* * * * *

He did not fail. He found himself at Sydney in command of thirty
thousand men, all enthusiastic for the fight for the human race,
soldiers and volunteers ready to fight until they dropped. When the news
of the situation was made public, an immense wave of hope ran through
the world.

National differences were forgotten, color and creed and race grew more
tolerant of one another. A new day had dawned--the day of humanity's
true liberation.

Tommy's first act was to call out the fire companies and have the
beetles' trenches saturated with petrol from the fire hoses. Then
incendiary bullets, shot from guns from a safe distance, quickly
converted them into blazing infernos.

But even so only a tithe of the beetle army had been destroyed. Two
hundred planes had already been rushed from New Zealand, and their
aviators went up and scoured the country far and wide. Everywhere they
found trenches, and, where the soil was stony, millions of the beetles
clustered helplessly beneath great mounds of discarded shells.

An army of black trackers had been brought in planes from all parts of
the country, and they searched out the beetle masses everywhere along
the course that the invaders had taken. Then incendiary bombs were
dropped from above.

* * * * *

Day after day the beetle massacre went on. By the end of a week the
survivors of the invasion began to take heart again. It was certain that
the greater portion of the horde had been destroyed.

There was only one thing lacking. No trace of Bram had been seen since
his appearance at the head of his beetle army in front of Broken Hill.
And louder and more insistent grew the world clamor that he should be
found, and put to death in some way more horrible than any yet devised.

The ingenuity of a million minds worked upon this problem. Newspapers
all over the world offered prizes for the most suitable form of death.
Ingenious Oriental tortures were rediscovered.

The only thing lacking was Bram.

A spy craze ran through Australia. Five hundred Brams were found, and
all of them were in imminent danger of death before they were able to
prove an alias.

And, oddly enough, it was Tommy and Dodd who found Bram. For Dodd had
been brought back east, together with his bride, and given an important
command in the Army of Extermination.

* * * * *

Dodd had joined Tommy not