ced the jaw-clashing
that closed openings more efficiently than steel plates could have done.
An attempt to pass those enormous mandibles presented no risk; what it
presented was suicide.

By now the dread war dance had stopped. All the termites in the chamber
were converging slowly toward the spot where the termite had given the
rasping alarm. Even the workers, ordinarily quick to run from danger,
were advancing instead of retreating. Of all living things in the room
only the Queen, unable to move her mountainous bulk, did not join in the
slow, sure move to slash to pieces the hated trespassers.

Again the questing antennae of the worker that had given the alarm
touched one of the men. With a deafening rasp it sprang toward them,
blind but terrible.

* * * * *

Dennis swung his steel club. It clashed against the scarcely less hard
mandibles of the worker, not harming them, but seeming to daze the
insect a little.

Jim followed the act by plunging his longer spear into the soft body. No
words were wasted by the two men. It was a fight for life again, with
the odds even more heavily against them than they had been in the
ruler's lair.

Behind them, blocking the only exit they had any chance whatever of
reaching, the guard continued its clashing mandible duty. If only it,
too, would join in the blind search for the trespassers, thus giving
them an opportunity of slipping out! But the monster gave no indication
of doing such a thing.

Another worker termite flung its bulk at them. Its mandibles, tiny in
comparison with those of the great guards but still capable of slicing
either of the men in two, snapped perilously close to Jim's body. There
was a second's concerted action: Dennis' club lashed against the thing's
head, Jim's spear tore into the vulnerable body.

Ringing them round, the main band of the termites moved closer. They
moved slowly, in no hurry, apparently only too sure the enemy could not
possibly get away from them. And the two worker termites killed were
mere incidents compared to the avalanche of mandible and horn that would
be on them in about thirty seconds.

* * * * *

However, the two dead termites gave Jim a sudden inspiration. He glanced
from the carcasses to the mechanically moving, deadly jaws of the guard
that barred the nearest exit.

"Denny," he panted, "feed it this."

He pointed first toward the nearest carcass and t