defeat the Selinites easily, and give them thenew green world with few fatalities. They are already mumbling tothemselves. There have been killed——”
“Twenty thousand, I should roughly estimate,” Toplinsky interruptedabruptly. “They should have been more careful but I, the great HermanToplinsky, will teach these people much. Draw back the army for aweek, and at the end of that time I promise that there will besomething doing. We will go through that wall as if it were notthere.”
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