ng from
exhaustion and pain, but still potential to kill--terrible in his
agony. There was no counting of scalps in that day's work; but perhaps
no devouring white monster in all the defensive army could have shown a
death-list equal to this. From the surging black cloud there was a
steady outflow of the dead, pushed back by the living.

Weaker and weaker, while they mangled his flesh, and still in darkness,
he fought them down through branching passages to another network of
small tunnels, where he caught a momentary view of the walls and the
stolid white guard, thence on to what he knew was open space. And here
he felt that he could fight no more. They had covered him completely,
and, try as he might with his failing strength, he could not dislodge
them. So he ceased his struggles; and numb with pain, dazed with
despair, he awaited the end.

But it did not come. He was too exhausted to feel surprise or joy when
they suddenly dropped away from him; but the instinct of
self-preservation was still in force, and he swam toward the wall. The
small creatures paid him no attention; they scurried this way and that,
busy with troubles of their own, while he crept stupidly and painfully
between two white sentries floating in the eddies,--one of whom
considerately made room for him,--and anchored to a projection, luckily
choosing a harbor that was not hostile.

"Any port in a storm, eh, neighbor?" said the one who had given him
room, and who seemed to notice his dazed condition. "You'll feel better
soon. My, but you put up a good fight, that's what you did!"

He could not answer, and the friendly guard resumed his vigil. In a few
moments, however, he could take cognizance of what was going on in the
stream. There was a new army in the fight, and reinforcements were
still coming. A short distance above him was a huge rent in the wall,
and the caves around it, crushed and distorted, were grinding fiercely.
Protruding through the rent and extending half-way across the tunnel
was a huge mass of some strange substance, roughly shaped to a
cylindrical form. It was hollow, and out of it, by thousands and
hundred thousands, was pouring the auxiliary army, from which the black
fighters were now fleeing for dear life.

The newcomers, though resembling in general form the creatures they
pursued, were much larger and of two distinct types. Both were light
brown in color; but while one showed huge development of head and jaw,
with smal