The giant moths and bats were unable to withstand the lure of the
green light. They flew with mad beatings of wings straight for the
open door of the death house, and many of the great creatures,
attracted by the light and urged on by an unexplainable force which
sent them to death like gnats and moths in a flame, crowded near to
the death-dealing radium.

Not until the whole shack was covered with quivering forms of the
dead, did the other creatures veer off and with hops, creepings and
myriad giant legs, begin to cover the whole valley.

The stone walls of the death shack had crumpled in with the weight;
the other buildings, more lightly built, gave at once, with crackings
and crashings.

The four men were powerless to assist the unfortunate peons, who were
trapped in their barracks. The charged wires stopped many of the big
beasts, but soon the electric light was short-circuited, and the
valley, in the moonlight, was a seething mass of fighting, dying,
feasting monsters.

* * * * *

Other sounds, besides those made by the big creatures, came to the
ears of the stricken men on the hillside. The breaking of glass, the
cries of the jungle animals trapped in their cages, the shrieks of
dying peons who were eaten at a gulp by the big frogs or stung to
death, impaled on the mandibles of some great stinging centipede.

In the spot where the radium death shack had been, was a pulpy mass of
livid, smoky light.

Now the bowl of the valley was filled as by some vast jelly. The
creatures were slopping over the walls, and battling together.

The shambles was not yet over, but the four could remain no longer.
They made their way down the hillside and struck out across the arid
lands.

Maget, the tramp, became the leader. He was a trained jungle man, and
it was he who finally brought them safely to the Madeira.

He was their strong man, the one who found the trail and located roots
and fruit for the party to subsist on. They nearly perished in the
trip for lack of water, but again, Maget was able to supply them with
roots which kept them from dying in agony.

* * * * *

They lay upon the river bank now, exhausted but alive. Maget had
assisted old Gurlone, acted as his staff, half carried him the last
miles of the trip.

Their clothes were almost gone, they were burned to crisps by the
tropic sun. Flies and other insects had taken their toll. But Maget