m Australia, but from all the
world, "Get Travers!"

CHAPTER X

_At Bay_

Bram put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, a shrill whistle, yet
audible to Dodd, Tommy, and Haidia. Instantly three pairs of beetles
appeared out of the throng. Their tentacles went out, and the two men
and the girl found themselves hoisted separately upon the backs of the
pairs. Next moment they were flying side by side, high in the air above
the surrounding swarm.

They could see one another, but it was impossible for them to make their
voices heard above the rasping of the beetles' legs. Hours went by,
while the moon crossed the sky and dipped toward the horizon. Tommy knew
that the moon would set about the hour of dawn. And the stars were
already beginning to pale when he saw a line of telegraph poles, then
two lines of shining metals, then a small settlement of stone and brick
houses.

Tommy was not familiar with the geography of Australia, but he knew this
must be the transcontinental line.

Whirling onward, the cloud of beetles suddenly swooped downward. For a
moment Tommy could see the frightened occupants of the settlement
crowding into the single street, then he shuddered with sick horror as
he saw them obliterated by the swarm.

There was no struggle, no attempt at flight or resistance. One moment
those forty-odd men were there--the next minute they existed no longer.
There was nothing but a swarm of beetles, walking about like men with
shells upon their backs.

And now Tommy saw evidences of Bram's devilish control of the swarm.
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 bac