d as much by emotion as by heat, from
his face. He alone of all students on earth was going to penetrate the
very heart of the termite mystery. He alone was going to have at least a
glimpse of the baffling intelligence that science had guessed about for
so many decades He ... alone. For it was hardly likely that he would
ever get back up to the surface of earth to share his knowledge.

How different was this adventure from what he had hoped it might be! He
had thought that the two of them might simply enter the termitary,
mingle--perilously, but with at least a margin of safety--with the blind
race it housed, and walk out again whenever they pleased. But from the
moment of entering they'd had no chance. They had been hopelessly in the
clutch of the insects; played with, indulged, and finally trapped, to be
led at last like dogs on a leash to the lair of the ruling power.

They rounded another corner and now, ahead of them, they saw what must
be the end of this last and deepest of all the tunnels. This end showed
as a glare of light. Real light, not the soft gleam of the rotting wood
walls which was already paling feebly in comparison. The glare ahead of
them, indeed, had something of the texture of electric light. Neither
Jim nor Dennis could repress a sudden start; it was like coming abruptly
onto a man-made fact, a bit of man-made world in the midst of this
insect hell.

The damp heat was almost paralyzing now. Their limbs felt weak as they
stumbled toward the light. But they were inexorably herded forward, and
soon were at the threshold of the oddly illuminated chamber.

Now the two stopped for an instant and sniffed, as a peculiar odor came
to their nostrils. It was a vague but fearsome odor, indescribable,
making their skin crawl. A smell of decay--of death--and yet somehow of
rank and fetid life. A combination of charnel-house and menagerie smell.

* * * * *

Denny blanched as an inkling of what was before them came to his mind.
He remembered the swooping wasp, that had so narrowly missed them at the
start of their adventure. The wasp, he knew, was not the only insect
that had certain dread ways of stocking its larder and keeping the
contents of that larder fresh! The termites did not customarily follow
these practises. Yet--yet the odor coming from the place before them
certainly suggested ... But he tried to thrust such apprehensions from
his thoughts.

They entered the cham