The globe was shattered as if it had been made of glass. The glittering fragments showered off the metal box, while the whole mechanical body suddenly became very rigid, and fell heavily to the side. A puff of coruscating green mist floated out of the globe as it broke, and swiftly dissipated, and the sparkling lights were about the thing no more. The monster was evidently dead. For a few moments I hesitated, but I was sure the thing had been killed, and my curiosity got the better of my fear. I cautiously approached it. For a moment I marveled at the wonderful workmanship of the machine and at the cleverness of its design; then I saw something that made me forget all else. Something beside the crystal shell had fallen. The tissue of it was very delicate, and it had been broken by the fall, so that the body juices were running from it. The brain cavity of it was very large--perhaps larger than that of a man--covered only with a thin chitinous shell. The limbs were but thin tentacles, almost altogether atrophied. In fact, the brain seemed three-fourths of the total bulk. The body was so badly smashed that I could tell little about it, but the tiny limbs were covered with chitin, and there were the rudimentary stumps of fine, tissue-like wings. There were no visible traces of digestive organs, or of mandibles. The thing was plainly an insect. From just what species it had sprung in the long process of evolution in the crater it would be difficult to say. For several reasons, I believe it was an ant. At any rate, it had reached about the ultimate stage of evolution. Machines had altogether replaced bodies of flesh and blood. I believe the thing had been nourished by the sparkling green vapor, which must have circulated like blood through the protecting crystal sphere. It seems incredible to find great intelligence in any form of life other than human; but science thinks that life and intelligence must rise and fall in recurring cycles, and that the earth has probably been ruled by many different forms of life, each of which has been blotted out by some cataclysm. The _Krimlu_ were a surviving remnant of archaic ages. CHAPTER XIII When Austen Struck I lost little time in the examination of the dead creature. The shafts from which it had come were but a few hundred yards below, and the purple gas was still rolling out of the funnels. I did not know when a second monster might follow the first. My mind was too much upset by grief and terror to be capable of intelligent planning, but I knew I wanted to get away from here, and I think I had some notion of reaching the northern pass, and of getting back to an unburned growth of the red vegetation, for I was weak with thirst and hunger. But all that was very vague.