Disregarding the clutching tentacles entirely, I swung the bar against the helmet. It cracked. I swung again and it fell in fragments, spilling the gallons of water it had contained.
The tentacles wound vengefully around me, but in a few seconds they relaxed as the thing gasped out its life in the air.
I turned to repeat the process on another if I could, and found myself facing the Queen. Her head was held bravely high, though the violet of her eyes had gone almost black with fear and repulsion of the terrible things we fought.
"Aga!" I cried. "Why art thou here! Go back to the palace at once!"
"I came to fight beside thee," she answered composedly, though her delicate lips quivered. "All is lost, it seems. So shall I die beside thee."
I started to reply, to urge her again to seek the safety of the palace.
But by now the deadly advance of the tentacled demons had begun once more.
Fighting vainly, the population of Zyobor was swept into the palace grounds, then into the building itself.
Men, women and children huddled shoulder to shoulder in the cramping quarters. An ironic picture came to me of the crowding ma.s.ses of Quabos stuffed into the protection of the outer cave, waiting the outcome of the fight being waged by their warriors. Here were we in a similar circ.u.mstance, waiting for the battle to be decided. Though there was little doubt in the minds of any of us as to what the outcome would be.
Guards, the strongest men of the city, were stationed with sledges at the doors and windows. The Quabos, able only to enter one at a time, halted a moment and there was a badly needed breathing spell.
"We"ve got to find some drastic means of defence," said the Professor, "or we won"t last another three hours."
"If you asked me, I"d say we couldn"t last another three hours anyway,"
replied Stanley with a shrug. "These fish have out-thought us!"
"Nonsense! There may still be a way--"
"A brace of machine-guns...." I murmured hopefully.
"You might as well wish for a dozen light cannon!" snapped the Professor. "Please try to concentrate, and see if any effective weapon suggests itself to you--something more available at the moment than machine-guns."
In silence the three of us racked our brains for a means of defence.
Aga, leaving for a time the task of soothing her more hysterical subjects, came quietly over to us and sat on the bench beside me.
Frankly I could think of nothing. To my mind we were surely doomed. What arms could possibly be contrived at such short notice? What weapon could be called forth to be effective against the thick gla.s.s helmets?
But as I glanced at Stanley I saw his face set in a new expression as his thoughts took a turn that suggested possible salvation.
"Gla.s.s," he muttered. "Gla.s.s. What destroys it? Sharp blows ... certain acids ... variation in temperature ... heat and cold.... That"s it!
_That"s it!_"
He turned excitedly to the Queen.
"I think we have it! At least it"s worth trying. If there is any tubing around...." He stopped as he realized he was talking in English, and resumed stiltedly in Aga"s own language.
"Hast thou, in the palace, any lengths of pipe like to that which the Quabos drag behind them?"
"No ..." Aga began, her eyes round and wondering. Then she interrupted herself. "Ah, yes! There is! In a vault near that of Kilor"s there is a great spool of it. He had it fashioned to carry air for one of his experiments--"
"Come along!" cried Stanley. "I"ll explain what I have in mind while we dig up this coil of hose."
A score of Zyobite workmen were gathered at once. The length of hose--made of some linen-like fabric of tough, shredded sea-weed and covered with a flexible metal sheath--was cut into three pieces each about fifty yards long. These were connected to three of the largest gas vents of the palace.
Stanley, the Professor and I each took an end. And we prepared to fight, with fire, the creatures of water.
"It ought to work," Stanley, repeated several times as though trying to rea.s.sure himself as well as us. "It"s simple enough: the water in those helmets is ice cold: if fire is suddenly squirted against them they"ll crack with the uneven expansion."
"Unless," retorted the Professor, "their gla.s.s has some special heat and cold resisting quality."
Stanley shrugged.
"It may well have some such properties. How such creatures can make gla.s.s at all is beyond me!"
Dragging our hose to the big front entrance of the palace, and warning the crowded people to keep their feet clear of it, we prepared to test out the efficiency of this, our last resource against the enemy.
For an instant we paused just inside the doorway, looking out at the ugly, gla.s.sed-in Things that were ma.s.sing to attack us again.
The ranks of Quabos had closed in now, till they extended down the street for several hundred yards in close formation--a forest of great pulpy heads with huge eyes that glared unblinkingly at the glittering, pink building that was their objective.
"Light up!" ordered Stanley, setting an example by touching his hose nozzle to the nearest wall jet. A spurt of fire belched from his hose, streaming out for four or five feet in a solid red cone. The Professor and I touched off our torches; and we moved slowly out the door toward the ranks of Quabos.
"Don"t try to save yourselves from their tentacles," advised Stanley.
"Walk right up to them, direct the fire against their helmets, and d.a.m.n the consequences. If they grip too hard you can always play the torch on their tentacles till they think better of it."
The Quabos" front line humped grimly toward us, unblinking eyes glaring, tentacles writhing warily, little spurts of used water trickling from their helmets.
"Keep together," warned Stanley, "so that if any one of us loses his light he can get it from the hose of one of the other two. And--_Here they come!_"
There was no more time for commands. The Quabos in front, supplied with slack in their hoses by those behind, leaped at us with incredible agility. We fell back a step so that none should get at our backs.
The last stand was begun.
It was not a battle so much as a series of fierce duels. The Quabos realized their new danger instantly, and devoted all their efforts to extinguishing our torches. We parried and thrust with the flaming hoses in an equally desperate effort to prevent it.
One of them scuttled toward me like a great crab. A tentacle darted toward my right arm. Another was pressed against the nozzle. There was a sickening smell--and the tentacle was jerked spasmodically away.
I caught the hose in my left hand and turned the fiery jet against the water-filled helmet.
A shout of savage exultation broke from my lips. Hardly, had the flame touched the gla.s.s before it cracked! There was a report like a pistol shot--and a miniature Niagara of water and splintered gla.s.s poured at my feet!
The tentacle around my arm tightened, then relaxed. The monster shuddered in a convulsive heap on the ground.