through long years to be
faintly phosphorescent. And that simple natural fact was probably going
to mean all the difference between life and death: it gave the two men
at least the advantage of sight over the eyeless savage creatures among
whom, helped by the termite-smell given by the paste, they hoped to
glide unnoticed.

However, even the termite-paste, and the fact that the termitary
citizens were blind, didn't seem enough to account for the immunity
granted the two men as they began to come presently to more crowded
passages and tunnels near the center of the mound.

On every side of them now, requiring the utmost in agility to keep from
actually brushing against them, were hordes of the worker termites, and
dozens of the frightful soldiers. Yet on the two men moved, ever more
slowly, without one of the monsters attempting to touch them. It was
odd--almost uncanny.

"Surely the noise of our walking, tiptoe as we may, must be heard by
them--and noted as different from theirs," whispered Dennis. "Yet they
pay no attention to us. If it is due to the paste, I must say it's
wonderful stuff!"

Jim nodded in a puzzled way. "It's almost as if they wanted to make our
inward path easy. I wonder--if it's going to be different when we try to
get out again!"

Dennis was wondering that, too. It seemed absurd to suspect the things
of being intelligent enough to lay traps. But it did look almost as
though they were encouraging their two unheard-of visitors from another
world to go on deeper and deeper into the heart of the eerie city (all
the tunnels sloped down now), there perhaps to meet with some ghastly
imprisonment.

He gave it up. Sufficient for the moment that they were unmolested, and
that he had a chance at first hand to make observations more complete
than the world of entomology had ever dreamed of.

* * * * *

They stumbled onto what seemed a death struggle between one of the giant
soldiers and an inoffensive-looking worker. The drab, comparatively
feeble body of the worker was wriggling right in the center of the great
claws which, with a twitch, could have sliced it in two endwise. Yet the
jaws did not twitch; and in a few moments the worker drew unconcernedly
out and moved away.

"The soldier was getting his meal," whispered Denny, enthralled. "Their
mandibles are enlarged so enormously that they can't feed themselves.
The workers, who digest food for the whole tribe, feed