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So they withdrew to the cover of a cross-street and held a council. As a result, some of their best marksmen were sent into adjoining houses to pick off whatever ant men dared show themselves above the fort.

Then Buh Tedn formed for the charge. This time the entire Cupian force advanced together, scaled the redoubt and beat back the black defenders.

As Cabot went over the top himself, he looked down the muzzle of an enemy rifle and discharged his own revolver in the Formian’s horrid face. Then he knew no more.

He came to in jet darkness, buried beneath an overwhelming weight, which required long and patient effort to dislodge. Finally, however, he struggled to the surface, and found that he had been lying in the ant-barricade, covered by the dead bodies of his comrades-in-arms.

Cabot, himself, presented a gruesome figure. His hair was matted with blood, but whether his own or that of some Cupian he could not tell. Probably his own, as there was a severe wound along the ridge of his scalp, presumably caused by a bullet from the rifle, down the muzzle of which he had looked as he surmounted the barricade. His toga, too, was drenched with blood. He felt weak and dizzy. Groping for support, he looked about him.