Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 08.djvu/63

734 Little did I dream, when I wrote, months ago, that even war would be welcome, how soon my words were to be borne out, for war, bloody, merciless, relentless and horrible beyond words to express is, I feel sure, near at hand.

A month or more has passed since last I wrote, and, during that interval events have moved rapidly. The ants have been discovered. Scouts have found them, and my worst fears have been more than fulfilled. In incalculable thousands they are swarming on a vast uninhabited area in the north, drilling, gathering vast stores and evidently preparing for a campaign. And yet these beings are not disturbed, have no fears and have made little effort to repel or destroy their enemies. From airships quantities of the death dealing chemicals were dropped upon the ants but with little result. A few were killed but instantly the alarm was given the ants vanished like magic, seeking safe refuge in subterranean burrows. I have urged these creatures to set forth and attack, to take the offensive against the ants, to drop explosives from airships and thus shatter the burrows and destroy the occupants. And I have sought to induce them to surround themselves with barriers of the ant poison. But my words have been unheeded so far. So long have these creatures lived in peace, so long have they been in complete control, and so many years have passed since they battled with the ants that they have forgotten the terrible power and resources of their enemies and underrate them. Too late, I fear, will they awaken.

But I have not been idle. With the aid of a few who have given ear to my advice I have taken what steps we can to protect the city. We have laid mines about it which can be exploded, and in two airships we have attempted to destroy the ants' retreats with explosive, but our puny efforts have been of little avail. Moreover, in our last assault, one of the airships was disabled by a premature explosion and fell to earth, and I shudder as I write when I think of the awful scene I witnessed when the ants rushed upon the occupants of the airship and with ravenous jaws tore them in pieces while still alive.

And if the ants are victorious that will be the fate of all, yes even of myself. But I have no mind to meet with such a fearful death. I have provisioned my boat and if worst comes to worst I shall flee in her. Across the water the ants cannot follow and miles distant I know of a large island where I shall seek safety—there to pass the remaining days of my life alone.

A week since I wrote those last lines: The ants are advancing now. Already they have overwhelmed two outlying towns and against them the poison and even the explosives seem useless. Slowly but inexorably they come, making their way by underground passages, scurrying to safe retreats far under the earth at first sight of an airship. It is terrible, nightmarish, this invisible, silent advance of the vast hordes of terrible creatures, and the inhabitants are now terror stricken.

Barriers of the poison have been passed by the ants tunnelling beneath them; hundreds of the inhabitants of the countryside have fallen victims to the relentless insects, and each day their numbers and they draw nearer to this metropolis.

They are within a few miles of the power plant and at any moment may take possession of the sulphur mines. And then the doom of the beings will he sealed. Without resources, without power, all will be helpless, doomed to perish miserably or become prisoners of the ants. And there is no retreat. The insects have overrun the land, have thrown out great encircling armies and our scouts report them on every side

And now a new and more terrible thing has occurred. The ants are swarming. Their queens, winged and capable of flight, are filling the air, darkening the skies and dropping here, there, everywhere to establish new colonies. Hundreds of them have even dropped within the city and although they have been destroyed yet their numbers seem undiminished. Unseen, they drop at night, hurrying to hidden spots they deposit their eggs, and ere their presence is suspected the warriors have emerged and fall upon the surprised inhabitants and tear them to hits. In their extremity the creatures have besought me to equip them with bows and arrows, guns, anything in the form of weapons. And these have helped. With their arrows, with the bullets from the crude firearms, they have managed to keep the ant army in check, for these are things new to the ants and they have no means of resisting them. Desperate as our case is, yet I have smiled to think how history repeats itself, how these beings have been forced to resort to prehistoric, primitive means to preserve their homes and lives, just as the armies of Europe, despite modern weapons high explosives, poisonous gasses and every latest scientific device, were forced to resort to armor, grenades, medieaval [sic] weapons and methods to combat the Germans.

And even the wagons, the motor vehicles, have been brought into play against the ants, for the airships are next to useless. Let an airship rise aloft and the swarming queen ants light upon it by hundreds and bear it to earth with their weight, but the wheeled vehicles, protected, transformed to miniature forts of metal and filled with armed beings, carry terror and destruction among the ants, crushing them beneath the wheels while arrows and bullets strike them down.

But despite all I feel that we are losing, that our efforts have been made too late and that at any moment the horde of insects will everwhelmoverwhelm [sic] the power plant and we will be incapable of making food, of producing light, of manufacturing anything, even of operating our vehicles. Long have I foreseen this and in preparation for the calamity I have had steam engines built, but these are all too few to serve all our wants. Would that these beings had but given heed to my words long ago and then all might have been well. Too long they waited and then panic stricken turned to me begging me to take charge, beseeching me to save them. The fate of the country, of the inhabitants depends upon me but I feel that no human efforts, nothing that these beings under my directions can accomplish, will do more than delay the end.

What I dreaded most has befallen. The ants are in possession of the power plant. Everything is at a standstill. Only the barest necessities of life can be