as he ran back to the station.

"Something better than dynamite," shouted Tommy, holding up one of a
score of drums of petrol!

CHAPTER XI

_The World Set Free_

They waited two days at Settler's Station. To push along the line into
the desert would have been useless, and both men were convinced that an
airplane would arrive for them. But it was not until the second
afternoon that the aviator arrived, half-dead with thirst and fatigue,
and almost incoherent.

His was the last plane on the Australian continent. He brought the news
of the destruction of Adelaide, and of the siege of Melbourne and
Sydney, as he termed it. He told Dodd and Tommy that the two cities had
been surrounded with trenches and barbed wire. Machine guns and
artillery were bombarding the trenches in which the beetles had taken
shelter.

"Has any one been out on reconnaissance?" asked Tommy.

Nobody had been permitted to pass through the barbed wire, though there
had been volunteers. It meant certain death. But, unless the beetles
were sapping deep in the ground, what their purpose was, nobody knew.

* * * * *

Tommy and Dodd led him to the piles of smoking, stinking debris and told
him.

That was where the aviator fainted from sheer relief.

"The Commonwealth wants you to take supreme command against the
beetles," he told Tommy, when he had recovered. "I'm to bring you back.
Not that they expect me back. But--God, what a piece of news! Forgive my
swearing--I used to be a parson. Still am, for the matter of that."

"How are you going to bring us three back in your plane?" asked Tommy.

"I shall stay here with Jimmydodd," said Haidia suavely. "There is not
the least danger any more. You must destroy the beetles before their
shells have grown again, that's all."

"Used to be a parson, you say? Still are?" shouted Dodd excitedly.
"Thank God! I mean, I'm glad to hear it. Come inside, and come quick. I
want you too, Tommy!"

Then Tommy understood. And it seemed as if Haidia understood, by some
instinct that belongs exclusively to women, for her cheeks were flushed
as she turned and smiled into Dodd's eyes.

Ten minutes later Tommy hopped into the biplane, leaving the happy
married couple at Settler's Station. His eyes grew misty as the plane
took the air, and he saw them waving to him from the ground. Dodd and
Haidia and he had been through so many adventures, and had reached
safety. He must not fail.