"Take that, my beauties!--and that!" he gasped, pressing the trigger of his camera furiously. Then, at a scant two thousand feet, he levelled off, his wings blistering with the heat, and zoomed up again--when to his horror, his engine faltered; died. * * * * * In that agonizing moment it came to Jim that this perhaps was why neither the Television News nor the War Department pilots had been able to get pictures of the hell below. Had something about that daring heat killed their motors, too, as it had his? Had they plunged like fluttering, sizzling moths into that inferno of orange flame? "Well, I guess it's curtains!" he muttered. A glance at his altimeter showed a scant eighteen hundred now. Another glance showed the western boundary of the city, agonizing miles ahead. Could he make it? He'd try, anyway! So, nursing his plane along in a shallow glide, Jim slipped down through that dazing heat. "Got to keep her speed up!" he told himself, half deliriously, as he steadily lost altitude. "Can't pancake here, or I'll be a flapjack!" At an altitude of less than a thousand he levelled off again, eased on down, fully expecting to feel his plane burst into flames. But though his eyebrows crisped and the gas must have boiled, the sturdy little plane made it. On a long last glide, he put her wheels down on the sandy desert floor, a bare half mile beyond that searing hell. The heat was still terrific but endurable now. He dared breathe deeper; he found his head clearing. But what was the good of it? It was only a respite. The monsters had seen him, all right--no doubt about that! Already they were swooping out of their weird citadel like a pack of furious hornets. On they came, incredibly fast, moving in a wide half-circle that obviously was planned to envelop him. Tense with horror, like a doomed man at the stake, Jim watched the flaming phalanx advance. And now he saw what they really were; saw that his first, fantastic guess had been right. They were _ants_--or at least more like ants than anything on earth--great fiery termites ten feet long, hideous mandibles snapping like steel, hot from the forge, their huge compound eyes burning like greenish electric fire in their livid orange sockets. And another thing Jim saw, something that explained why the fearful insects had not flown up to attack him in the air. Their wings were gone! They had molted, were earthbound now. * * * * * There was much food for thought in this, but no time to think. Already the creatures were almost on him. Jim turned his gaze from them and bent over his dials in a last frantic effort to get his motor started. The instinct of self-preservation was dominant now--and to his joy, suddenly the powerful little engine began to hum with life. He drew one deep breath of infinite relief, then gave her the gun and whirled off down the desert floor, the enraged horde after him.