a," said Dodd. "They
won't come out of that hole in the ground. You'll never see them again."

And, as he spoke, they heard a familiar rasping sound far in the
distance.

"How the wind blows," said Tommy, desperately resolved not to believe
his ears. "I think a storm's coming up."

But Haidia, with a scream of fear, was clinging to Dodd, and the blacks
were on their feet, spears and boomerangs in their hands, looking
northward.

Out of that north a little black cloud was gathering. A cloud that
spread gradually, as a thunder-cloud, until it covered a good part of
the sky. And still more of the sky, and still more. All the while that
faint, distant rasping was audible, but it did not increase in volume.
It was as if the beetles had halted until the full number of the swarm
had come up out of the crater.

* * * * *

Then the cloud, which by now covered half the sky, began to take
geometric form. It grew square, the ragged edges seemed to trim
themselves away, streaks of light shot through it at right angles, as if
it was marshaling itself into companies.

The doomed men and the girl stood perfectly still, staring at that
phenomenon. They knew that only a miracle could save them. They did not
even speak, but Haidia clung more tightly to Dodd's arm.

Then suddenly the cloud spread upward and covered the face of the moon.

"Well, this is good-by, Tommy," said Dodd, gripping his friend's hand.
"God, I wish I had a revolver, or a knife!" He looked at Haidia.

Suddenly the rasping became a whining shriek. A score of enormous
beetles, the advance guards of the army, zoomed out of the darkness into
a ray of straggling moonlight. Shrieking, the blacks, who had watched
the approaching swarm perfectly immobile, threw away the two shells and
bolted.

"Good Lord," Dodd shouted, "did you see the color of their shells,
Tommy?" Even in that moment the scientific observer came uppermost in
him. "Those red edges? They must be young ones, Tommy. It's the new
brood! No wonder Bram stayed behind! He was waiting for them to hatch!
The new brood! We're doomed--doomed! All my work wasted!"

The blackfellows did not get very far. A hundred yards from the place
where they started to run they dropped, their bodies hidden beneath the
clustering monsters, their screams cut short as those frightful beaks
sought their throats, and those jaws crunched through flesh and bone.

* * *