*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64303 ***

                               THE RADIO
                                 BEASTS

                           RALPH MILNE FARLEY


                            ACE BOOKS, INC.
                      1120 Avenue of the Americas
                          New York, N.Y. 10036


                            THE RADIO BEASTS

              Originally published in 1925 as a serial in
                       _Argosy All-Story Weekly_.

             _Cover art and illustration by Ed Emshwiller._


                           Printed in U.S.A.




                                   I

                           FROM ANOTHER WORLD


One warm evening in July after the chores were done, I was sitting on
the kitchen steps of my farmhouse, on Chappiquiddick Island off the
coast of Massachusetts, idly glancing through the _Boston Post_ of that
morning, when for some reason the following item happened to attract my
attention:

                 MADMAN TERRORIZES G. E. PLANT IN LYNN

    LYNN.—A maniac, clad only in a nightgown, broke into the
    General Electric laboratory in Lynn yesterday evening, and
    frightened the night operator, who thought he was a ghost.

    Patrick Mulcahy, the night operator, was seated in the radio
    room with the highpowered receiving set in action, when suddenly
    the intruder appeared before him. As Mulcahy jumped to his feet
    in surprise, the madman approached him, muttering some
    unintelligible gibberish, whereupon Mulcahy emptied his
    automatic at the other, and fled.

    The employment manager of the G. E. Company, when interviewed
    late last evening, stated that Mulcahy was a total abstainer;
    and bloodstains on the floor confirm Mulcahy’s story.

    It is believed that the disturber is an escaped inmate of
    Danvers, but the asylum authorities deny the loss of any of
    their patients.

    Whoever he is, the man is still at large.

“Such a clumsy fabrication,” thought I. “It is too bad that the _Boston
Post_ has fallen so low as to print such an old, old gag.”

Then I laid down the paper, and let my mind wander as it willed. The
episode which I had just read had occurred in the _radio_ room of the
General Electric Company. Radio! That word suggested to me the greatest
radio genius whom I have ever known: Myles Standish Cabot, of Boston.

He had been a classmate, and friend of mine. He had mysteriously
disappeared from his laboratory on Beacon Street, and nothing further
had been heard of him until one night four years later, when a hollow
projectile had dropped from the sky onto my farm, bearing in its
interior a holographic account of my friend’s adventure during the
preceding four years.

This story I had edited, and it appeared under the title “The Radio
Man.” It related how Myles, while experimenting with the wireless
transmission of matter, had accidentally projected himself through space
to the planet Venus. This accounted for his mysterious disappearance.

He had found the planet inhabited by a race of human-like
creatures—called Cupians—with antennae instead of ears, who were
living in slavery under the Formians, a gigantic breed of intelligent
black ants. Myles Cabot had devised artificial electrical antennae, so
as to be able to talk with both races, and had organized the Cupians,
and led them to victory over their oppressors, thereby winning an
honored position among them, and the hand of their princess, the lovely
Lilla.

Strange that a news item about a crazy man in a nightgown should have
reminded me of such a staid and proper person as Cabot! It would not
have done so, but for the one word “radio.”

Then I dismissed the whole matter from my mind.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The next evening I ran my car over to the point, and rowed across the
harbor to the village to get a small shipment of freight which was
expected by the late boat.

Meeting the boat is one of the chief summer diversions of us
Edgartonions. We line up on each side of the gang plank, and let the
arriving summer folk run the gantlet of our scrutiny, and listen
(ourselves amused) at their amused comments on the “natives.”

As I stood thus on the evening in question, watching the summer folk
walk the plank, I saw among them a strangely familiar face. Could it be?
It was none other than my old classmate Myles S. Cabot! In another
moment we were shaking hands.

Yet still I was speechless with astonishment. Cabot was the last person
in the world that I would have expected to see. I had thought he was on
another planet, millions of miles away.

Then came the reaction. If Cabot was still on earth, his story about his
adventures on Venus, which I had so recently published to the world,
must be nothing but a cleverly concocted lie. The projectile, which had
carried the manuscript to my farm, and which I had ingenuously assumed
to have been shot from the skies, may merely have been fired over from
somewhere on Cape Cod.

The accident of my finding the message had probably not been chance at
all, but rather an event planned and intended by Myles Cabot. He had
hoaxed me, and I had passed on to the editor and to the unsuspecting
general public, a mere faked-up yarn. Think what a position this would
place me in, when the editor, who in good faith had accepted my story as
a narrative of fact, should discover that Myles was not on Venus at all!
Could I ever make any one believe I had been innocent of complicity in
this hoax?

I was horrified, and my resentment flared up at my old friend.

“Where have you been all these years since you disappeared from home?” I
asked accusingly.

“Why, you know perfectly well,” was his surprised reply, “for you
published my account of it.”

“Then what on earth are you doing here?” I countered.

To which he enigmatically answered: “Great are the powers of radio.”

“Were you really on Venus?” I inquired, still incredulous.

“On my word of honor as a gentleman,” said he, solemnly.

So the story was true after all, and I had not been hoaxed. I heaved a
sigh of relief.

It was soon arranged that he should return with me to the farm.
Forgotten was my freight, as I hurried him to the dory.

As I helped him into the boat, I noticed that his left hand was
bandaged, and asked him why.

“It happened night before last,” he answered laconically. “Man shot at
me.”

And not another word would he speak until the dory was tied to its stake
on the other side of the harbor, and we were chugging along the red road
which runs east across Chappiquiddick.

“Now tell me all about it,” I begged. “How did you ever get back to
earth, and how did you happen to come down here?”

Myles replied, “This is the way it was: After our conquest of the
ant-men, I resumed my experiments with the wireless transmission of
matter, which experiments had been so rudely interrupted by my
accidentally transmitting myself to the planet Poros—Venus, as you
earth-folk call it.

“I not only perfected the device, but also perfected it in such a way
that it could be used as an attachment to a certain common sort of
high-power hook-up. Now, before I left the earth, I knew that the
General Electric Company at Lynn had a hook-up of this kind in a
receiving station which was in almost constant operation, and was such a
standard installation that there was practically no chance of its not
being still in commission. I happened to remember its wave-length. So I
adjusted my apparatus in my electrical laboratory on Poros, with two
Cupian friends at the levers; and the next thing I knew, I found myself
back on earth, lying on the floor of a room, in front of a radio set.

“There was a man seated near by, the first human being whom I had seen
in over five earth-years. I rushed to greet him, and to ask him where I
was. But probably, in my haste, I spoke to him in the language of Poros.
That, and my Cupian toga, must have surprised him, for he fired several
shots at me with an automatic, and then turned and bolted through the
door. One of his shots nicked my left hand. Luckily, the rest missed
me.”

“Then you are the supposed madman of Lynn!” I exclaimed.

“The very same,” he answered.

“Well, well!” said I. “Who would have guessed it? And yet, as I read the
story in the _Boston Post_, it somehow or other made me think of you.”

Myles laughed. “Not very complimentary. They certainly gave me a weird
write-up.”

“They certainly did,” I replied. “But tell me, how did you get rid of
your nightgown?”

Myles laughed again. “My toga, you mean? I found a suit of overalls, an
old hat, and a pair of shoes in a locker, put them on, and made my
escape from the building. In one of the pockets there was some small
change, which carried me to Boston.

“The reason I happened to be here is because yesterday I ran across an
installment of ‘The Radio Man,’ which showed me for the first time that
my story had actually reached the earth. I was glad indeed, and
determined to look you up at once. So to-day I caught the afternoon
boat, and here I am.

“Three days ago I was king on Poros. To-day I am nobody, incognito, and
in hiding, on the planet Earth, millions of miles away.” And he shrugged
his shoulders.

“But, Myles,” said I, “tell me how you came to leave Venus. You talk as
though you just calmly up and left for no reason whatever. Why didn’t
you bring the Princess Lilla with you? The last that I knew, according
to that manuscript which you shot from the skies, you and she had been
married in state, and Cupia had settled down to an era of peace,
freedom, and prosperity.”

Myles smiled wanly. “You would hardly guess that my silver planet has
since then run crimson with blood, so as to rival even her red brother,
Mars.”

“How did it ever happen?” I asked.

“You must remember that Prince Yuri of Cupia, the traitorous friend of
the oppressor ants, was still unaccounted for at the close of the War of
Liberation. Also that there remained alive on our continent, crowded
behind a new pale it is true, but chafing under defeat, and eager for
_revanche_, a still numerous nation of ants, headed by a newly-hatched
queen, who was but putty in the hands of veteran Formian statesmen. What
better combination of match and powder-magazine could be imagined, to
threaten the peace of a planet!”

Myles had just completed this long harangue, when we turned into the
gate of the farm; and I was soon introducing him to Mrs. Farley and the
rest of the household. You can imagine how thrilled they were to meet,
in the flesh, the author and hero of those adventures on the planet
Venus, which they had read and reread so many times, and how eager they
were to hear more.

“Did the match reach the powder?” asked Mrs. Farley anxiously. “Did
Prince Yuri get his revenge?”

“Listen,” Cabot replied, “and I will tell you all about it.”

So, far into the night we sat, while our guest roughly sketched the
events which had occurred since he shot the manuscript of his previous
adventures earthward. The details, he filled in for us from time to time
during his stay at our farm. I took copious notes; and, now that he is
gone, I have—with his permission—written up the story in as nearly as
possible his own words, and herein give it to the world.




                                  II

                        THE MATCH AND THE POWDER


This is the story told us by Myles Cabot, the radio man.

You will remember that a treaty had been concluded early in the year 359
with the defeated ant empire, whereby a new pale was set up many miles
to the south of the old, which had formerly served as the boundary
between Cupia and Formia. Behind this new pale were crowded the remnants
of the once great race of Formians. Cupia was at last free from a
domination which had lasted for five hundred years.

So, for nearly two years thereafter, Cupia had prospered.

Myles Cabot, the radio genius, lived in the palace of King Kew, with the
lovely princess whom he had won as a bride, Lilla, fairest of all the
women of Cupia. White skinned she was, with rose-petal cheeks. Her eyes
were sapphire-blue, and her short curly hair was the color of spun gold.
Slim she was, and lithe as a fairy, which resemblance was enhanced by
two tiny iridescent wings upon her back, and two butterfly-antennae
which projected from her forehead. These wings and antennae were
features common to all of her race; but the other distinguishing Cupian
characteristics, namely, the extra finger on each hand (which led them
to count by twelves, instead of by tens as we do), the extra toe on each
foot, and the total lack of ears, you never would notice.

Her earthman husband had so perfected the radio-set (which he always
carried as a means of communication with her and her people), that no
one would ever suspect him of not being a veritable Cupian himself. His
hair was trimmed so as to conceal his ears and the tiny earphones
therein. His microphone was located between his collar bones, where it
was effectively hidden by the neck-band of his toga. His batteries,
bulbs, and controls were on a belt worn next to his skin. Artificial
wings were fastened to his back, and artificial antennae projected from
his forehead. So that only a very close examination of his hands or his
bare feet would ever betray him as a creature of a race different from
that now dominant on the planet.

Now that Cupia no longer had to supply slaves to Formia, the Cupians
soon found that their customary four hours a day work produced much more
than was needed for all the useful purposes of their empire, and
accordingly Cabot persuaded King Kew to undertake a series of public
works, the first of which was to be a huge stadium for the holding of
games.

The new stadium had been completed shortly before Peace Day in the year
three hundred and fifty-ten, and the Peace Day exercises were held
there, instead of on the plaza of Kuana as heretofore. This was
particularly appropriate, for the stadium had been built on the exact
spot where had occurred the first clash between the Formians and the
Cupians at the beginning of the War of Liberation two years before.

The golden-haired Lilla was unable to be present, for she was expecting
a child. So she was safely ensconced in her castle at Lake Luno, a
thousand stads to the north of Kuana.

Cabot and she hoped for a boy. They hoped this with more than the
conventional fervor, for their son would be Crown Prince of Cupia, thus
supplanting the renegade Prince Yuri, whose whereabouts had been unknown
since the war. The birth of a son to the Princess Lilla would mean the
end of the menace of the possibility of Yuri succeeding the throne on
the death of King Kew, and bringing back the ants with him. It is true
that the Assembly had cancelled his title as crown prince, and had
awarded the succession to his younger brother, the loyal Prince Toron;
but most Cupians doubted the legality of this procedure.

Myles would have been at Lake Luno with his wife, had it not been for
the fact that his position as Minister of Play in the Royal Cabinet
absolutely required his presence at the exercises. In addition, he was
to shoot on one of the competing revolver teams, which were to furnish
part of the entertainment. So he had made—literally—a flying trip from
Lake Luno, arriving at Kuana just in time for the performance.

Formia, the ant-nation, had been invited to send a delegation, but had
declined. Who can blame them, considering that the occasion was to
commemorate their downfall? So the program went on without the ants, and
the stand reserved for them remained vacant, although the rest of the
huge amphitheater was jammed with some fifty thousand enthusiastic
Cupians.

The weather could not have been finer. The air was warm, fragrant,
hot-house scented, and fanned by gentle zephyrs; for the prevailing
winds, which blow ever toward the boiling seas, were less strong than
usual. Above, at a far height, shone the silver clouds which always
surround the planet, to shield it from the intense heat of the sun. The
light, diffused by these clouds, shed a soft radiance over the scene
below, transforming the gay coloring of the Cupian togas into delicate
pastel shades. The day was typical of Porovian, weather at its best, not
at all the proper setting for the ominous events which were impending,
all unforeseen by the holiday throng.

The exercises commenced by a young boy from the Kuana public schools
reciting the king’s famous address which had opened the war of two years
ago.

Next came the speech of welcome, but just as King Kew arose to broadcast
his remarks, a messenger arrived from the nearest radio station to
announce that one of the government planes had been sighted, displaying
signals to the effect that it was carrying a delegation from Formia.

So Queen Formis had decided to be represented after all!

Scarce had this news been received, when the plane itself appeared, and
soon settled softly into the middle of the arena. Thereat there was much
waving of the red pennant of Cupia from the stands, and even a few of
the black pennants of Formia showed themselves. Cabot vaguely wondered
how any of his people had happened to bring with them the flag of their
late enemies. But doubtless it was just so as to be prepared to receive
politely such a visitation as this.

Out of the airship disembarked an officer of the Cupian air navy, and
four ant men. It was over a year since Cabot had seen one of these
creatures, who once had been his only companions, and he noted with
surprise that they now seemed almost as strange to his eye as they had
on his first day on this planet. Huge shiny black ants they were, the
size of horses, with no other adornment than their green folding
umbrellas slung at their sides, in readiness for use if the blasting
sunlight should happen to shine through a rift in the silver clouds, and
the white paint-marks on their backs giving their own serial numbers and
the numbers of their fellow countrymen whom they had killed in the duels
so common among them.

Three of them had the trim shipshape look of members of the Formian
aristocracy, and the fourth was very old—as indicated by the quantity
of duel numbers which he bore—and walked with difficulty.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Side by side the ants approached the foot of the throne and made
obeisance to the king, a pleasing sight indeed to those who had long
been accustomed to see Cupia bow before Formis! Then one of their
delegation sent up a scroll of parchment by a page. Kew’s brow darkened
as he read it to himself.

Finally Kew spoke.

“One of your requests is impossible,” he thundered. “Prince Yuri is a
traitor. If we had been sure he were still alive, his surrender to us
would have been one of the conditions of the treaty. Now that you have
revealed his whereabout, know you that Cupia will consider no
propositions from Formis until Yuri is in our hands. I have spoken.”

Then suddenly the eyes of the whole multitude shifted from their ruler
to the aged ant man. To the horror of all, the entire upper half of his
body was opening as if on a hinge! And in the cavity thus exposed, there
lay a Cupian! The aged ant man had not been an ant man at all, but
merely a clever piece of mechanism, like the wooden horse at Troy.

The Cupian now sprang to his feet and approached the throne. It was
Prince Yuri himself!

“Is that so, my uncle?” he shouted. “Know then that Yuri is no traitor,
but rather is King of Poros!”

And before any one could interfere, the prince had drawn his revolver
and fired, and the beloved King Kew the Twelfth had fallen with a bullet
through his heart. Instantly a cheer arose, and from one end of that
huge forum to the other, there were flung out, not the red pennant of
the Kew dynasty, but rather the yellow pennant of Prince Yuri and the
black pennant of the ants. A few red flags fluttered pitiably, but the
administration was outnumbered two to one. Quite evidently the stadium
had been packed. Yuri, the traitor and outcast, at one stroke had become
King of Cupia.

So this was the situation of the match and the powder: Kew the Twelfth
lying on the floor of the royal box, his noble heart stilled forever;
Yuri, his nephew, the traitor to Cupia and friend of the ants, standing
over the body, with a smoking revolver in his hand; Myles Cabot and the
others of Kew’s cabinet and retinue transfixed by horror; and a vast
majority of the huge concourse proclaiming the assassin as their new
king!

What irony of fate that firearms, which had been unknown on Poros until
the earthman had introduced them for the overthrow of the ants, should
now be employed to confound the earthman himself and to restore the ants
to power! Well, he, too, was armed. As Field Marshal of Cupia, he
determined that Kew’s death must be avenged. So he, too, drew his
revolver and fired at the renegade prince.

But, as he did this, Hah Babbuh, his own Chief of Staff and friend,
struck his hand aside so that the bullet missed its mark.

“Fool!” hissed Hah. “It is death to offer violence to your king.”

“But is not that what Yuri has just done?” Cabot replied. “Then why
should not he suffer the penalty?”

“Because Yuri was crown prince when he fired the shot,” Hah explained,
“hence that very crime which killed his uncle, made him king, and thus
immune to punishment.”

But Cabot had to have the last word. “In that case, had we not better
page Prince Toron, who is next in the line of succession?”

In a moment he was sorry he had spoken. During his brief conversation,
the new king had been standing with his arms folded, and a sneer on his
handsome face. But now he became visibly agitated.

“Good Builder!” he exclaimed. “I had forgotten about my brother. A full
sarkarship and complete immunity to whoever brings me his head.”

“But, sire,” one of Yuri’s henchmen interposed, “there be those who say
that the death of Kew makes thy brother king, and not thee.”

“The Valley to whoever says it from now on!” was Yuri’s curt reply.

Those around him blanched with horror at the mention of this most
terrible of all Porovian punishments, the Valley of the Howling Rocks,
where condemned criminals are confined until the terrific din drives
them mad, and they perish.

All this took place in much less time than is required for the telling
of it. Meanwhile a bodyguard of the yellow faction had gathered about
Yuri, and had disarmed and handcuffed Myles Cabot and all the other
occupants of the royal box. Another bodyguard was protecting the three
ant men down in the arena.

Yuri now addressed Hah Babbuh: “For saving my life, professor, you have
my gratitude, though I realize that you were not actuated by any regard
for _me_.”

“Your majesty is correct as to that,” said the Babbuh with dignity.

“We will let that pass,” continued Yuri, “and, for your services, you
can have the posts of Field Marshal and Secretary of Play, which are
soon to become vacated.” He cast a meaning glance in Cabot’s direction.

But Hah, still with dignity, declined the honor.

Meanwhile the Kew faction in the audience had gradually been coming to
their senses. You will remember that Cabot’s own athletic club was to
compete in the pistol shooting. There now ensued a few moments of
consultation among their officers, and then they charged the bodyguard
of the three ant men. In this they were joined by most of the competing
club.

Although outnumbered, these men were all armed and were all crack shots.
How Cabot wished that they were equipped with the explosive bullets
which had been used in the late war. But, even as it was, they wrought
frightful havoc, and soon Cabot saw the three ants go down.

Meanwhile most of the unarmed members of the audience were crowding out
of the stadium, the ladies putting up their umbrellas as though that
would protect them from the flying bullets, which already had taken a
toll of several of their number. Then Yuri and his escort dragged their
prisoners to one of the exits, and Myles saw no more of the fighting
within the stadium.

Hah was still kept prisoner, in spite of having incurred the gratitude
of the new king. He had had his chance, but had preferred to side with
Cabot. What other alternative, then, than to incarcerate him!

The scene into which they emerged was equally turbulent. Cupian men and
women were pouring out of all the exits and streaming across the plain
toward the city; and it was evident that, when all these faction-crazed
individuals reached their quarters and got hold of their rifles, hell
would break loose in Kuana.

                 *        *        *        *        *

As Yuri and his captives proceeded toward the capital city, Cabot heard
a sound to the southward. So, straining his manacled hands as far to one
side as he could, he switched off his receiving set. This set existed
for the purpose of enabling the earthman to hear the radiated speech of
the Cupians. But, when he wished to listen to some _real_ sound, he
could do it far better with his set turned off.

There could be no doubt as to the sound which he now heard. It was the
Cupian airfleet from Wautoosa. Now, indeed, the tables would be turned
on Prince Yuri!

And, to add to Cabot’s joy, the remnants of his own hundred now fought
its way out of the exit, and pursued King Yuri and his captives across
the plain.

The fleet flew low in bombing formation; and, as they drew near, the
occupants of the leading planes finally became visible. Cabot strained
his eyes to try and recognize some of the well-known leaders of the
Cupian air navy. Nearer and nearer drew the planes. More and more
distinct became the occupants. Cabot thrilled at the thought that in a
few minutes, with the aid of his loyal navy, he would be in control of
the situation once more, and the renegade Prince Yuri would be at his
mercy.

But alas, his joy was short-lived. Horrors! Every ship was manned by
ants!

Cabot’s hundred noticed this, too, just in time; for, even as they
scattered, a bomb dropped from the point plane and exploded in their
midst. Yuri was in control of the air. All was over.

It afterward transpired that while most of the personnel of the Cupian
air navy had been on leave to attend the games at Kuana, it had been an
easy matter for a handful of supporters of the renegade prince to seize
Wautoosa, and to dispatch the planes at once to Formia to load them up
with ant men. There were still living south of the pale enough members
of the old ant air navy to pilot the entire fleet.

The return to Kuana from the stadium was devoid of further event, and
the once glorious cabinet and generals of King Kew were soon safely
locked up in the mangool.

Poblath the mango, Cabot’s old friend Poblath, presently appeared,
having returned from the stadium. To Cabot’s surprise, Poblath gloated
over him.

“Aha!” he exclaimed. “I have long awaited this day. You won Bthuh away
from me, and then cast her aside. You thought that I had forgotten or
forgiven, but you were mistaken. A Poblath never forgets nor forgives.
‘Forgiveness is the folly of weaklings, who would trade honor for
peace.’”

Ever the philosopher!

Poblath continued: “Now I shall take away your electrical antennae, for
this time the king will rule that this is lawful.”

He looked inquiringly at Yuri, who nodded in reply.

In permitting Poblath to remove Cabot’s radio set, the new king was
violating one of the most solemn laws of the kingdom. It was unlawful to
deprive any Cupian, or even Formian, of his antennae.

The origin of this rule was shrouded in antiquity. It was generally
supposed that the rule was merely humanitarian, based upon the fact that
it would be a most cruel and unusual punishment to make a deaf-mute out
of a person, thus cutting him off from all communication with his fellow
beings, except by pad and stylus. But a more probable explanation is
that deprivation of antennae would be an incentive to crime of the worst
sort, for a person who had been so treated was rendered immune from
death in the Valley of the Howling Rocks, a punishment reserved solely
for the worst criminals.

Once before, early in Cabot’s stay on Poros, Yuri had tried to take away
his headset, but had been blocked by a ruling of King Kew. But now there
was no one to say him nay.

Cabot was astounded, not at Yuri, but rather at Poblath. Was this the
friend with whom Lilla and he had played ming-dah night after night? Had
his friendship merely been a thing of expediency?

Cabot had once been Poblath’s friend, and then his enemy, and then his
friend, and now his enemy again. Yuri had once been Poblath’s enemy, and
was now his friend. Always Poblath had played in with the upper dog. It
certainly looked as though he were a base opportunist, for all his
philosophy.

As Myles formulated these cynical thoughts, Poblath’s eye, on the side
farthest from King Yuri, closed slowly and flickered spasmodically. It
was the American wink, which Cabot had taught him. The earthman began to
understand.

Then Poblath stepped close and, just as he snatched the apparatus
roughly from Cabot’s head, he radiated softly into Cabot’s antennae:
“Your belongings will be safe in my office.”

Then Poblath withdrew, carefully carrying Cabot’s radio set, and leaving
his assistant Trisp in charge. The captives were locked in cells, Hah
Babbuh and Cabot together; and the new king departed, presumably to take
charge of the palace from which he had been exiled so long. Poblath
thoughtfully provided Myles with a stylus and some paper; for writing
with one’s hands shackled behind one’s back was possible, although
difficult.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The city remained comparatively quiet the rest of the day. Through the
bars of the cell windows the prisoners could see down into the street
below. All afternoon long, ant-fighters marched by, in detachments, on
their way to the capitol. Gradually there were fewer and fewer Cupians
to be seen in the open, as ant policemen took over the patrolling of the
streets. Evidently Yuri did not trust even the faction which had put him
in power. So Cupia soon came to realize what it means to be governed by
a man who is at heart an ant.

And thus, all the rest of the day, Yuri consolidated his position as
King of Cupia. The opposition, which even at its height had been merely
sporadic, gradually died out to nearly nothing! It was amazing that the
Cupians, after having so recently regained their freedom in a
hard-fought war, should so easily let it slip through their fingers
again with scarcely a struggle.

And yet were they to be blamed? For many generations, through five
hundred years of servile peace, they had been the slaves of the ants;
and, had it not been for the advent of Cabot the Minorian upon their
planet, they never would have tasted even this brief two years of
freedom.

All that they knew of warfare had been taught them as a game, under
Cabot’s competent leadership. Leadership! That was the key to the
situation. Leadership, and an ideal, a rallying point. In the great War
of Liberation, Myles Cabot had furnished the leadership, and King Kew
the Twelfth had furnished the rallying point with his now famous speech,
which I always like to compare with Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. In
fact, Cabot, too, had furnished the slogan with which that successful
war had begun: “Forward into Formia, for Cupia, King Kew and Princess
Lilla!”

Now, Kew lay dead in the stadium with a bullet through his loyal and
sturdy heart. Lilla, their beloved Princess, was a thousand stads away
to the northward. And Cabot the Minorian lay shackled in jail, deprived
of his wonderful electrical headset, without which he was a mere deaf
and dumb earthbeast, with no means to hold communication with his
fellows, and in fact with no claim to being even human.

On the throne sat a prince of the royal house, the elder son of the
sister of the late king. Apparently he was the rightful ruler of the
Cupians. And if their rightful ruler chose to bring with him the
domination of the ant men, it was too bad, but what could they do about
it?

True, the Assembly had cancelled Yuri’s succession to the throne and had
bestowed it upon his younger brother, the loyal Prince Toron; but most
of the populace doubted the legality of that move. Besides, Yuri was now
on the throne. Possession was nine points of the law; and the Cupians,
by five hundred years of slavery, had been trained to be great
respecters of authority.

If Toron would but appear and contest the succession, there might be
those who would rally to his standard. But where was he? He had been at
the games in the stadium that morning, but no one had seen him since the
assassination. Where was he now? A fugitive, with a price set on his
head! It is hard to rally around a fugitive, especially when his
whereabouts are unknown.

So Kuana rapidly subsided into quiescence. What might be going on in the
rest of the kingdom could not be known; but, as for the capital, that
appeared to be Yuri’s.

Just before sunset, however, there came a sudden change in the
atmosphere. Firing recommenced. Some of the yellow flags were torn down,
and replaced with red. Some Cupians sallied from the house across the
road from the jail, assaulted an ant policeman, and threw up a barricade
extending from one side of the road to the other.

Thereat there was much running around in the corridors of the jail, and
hurried conferences between the wardens, all of which the captives could
see through the gratings of the cell doors.

“What is it all about?” Cabot wrote on the paper.

And his cellmate wrote back: “I can’t understand it. They are shouting:
‘Long live King Kew!’”

What could it mean? King Kew was dead. They had seen him lying there in
the stadium with the blood pouring out of a gaping hole in his right
breast. And yet now the populace were shouting: “Long live King Kew.”

What could it mean?




                                  III

                               GREAT NEWS


Just then the cell door opened, and a shackled figure was thrust rudely
in. It was Poblath, the mango. His captor was Trisp, the bar-mango.

It was now Trisp’s turn to gloat. Said he: “Long have I served as your
assistant, O Poblath, and long have I coveted your position. Now it is
mine for the asking. I suspected you of treason when you deprived Cabot
of his antennae. I noted that you preserved his apparatus in a cupboard
in your office. But when you refused to permit the jailers to fire on
the insurgent blockade in the street below, then I knew for sure of your
treason to King Yuri. Now I go to clear the blockade. Thence to the king
to be made mango of Kuana!”

He left. From the window, the three prisoners watched the insurgents
below. In a few moments the jail opened fire on them, and they withdrew
in disorder. Once more the street was clear for the passage of alien
troops.

“But they are still cheering for King Kew,” wrote Hah.

By this time Poblath had begun to recover from the shock of his sudden
incarceration. He called to the professor, and soon the latter had
turned his back to the ex-mango and was rummaging beneath Poblath’s toga
with his shackled hands. After considerable search he found what he was
after, a small pouch containing three keys.

In a moment the prisoners were free of their handcuffs. Another moment
and the cell door swung open. The prisoners emerged and glanced
cautiously around.

The corridor outside was dark and silent. Most of the wardens were on
the roof, firing at the insurgents who had returned to the attack with
great force.

Cabot, Hah Babbuh and Poblath did not stop to release any of their
companions, but hurried to the ground floor. On the way they met but two
of the jail guards. Hah smashed in the skull of one with a handcuff; the
other had the good judgment to join the party.

It scarcely seemed a moment before the big steel doors swung open at
Poblath’s touch, to admit the besiegers. A brief exchange of greetings,
and they swarmed up the stairs to clear the roof, while Myles and his
two friends followed, to release the other prisoners.

Every prisoner, regardless of what he was in for, was given a chance at
freedom if he would join Cabot’s forces, and none refused. They were all
freed by the time the party from the roof returned with sufficient
captured arms to equip nearly all the rest. On the roof every warden lay
dead.

Then the cabinet, the generals, the leaders of the invading party,
Poblath and Cabot adjourned to Poblath’s office for a council of war. Of
course, the first thing was for Myles to get his headset again; but
alas, the cupboard lock had been wrenched from its hinges, and the
precious apparatus lay smashed to atoms on the floor.

I cannot regale you with very much of the conversation which took place
during the events which now crowded fast upon Cabot; for, from now on,
all words radiated by the antennae of the Cupians were absolutely lost
to him.

Hah Babbuh, as Chief of Staff, presided in view of the earth-man’s
disability. He opened the conference with some questions to the leader
of the insurgents, and the latter replied.

The effect was electrical! The whole assemblage rose to their feet, with
expressions of intense joy on their faces, rushed over to Cabot and
began patting him on the cheek, the Porovian equivalent of a handshake.

What could it mean?

Finally, sensing his bewilderment, Poblath seized the paper and stylus,
and wrote the startling information: “You are the father of King Kew the
Thirteenth!”

When they had all calmed down a bit, it developed that Princess Lilla
had given birth to a son at Lake Luno about an hour before the old king
had been shot. This made the baby the King of Cupia, and deprived Yuri
not only of his title to the throne, but also of his immunity for the
assassination of Kew the Twelfth.

“Would that I had not stayed your hand!” wrote Hah Babbuh.

To which message, Poblath added the philosophical comment, “He who plays
safe will often be sorry.”

Cabot was too full of surprised joy and wonder to write any reply.

Having completed the celebration, the conference settled down to
business again.

During the congratulations, the earth man had scarce had time for any
feelings except stunned stupefaction; but now, as the conference took up
its duties again, his radio-deafness gave him a chance to reflect.

“My baby! My baby boy! _Our_ little son!”

A warm thrill of pride and joy flooded through Cabot’s body. But this
was immediately followed by a heart-gripping pang of fear. Was Lilla
well? And this question was followed by another, even more terrifying.
Were the Princess Lilla and the baby king safe from the clutches of
Yuri?

Yuri had killed his venerable uncle. He had set a price on the head of
his own brother. He had turned his country over to the control of its
hereditary enemies. He was wading through blood to a coveted throne.
Then was there any doubt that he would murder his beautiful cousin and
her infant, if they stood in the path of his remorseless ambition?

Cabot, seizing his pad and stylus, plunged into the work of the council.
They must act, and act quickly, if they would save his loved ones.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was agreed that Myles Cabot should be proclaimed regent—it ought, by
rights, to have been Lilla, but Cupia was in need of an active regent in
Kuana at that moment—and he should keep the same cabinet, making
Poblath Minister of Play to fill the place vacated by his own elevation;
that Poblath and a specially selected squad of sharpshooters were to
take the jail kerkools and try and break through, rouse the north
country, and protect Lilla and the baby; that Buh Tedn and the regent
should beat a strategic retreat to the northward with all the troops
which they could gather; and that Hah Babbuh, with a mere handful of
followers, was to hold the jail as a nucleus for the dissatisfied
element of the city, and also for the purpose of diverting Prince Yuri’s
attention from the strategic retreat.

The Mecca of all these operations was to be the town of Pronth in the
Okarze Mountains, beyond Lake Luno. There the inhabitants were known to
be of unquestioned loyalty, not only to the Kew dynasty, but also to
Myles Cabot. There a mere handful could hold the passes indefinitely
against an army, and there the air pockets would protect them to some
extent from the airplanes of the ants.

Prince Toron, as already stated, had been present at the games in the
stadium, but nothing had been seen or heard of him since the
assassination.

The first step in these maneuvers was carried out by Cabot’s detachment
sallying forth and manning the barricades in front, which had not been
cleared away by the enemy during the battle in the jail. A few shots
from the rifles of Cabot’s Cupians, and the long avenue was cleared of
ant men for its entire length. Meanwhile Poblath and his sharpshooters
packed themselves into the police kerkools in the garage of the jail,
and the gyroscopes were set running.

At a signal from Buh Tedn, the garage doors were flung open, the
barricades pulled aside and the swift and silent two-wheeled Porovian
autos charged forth. With a cheer, Cabot’s party followed them. At the
capitol, the kerkools turned sharp to the right and were soon lost to
view, nor were they in sight on the cross-street when those who were
following on foot reached the turn.

The foot troops had considerable difficulty in making the turn, for they
were subjected to a withering fire from the palace. But, by sending
snipers in advance to take cover at the corner, they were able to reduce
the enemy fire considerably, and the rest of the party crossed the spot
at the double-quick with very few casualties.

Out of range of the palace, they reformed their forces and proceeded
without event to the northern edge of the city. Here, however, they met
a formidable blockade of Formians. As there were no signs of disabled
kerkools, it was rightly assumed that Poblath had gotten through before
the erection of this barricade. But how Buh Tedn and Cabot were to get
_their_ troops through was another question.

Tedn decided to charge, in three successive waves, and accordingly
launched the first assault.

As the first assault was beaten back, the second passed it with a rush,
only to recoil in confusion before the fire of the Formians. The third
wave flatly refused to go forward. In spite of the lessons taught by the
overwhelming Cupian success in the great war of liberation, the
tradition of Formian invincibility was still deeply rooted in the
subconscious minds of most Cupians.

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.

The street was lighted but vacant. The night was warm and moist and
fragrant, as are all nights on Poros, but it afforded no balm for the
aching head of Myles Cabot.

Among the dead Cupians in the barricade were many bodies of the ant-men,
still grappling with their adversaries, even in death. Myles counted the
bodies of the Cupian slain and was reassured to find that they
represented but a mere negligible fraction of those who had stormed the
redoubt. Of course, it was just as hard on the dead to be dead,
regardless of proportions; so Cabot did not have the heart to rejoice at
the fewness of the slain. But at least it was comforting to know that a
large majority of his brave men had survived, and even more comforting
to realize that they were presumably by this time far on their way
northward toward Lake Luno, Lilla and the little king. At least Cabot
hoped so. Of course, the Cupian assault might perhaps have been
repulsed. At any rate, the victors, whoever they had been, had robbed
the dead of their arms and ammunition. Cabot’s revolver, being in his
right hand, had been overlooked, for the inhabitants of this planet are
left-handed; but his cartridge belt was gone.

Just then his thoughts were rudely interrupted by the arrival of a
Formian sentinel. Myles withdrew precipitately into a darkened doorway.
The ant man halted directly outside the hiding place, almost within
reach of Cabot’s hands. For a moment Cabot had the idea of shooting him.
Then it occurred to him that the noise of his revolver would attract
attention and bring other ant men to the scene. Then he realized that it
would not, for, of course, the inhabitants of Poros have no sense of
hearing. So he fired and rid the planet of one more member of the
dominant race. But this left him only four cartridges. He could not
replenish his supply from his victim, for the latter had been armed only
with a sword.

Stepping over the dead body, Cabot staggered down the street and soon
gained the open country. Here there were no more street lights, and
accordingly walking in the pitch darkness became very difficult. Finally
after falling off the road several times, he groped his way into the
woods and, crawling into the heart of a tartan bush, lay down to sleep.

Until reaching this haven of refuge, he had really had scarcely a moment
for consecutive thought since the fatal shot had been fired that
morning. Think of it! This morning, only six parths ago, he had been
sitting at a Peace Day celebration, as Field Marshal and Minister of
Play of a peaceful nation. Now this whole nation had been plunged into
civil war and invaded by its enemies, and he himself was a hunted
fugitive. And in the meantime what a host of events had occurred! A
beloved monarch assassinated. His traitorous murderer declared king. The
best and most loyal men of all Cupia thrust rudely into prison. Cabot
himself deprived of both speech and hearing, by the destruction of his
artificial antennae. The domination of hideous ants over Cupia, which
had taken a grueling war to destroy, now restored by a _coup d’etat_ in
an instant. Poblath overthrown as mango of Kuana.

Then the joyous news of the birth of a new king to dispute the
succession with the renegade Yuri. Fighting in the streets. The siege of
the jail. The renaissance of the Army of Liberation. The storming of the
redoubt. And finally Cabot’s own seeming death and resurrection.

He wondered for the safety of the Princess Lilla. And of his son, the
new-born king. Poor wee baby! Little would he know, as he lay kicking
and bubbling in his cradle, that he was the storm center of a whole
empire, that the fate of a whole planet was wrapped up in him.

Myles thrilled at the thought that he was a father. Yet he shuddered at
the realization of what lay before his loved one. And thus musing, he
fell into a fitful sleep, from which he awakened in the morning with no
clear understanding as to how much of his recollections of the day
before had been reality and how much a dream. In fact, it was not until
many sangths later, when he had an opportunity to compare notes with
several others of the chief actors of this eventful drama, that he was
able to reconstruct the actual happenings of Peace Day in the year
three-fifty-ten. And even now, the entire day stands forth in his memory
as one long, terrible, continuous nightmare.

But, from the morning of his awakening in the tartan bush, his
recollections, although terrible, are clear.

His first thoughts on arousing himself were: “Lilla! And my baby!”

So, pushing the protecting leaves to one side, he set out to the
northward. A thousand stads away lay Lake Luno and the royal family.
Four days’ travel by kerkool. Fifty days’ travel on foot under favorable
circumstances! And here he was essaying it, battered and wounded,
without antennae, without food, without an umbrella to shield him if the
scorching sun should burst through the protecting clouds; in fact, with
nothing but an army revolver, four cartridges, and an unconquerable
will.

Myles Cabot recited to himself:

    “If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
     To serve your turn long after they are gone,
     And so hold on when there is nothing in you,
     Except the Will that says to them: ‘Hold on’!”

He could and he would! And so he set out on that thousand-mile journey.

His plan was to reach the nearby suburb of Lai, where he had many
friends. Surely one of these would lend him fresh raiment and a kerkool
in which to overtake the army of Buh Tedn.

At the first brook to which he came, he shed his toga and washed from it
as much of the blood and grime as possible. Also he bathed his face and
head. The cool water stilled the ache of his wound, and refreshed him
greatly. His appearance now was thoroughly presentable, but the
destruction of his antennae by Trisp in the jail prevented him from
looking like a real Cupian any longer. At most he looked like a deformed
person, a deaf-mute. Still, his friends would not mind this, if he could
but reach them.

He breakfasted off of milk which he drew from a herd of aphids, those
green cows kept by both races of intelligent beings on Poros. And then
he felt nearly his old self again, and pressed on with more vigor.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Around midday, 600 o’clock, he reached the outskirts of the town of Lai.
One of the first houses was the villa of a very intimate friend of his
and Lilla’s. There it stood, set in a clearing, surrounded by thick
woods, a little way to the right of the road, at the end of a
flower-flanked path. The architecture was typically Cupian, white stucco
with steep red-tilted roof, ornamented with turrets, towers and
minarets.

Just as Cabot was about to turn in at the gate, a Formian appeared at
the door. This was unexpected. His friend had never before been known to
entertain ant men. Ant men were the last creatures on the planet whom
Myles desired to see at that moment, so he hastily passed by.

At last he topped a rise, from which he could see the whole of Lai
stretched beneath him. And what a sight met his eyes. Not a Cupian
stirring in the usually bustling little village, but instead all the
streets patrolled by ant men.

There would be no haven here. So Myles sadly circled the town, rejoined
the road at the other side, and resumed his journey northward.

Day after day he trudged on, avoiding the towns, which he rightly
assumed were policed by ant men as Lai had been, and hiding whenever a
kerkool approached or an airplane motor sounded in the sky. True, the
kerkool might bear friends, but he was taking no chances.

His sustenance was root-crops stolen from the fields, edible twig-knobs
plucked in the woods, green milk drawn from the grazing aphids, and even
lobsterlike parasites plucked from the sides of these creatures. Once he
was about to extract a bullet from one of his cartridges and discharge
the blank into a pile of dried leaves to start a fire and roast some of
these parasites; but, realizing that his ammunition was now limited to
four rounds, he decided to forego the experiment.

His hair and beard grew long and unkempt, so that now there was no
possible hope of escaping unrecognized, if ever he should be seen. For
in the whole history of the planet Poros, there had never been but one
person with long hair and beard, and that one person was Myles Cabot,
the earthman. Cupians cannot grow beards, and the hair on their heads
remains a fixed length, never requiring cutting.

As he plodded along, day after day, he did a great deal of thinking.
Most of it was useless recrimination: “Why wasn’t I a bit quicker on the
draw, that fatal morning in the stadium? Why did I ever leave Lilla
alone at Lake Luno, even at the behest of her father, the king? Was I
not influenced by my conceited desire to pose as a popular hero on the
anniversary of the beginning of my great victory over Formia, and by my
wish to star as a pistol shot, rather than by deference to the king?”

And so on. And so on.

Then, too, he worried a great deal about the safety of Lilla, and their
little son. And about the progress of the civil war. Not daring to
approach any towns, he was completely cut off from all knowledge of
current events. The only clues he had were the fact that he met no
Cupians stirring abroad, that the roads were constantly patrolled by
ants in kerkools, and that airplanes scoured the sky.

This might mean any one of several things. For instance, it might mean
that the insurrection had crumbled, and that the last survivors were
being run down. Or perhaps the ant men were trying to prevent
reenforcements from joining an already augmented Cupian army in the
Okarze Mountains. Or perhaps it might even be that they were scouting
against an impending advance of overwhelming forces from the Cupian
strongholds. But whatever it meant, Cabot was resolved to reach Lake
Luno, and find out what had happened to Lilla, and little Kew.

Finally, one day, he espied through the woods the tower of one of the
radio relay-stations which formed a part of the network of wireless
communication which he had installed throughout the kingdom.

As Minister of Play in the cabinet of King Kew XII, Myles had introduced
radio broadcasting, and thus had given to the Cupians the benefit of
music, which heretofore their lack of ears had denied them, but which he
had been able to translate into their antenna-sense.

One of the stations of his broadcasting system now loomed before him.
There was more than an even chance that it was an automatic station, and
that the attendant would be absent. Although a trip to this tower would
take Cabot a bit out of his way, yet it might enable him to listen in on
the news of the day, and thus find out how his loved ones fared, and how
the revolution was progressing. So thither he turned his weary steps.

The aerial loomed above the tree-tops about a stad away to the right of
the road. Thick woods intervened. The trees were mostly of that typical
Porovian variety which resembles a greatly enlarged form of that
red-knobbed many-branched gray lichen which is so commonly found growing
on rocks and tree-stumps on the earth. There was a heavy underbrush of
ferns and small conifera. Gayly colored plants, of the sort which grace
the fields and gardens of Poros, were conspicuously absent; but there
was no lack of tropical vines and gray moss. Here and there flitted
four-winged snakes, but in numbers merely sufficient to be a nuisance,
not a menace.

Through all this tangle, Myles Cabot had to plow his way for at least
one whole stad, in order to reach the relay-station. And to add to his
discomfiture, the sky began to darken. This portended one of those
torrential Porovian thunderstorms, the like of which is never
experienced on earth.

Well, there was one thing to be thankful for: the relay-station would
furnish a shelter from the storm, if he could but reach it in time.

He did. The storm had not yet broken when he entered the little clearing
where the station stood. A brief reconnaissance convinced him that the
shack was vacant. Its door was standing open. So he cautiously made his
way inside.

But, even as he entered, he realized how foolish he had been, for of
course the set would be without earphones, as the inhabitants of Poros
have no sense of hearing; and Cabot’s own earphones lay smashed on the
floor of the office of the mango of Kuana.

All was not lost however. He could still use the set for the purpose of
sending in dots and dashes a cryptic message, which Poblath alone would
understand. Such as “When will we four play ming-dah again?” for
Poblath, and his wife Bthuh had been the most frequent opponents for
Myles and Lilla in that four-handed Porovian checker-game. Or, for
Toron’s antennae alone, “The black light still shines,” for to no one
except Toron had Cabot disclosed that masterpiece of optical science
which had safeguarded the American troopships in the war against
Germany. So with renewed courage, he continued to enter. But, alas, the
entire installation lay wrecked by some vandal hand.

Cabot surveyed the disorder sadly for a long time. Then he turned to the
door to resume his journey north—

And looked into the muzzle of a rifle held by an ant man in the doorway.

Up went Cabot’s hands. The other advanced to shackle him.




                                  IV

                                TRAPPED


At this point in the narrative, it is both fitting and proper for me to
digress for a moment, in order to explain how these radio-relay stations
came to be dotted all over the country of Cupia.

Back in the early days, radio engineers speculated as to why it is that
a crystal set can often receive much more distant stations when located
in the vicinity of a tube set. Various more or less absurd theories were
advanced, such as induction, a field of negative resistance, and so
forth. Yet the true explanation is very simple. It was one of the first
points about radio communication which Cabot explained to me after his
return from Poros.

As for induction being the cause, one has only to consider the
electrical law whereby the induction field diminishes as the square of
the distance, whereas the field due to actual radiation diminishes only
as the distance.

“A field of negative resistance”—I defy any one to explain what he
means by that in such a connection.

One further theory remains, namely, electrostatic coupling. I do not
know that this explanation has ever been seriously advanced. If
advanced, it would be very plausible. But I should like to see a
proponent of such an explanation draw a diagram of the electrostatic
coupling between a crystal set with a coil antenna, and a vacuum set
with capacity antennas, or vice versa. Maybe it is possible, but I don’t
see how; and Myles Cabot, the greatest radio expert of two worlds, is my
authority for saying that it can’t be done.

No, Cabot’s explanation which follows sounds a lot more sensible than
any of the foregoing. And the fact that he has demonstrated his theory,
and has put it to practical use on Poros, proves it to be so. The man
who has done that, will some day find a practical use even for static.
Enough said!

This is his explanation: Compare the situation in a sending set and a
receiving set. In the former, with the tube oscillating, we have in the
antenna-circuit an oscillating current with impressed sound waves. A
regenerative receiving-set picks up this current, very weak, and builds
it up to the limit of the capabilities of our tube; so that we have in
the antenna-circuit of a receiving-set the same situation as though we
were sending, only, of course, weaker because of the small size of our
tube. And we actually _are_ sending at such a time, although faintly,
thus augmenting the impulse from the distant broadcasting station, and
thus undoubtedly accounting for the hitherto unexplained phenomenon of
long-distance crystal reception.

Cabot, while still on earth, demonstrated this theory to his own
satisfaction by experimenting with a tube-set and a crystal-set half a
mile apart, and by actually catching in his crystal-set the
not-quite-damped-out sixty-cycle hum of the power-line which he was
using to run his tube-set. Then, by substituting a large
transmitting-tube for his small receiving-tube, although still leaving
the set hooked up as a receiving set, he was able to relay even distant
stations to friends with crystal sets scattered all over Back Bay,
Boston. The removal of the phone circuit was the final step to convert
his set into a pure radio relay-station, nothing more.

These early earthly experiments of his recurred to his mind when
establishing the radio routes on the planet Poros. Hence the myriad
relay-stations which dotted the planet, in one of which he now found
himself a prisoner.

But as the ant man advanced to secure his captive, the long-impending
tropical thunderstorm broke in all its fury.

Gusts of rain swirled in at the door. Crash after crash of almost
continuous thunder shook the ground. The lightning fell in one
continuous sheet of flame, so that all was as bright as daylight. But
still the ant man kept his rifle pointed at Cabot. Quite evidently the
creature wished to capture the earthman alive.

Finally there came a roar more deafening than all the others, followed
by a ripping of timbers, a deluge of rain, and then the collapse of the
entire building, pinning both captor and captive beneath it. The tower
of the aerial had been struck by lightning, and had fallen.

The dash of rain against his face brought Myles Cabot to his senses. He
found himself momentarily free from the ant man, and yet not free at
all, merely free from the ant man, for he was pinned to the floor, flat
on his back, with a heavy timber across his chest. Struggle as he would,
he could not dislodge it. And to make matters worse, a stream of rain
water now began to flow into the room, threatening to submerge him. The
Formian was nowhere to be seen; evidently he was buried by some other
part of the building.

Although the stream continually flowed past, yet, as the downpour kept
on, the level of the water gradually rose, until only an extreme craning
of Cabot’s neck kept his nose above the surface.

Finally, with a tidal wave, the waters swept over his head, and at the
same instant something beneath him gave way, and he was carried under
the beam and along with the current. Quite evidently the supports which
held the floor had been washed out just in time.

After a few deep breaths to relieve his strangled lungs, Cabot scrambled
to his feet in the shallow stream. The rain had stopped, but dark clouds
still scudded along beneath the silver sky.

Cabot made his way back to the road, bruised and wet, and continued his
interminable journey northward.

As he trudged on, he had plenty of time for thought, although his senses
had to be always on the alert for scouting-planes, for kerkools on the
roads, and for other forms of enemy activity. At towns, and even at
isolated farms, he had to detour with exceeding care, in order to escape
detection. In some places where the woods happened to be fairly open,
this was not so hard; but wherever the undergrowth was thick and
tangled, this detouring proved to be most laborious.

                 *        *        *        *        *

All day long he pressed on, day after day, northward, ever northward,
toward Luno Castle and his loved ones. His thoughts consisted mostly in
worrying, and wondering what had occurred to Lilla and to baby Kew, of
fearing for the worst, and of blaming himself for whatever might have
happened to them.

Undoubtedly the fleet of kerkools, manned by his friend Poblath, the
mango of the Kuana jail, had long since reached Lake Luno. Undoubtedly
other kerkools, manned by supporters of the atrocious Prince Yuri had
also arrived at that point. Probably considerable bodies of the
partisans of both factions in this civil war had also congregated there.
The question was: which group had got there first, and what had been the
outcome of the clash that had inevitably followed? The answer Cabot
could not know until he arrived there himself. So he pressed on, ever
thinking of Lilla, of Lilla and his baby; and ever borne up by his
longing for his loved ones.

The one thing which saved him from exhaustion was the fact that travel
at night was impractical. In the starless jet blackness of the Porovian
night, it was difficult to keep on the concrete road, and even more
difficult for him to find his way on detours through the tangled
tropical forests. Thus, for six out of the twelve parths that make up
one revolution of the planet about its axis, he was forced against his
will to rest, regardless of how eager he was to reach his journey’s end.

Every night, as the western sky turned pink from the unseen setting sun,
Cabot would penetrate into the woods at the side of the road, seek out
some thicket, crawl into the midst of it, lie down, cover his weary body
with leaves, and sink into a troubled sleep.

In detouring, except in the early morning or the late afternoon, when
the pink light on the one hand or on the other served to show him which
was east and which was west, it was very difficult to keep himself
properly oriented; and accordingly he frequently lost his way.

On one such occasion, after wandering aimlessly through the woods for
some time, he finally came out upon a grassy hill, overlooking a small
sandy plain. He sat down for a while on the crest, and surveyed the
scene below him. It was by far the most peculiar expanse of sand which
he had ever seen. Its entire surface was pitted with large cup-shaped
depressions. But almost every one of these craters here was approached
by a long, winding furrow, as though a huge snow-plow had got lost for
quite a distance, in trying to make its way out of the crater.

Myles Cabot was primarily an inquisitive scientist, so for the present
he forgot his troubles, forgot even his quest, engrossed in the problem
presented by the scene on the plain below. As he intently scanned the
view, his eye caught a slight movement of the sand at the bottom of one
of the depressions. He watched this particular hole for some time, but
nothing further happened; so he studied one of the others for similar
phenomena, and at last was rewarded by the sight of a slight spurt of
sand.

“These holes are probably of a volcanic nature,” he mused, “but
apparently their eruptions are not powerful enough to be dangerous. This
is the first evidence of volcanic action which I have ever seen on the
continent of Poros. Accordingly a study of these holes may furnish some
valuable information, bearing upon the nature of the boiling seas which
surround the continent.”

So he arose, and trotted down the grassy slope to the sandy plain below.
Along the edge of the sand there ran a little brook. Here was a chance
to combine business with pleasure. So Cabot laid aside his revolver, for
which he had long since fashioned a rough sling of grass-rope. He took
off his toga, washed it thoroughly in the stream, and hung it up to dry
on a nearby bush. He bathed himself, and took a long drink of the cool
water. Then, feeling much refreshed, he walked across the plain to
examine the craters, while his clothing dried.

The sand was hot and dry. It was infested with brinks, those miniature
kangaroolike lizards which are so common on Poros. But he scarcely
heeded the heat or the brinks, so intent was he on the scientific
problem before him.

Gingerly he approached the rim of one of the craters, and sat naked for
a long time on the edge, staring into the interior. The hole was about
fifty paces across, and of a depth fully six or eight times the height
of a man. There was absolutely nothing remarkable about it except its
size and the problem of what could possibly have created it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

After a period of intense watching, Cabot tired and permitted his gaze
to shift to the other holes about him, then to the edge of the plain,
then to the country beyond. Whereat he was startled, and a bit annoyed,
to find that a stretch of road was in plain view but a short distance
from his position. Conversely his position must be in plain view from
the road, and therefore he was in danger of being observed by the
occupants of any passing kerkool.

Instantly his quest, and his duty to his country and his family became
uppermost in his mind. Forgotten was his scientific interest in the
mysterious plain with its strange depressions, as he jumped to his feet
to resume his journey northward.

But, unfortunately, his scrambling to his feet disturbed the ground
where he had been sitting. It crumbled away beneath him. He stood for a
moment at the very edge of the crater, pawing the air, struggling for a
foothold; and then, amid a shower of pebbles, he slid down into the
depths.

His slide was not absolutely precipitate. He struggled upward as the
gravel rolled down beneath him; and thus, slipping, scrambling, gaining
an inch and then losing two, he gradually approached the bottom.

His descent was momentarily stayed by a piece of rotten log about the
size of his own body, which projected from the side of the crater, and
with which he came in contact; but finally his struggles loosened it,
and it bounded down the slope ahead of him. As he slid after it, he
instinctively watched its downward course. It rolled to the exact center
of the bottom of the pit; and as it came to a stop, the sand beneath it
heaved convulsively, and from each side of it rose out of the ground a
glittering scimitar fully ten feet long, which closed upon the log like
the blades of a pair of buttonhole scissors, and dragged it beneath the
surface.

A moment later, and Cabot himself rolled to the exact spot where the log
had been seized and had disappeared.

Like a flash he realized the full extent of his predicament. He had
fallen into the trap of a gigantic ant-bear. Years ago, as a boy at
Atlantic City, he had often lain on the piazza floor of the bathhouse
and watched through the cracks the antics of the miniature beasts of
prey in the sand below. He had seen them dig their pits; two or three
inches across; he had seen them plow a trail to their pits; he had seen
inquisitive beach ants, in search of food, follow these trails, fall
into the pit, and be dragged struggling beneath the surface, to furnish
a meal for the ant bear which lay in wait, buried in the center of the
depression which it had dug. But never had he pictured himself as
falling into one of these traps.

Was he in one now? It could hardly be. And yet, as there were huge ants
ten feet long on Poros, and also slightly smaller breeds without the
intelligence which characterized the Formians, why not ant-bears in
proportion? It certainly sounded plausible.

Of course, these thoughts, which take so long to set down here, passed
through Cabot’s brain in a single instant. He felt no fear, merely a
keen scientific interest in the situation. But, quickly as his mind
worked to analyze his predicament, it worked as quickly to determine a
course of action.

The subterranean beast spewed up the unappetizing log of wood which it
had seized, and snapped its mandibles together again; but Cabot had
already sprung to his feet, and had passed beyond the fatal spot. The
sharp jaw just barely missed him.

His bound carried him part way up the opposite side, but almost
immediately he started slipping back again into the center. This time,
however, instead of merely striving to scale the unstable walls, he ran
in a circle, round and round the flashing jaws.

As he increased his speed, his centrifugal acceleration, like that of a
horse-chestnut which a small boy whirls on a string, gradually forced
him outward and upward, thus offsetting to a large extent the sliding
action of the sand.

But the beast at the bottom, evidently tiring of snapping aimlessly in
the air while its prey circled about it and showered it with dirt, began
to dig itself out.

Just then Myles espied a branch or root protruding from the bank just
above the level of his head. With one last spurt, he leaped in the air
and grasped the branch. For a moment he hung swaying beneath it. It
held, and did not become dislodged from the bank. So gradually he hauled
himself up, until finally he sat upon it.

The top of the bank was still too far away to reach, so for the present
Myles just clung to his perch and panted. Great agonized sobs shook his
frame. But at last he regained his breath, and then coughed and spat for
a while until his aching lungs felt somewhat better.

Meanwhile the ant-bear, if such it was, slowly emerged from its place of
burial. The beast was about thirty-five feet in length and resembled a
huge beetle, except that its six legs were all nearer to the head than
in a beetle, thus giving it more the effect of a gigantic louse. With
its ten-foot-long razor-sharp mandibles clicking hungrily, it slowly
approached its prisoner, who watched it fascinated.

A slight noise across the pit-mouth momentarily diverted Cabot’s
attention, and looking up he saw a Formian standing at the edge with a
rifle in its two front paws.

Evidently this new enemy had seen him from the road and had come over to
enjoy the spectacle of the final destruction of the arch-nemesis of its
race. And if by any chance Myles should escape from the enemy below, the
enemy above stood ready to polish him off with a rifle-shot. A pleasant
situation indeed!

Meanwhile the ant bear continued its slow but steady approach. And
Cabot’s revolver lay useless beside his drying toga at the edge of the
plain.




                                   V

                          ANT-BEAR AND ANT-MAN


It is characteristic of Myles Cabot that, in desperate situations such
as the one in which he now found himself, he always either becomes
engrossed in some personally-detached scientific speculation as to his
own fate, or else his thoughts become filled with some absurd doggerel
ditty or jingle.

In the present instance, as he clung naked to his perch on the side of
the pit, with the ant bear approaching him from below and the ant man
covering him with a rifle from above, all that he could think of was
that old Harvard Glee Club song about the darky, which ends with the
words:

    “O Lord, if you can’t help me,
     For Heaven’s sake don’t help that bear!”

As the ten-foot jaws of the huge carnivorous beast came closer and
closer to Cabot, the ant man on the bank could no longer restrain his
glee, and began dancing up and down with joy.

Cabot watched his antics with disgust, and even shouted across at him:
“Shut up, you d—— Eli! Do you think that that is a sportsmanlike way
to act on the bleachers?”

But, of course, the ant didn’t hear, as Cabot was without his headset
and artificial antennae.

The ant continued to dance, and the ant bear continued to crawl up the
side of the pit, when suddenly the edge of the crater crumbled beneath
the ant, and in an instant he, too, was catapulted down into the arena.

A shower of gravel smote the bear, and he could no more resist the
tropism which it excited in his make-up than a sunflower can resist
turning its face to the sun. With a swift somersault he seized the
surprised Formian between his jaws, and then backed slowly down into the
depths of the sand at the bottom of the pit.

Cabot watched the placid ant bear and the frantically but futilely
struggling ant man until both had disappeared beneath the surface; then
he heaved a sigh of relief, and looked for a way to escape before his
jailer should digest the Formian and stir abroad again in search of
further prey.

But he could see nothing which held out any hope. Then his scientific
mind came to his rescue, and he strove to recall all that he had learned
of the diminutive ant bears of the earth during his childhood. He
reviewed each item of their habits, until he recollected the furrows
which they dig to lure their prey into their pits. He remembered seeing
similar furrows in the plain where he now was. One such might furnish a
way out.

So he studied the edges of the crater until he located a slight dent at
one side. Lowering himself from his perch, he cautiously made his way
along the side of the pit until he came directly below the dent. There
he started digging frantically, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing
that the sliding sand was forming a gully in front of and above him.

Step by step he crawled up this gully, still digging, ever digging,
until he had nearly gained the top, when he heard a click behind him.

Stopping digging, he glanced around, and there was the ant bear emerging
from its lair, intent on eating him for its dessert.

With one last supreme effort, Cabot scrambled over the edge into the
furrow, and started running along it with the beast in hot pursuit.

The furrow got shallower and shallower. Cabot could now see above the
level of the plain as he ran on. It was like running in a dream. The
shifting sands gave way with every step, so that progress seemed almost
impossible, while the nightmare creature behind him gained, steadily
gained.

And then Cabot reached the end of the furrow and raced out upon the open
plain. To his surprise the bear stopped abruptly. Evidently there were
rules-of-the-game which governed even the crude mental processes of this
beast, and one of these rules was: “No fair catching one of the other
side when out of your territory.”

But Myles did not wait to see whether this rule held. He sped on to the
edge of the plain and to the shelter of the surrounding woods. There he
regained his toga and revolver, and then continued into the depths of
the forest.

When he considered himself at a safe distance, he crawled into a clump
of bushes; and not waiting for the night, lay down for a much-needed
rest.

It was morning again before he woke. Making his way back to the road, he
continued his interminable journey northward.

The word “northward” occurs very often, perhaps too often, in this
narrative but it is typical of Myles Cabot’s quest. All day long, day
after day, there rang in his ears the words, “northward, northward, ever
northward.” He recited the words in cadence with his stride, they sang
in the wind and in the swish of the trees.

Have you ever sat at the extreme stern of an ocean liner in the
moonlight and listened to the throb of the engines, the purr of the
wake, and the hum of the rigging? Have you ever stood on the rear
platform of a transcontinental train at night and watched the green
lights slide backward in the converging darkness, and listened to the
rush of the air and the rhythmic clank of the rails? If you have, you
will understand the lilting song which impelled Myles Cabot onward, ever
onward, toward his journey’s end.

He had plenty of opportunity for thought as he dragged his weary feet
along the road. He wondered as to the progress of the Civil War. Much of
its success would depend upon whether Count Kamel had joined the Kew
forces. Kamel had been the leader of the radicals in the popular
assembly, who had launched the movement for a shorter working day, when
the overthrow of the Formians two years ago had put an end to the period
of slavery which every male Cupian had had to undergo in ant-land. But
Prince Toron, the administration leader, at Cabot’s instigation had
blocked this move, and had put through a bill authorizing the
expenditure of this extra time upon the construction of public works.
The measure had been cleverly baited with a promise which appealed
strongly to the sport-loving Cupians, namely, that the first building
erected would be a huge stadium for the holding of national games—the
very stadium in which the assassination of Kew XII had later taken
place. Another move which had helped in the passage of this legislation
was the creation of a new cabinet post, the Minister of Public Works,
which portfolio had been tactfully offered to Count Kamel, the leader of
the radicals.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Cabot smiled as he recalled these facts.

“I hope that Toron gets to him again,” said Myles to himself, “and makes
him some flattering offer in the present war.”

Then he fell to worrying about the loss of his own artificial antennae.
Without these, he would be unable to talk even to his own wife! And then
it occurred to him that perhaps, even so, she might be able to talk to
him, and thus only one-half of the conversation would have to be carried
on by pad and stylus. How so?

Quite a while ago, not content with adapting himself so as to talk in
the antenna-fashion employed by these people with whom he had cast his
lot, he had started to teach the Princess Lilla to talk with her mouth;
for the anatomists of the university of Kuana had told him that the
Cupians possess vocal chords like those of earth folk, even though they
never use them. Myles had rigged up a small transmitting set, so that
she could hear her own vocalization; but the performance had embarrassed
her frightfully; and, therefore, she always practiced alone.

“Myles,” she used to say, “the Supreme Builder gave antennae to us
Cupians. Is it not a sacrilege to flout His gifts? If He had meant the
men and women of our planet to send with their mouths, would He not have
given us those funny cups on the side of the head to receive with? You
are excusable, for the Supreme Builder made you differently. But we
Cupians were made to send and receive with our antennae. Yet it cannot
be wrong for a wife to do as her husband does; so I am determined to try
to learn to talk with my mouth.”

It is fortunate that she adhered to this determination, for by so doing
she changed the history of a whole planet. But that is an episode which
will be related further on in this narrative. For, at the time of which
I now write, Myles did not know what progress, if any, she had made with
spoken speech.

One day as he trudged on, he came upon a placid herd of green cows,
which were unusually well supplied with the red parasite which afflicts
that breed. For some reason, the possibility of roast lobster was
unusually alluring that day. Could he not spare just one cartridge, or
must he save every shot for the enemy? And then it suddenly dawned on
him that all these days he had not yet spent one single shot even on the
enemy! What was the use of saving his ammunition for the ant men, and
then never using it on them?

From that thought there developed a detailed plan of action, so obvious
that he cursed himself for not having conceived of it before. And yet it
is just simple thoughts that are the evidence of the highest form of
invention, according to innumerable patent office decisions. Ideas so
simple that any one could have thought of them, except for the fact that
no one ever did think of them until the inventor came along; ideas which
doubtless escaped even him for a long time.

Engrossed in his brilliant plan, Cabot forgot all about the green cows
and their red parasites; so he pressed on, and soon found opportunity to
put his plan into practice. For a kerkool, occupied by a single ant man,
came charging down the concrete highway. As usual, Cabot hid in the
bushes beside the road; but this time he took a pot-shot at the occupant
of the car. The car, however, sped on and, rounding the turn ahead,
disappeared from view.

Perhaps the bright idea hadn’t been so bright after all; for how was
Cabot, crack shot that he was, to expect that he could hit such a
swiftly moving target as an ant in a kerkool?

Once again he took up his weary march. He rounded the turn ahead. And
there lay the kerkool, wrecked beside the road. The shot actually had
taken effect after all!

But what good was a _wrecked_ kerkool? Would it not merely direct the
attention of the Formians to the fact that one of their enemies was at
large in this vicinity? It would; that was the second part of the plan.
So Cabot lay down beside the wrecked car and awaited further
developments.

Developments were not long in developing, for soon another kerkool
stopped to investigate. Its occupants were two ant men, armed with but a
single rifle to the two of them. One dismounted, leaving the rifle in
the car, and pattered over to take a look at the wreck. Just about then
Myles opened fire, but made the mistake of shooting first at the ant who
was on the ground. The shot disabled the black antagonist, without
killing him, and thus permitted him to radiate a warning to his
companion, who, of course had not heard the revolver. Cabot, in turn,
could not hear the radiated warning, so he merely surmised it, but he
had learned fairly well to judge such matters during his three years on
Poros.

The driver of the kerkool quickly fired one shot in Cabot’s direction
and threw on full speed ahead. But, with a leap, the earthman grabbed
the rear end of the car and trailed out behind as it rapidly
accelerated.

And now they were deadlocked. By this time Cabot had secured a foothold,
but was not able to clamber aboard without dropping his revolver. Nor
did he dare to shoot, for even a momentary release of the control levers
by the driver would have spelled a collision and death to them both. The
driver, for his part, was driving so fast that, in spite of his six
legs, he could not spare two of them to take another shot at his
passenger. Nor did he dare slow down, for that would have given Cabot an
opportunity to shoot at him.

But the deadlock was to the ant’s advantage. Time was playing into his
hands; for he knew, and Cabot sensed, that they were rapidly nearing a
town, at which it would be an easy matter for the ant to turn the man
over to the authorities.

And then the great god coincidence sat into the game, in opposition to
his old enemy, the god of time. A Formian pinqui, on guard at a
cross-road, held up one paw as a signal to stop, for another kerkool was
approaching from the left and had the right of way.

The driver disregarded the signal and the pinqui fired. The next instant
Cabot was at the levers. How he ever got there he does not know; but the
fact remains that fate had forced him into a situation which he had not
dared to face, and that somehow he had mastered the situation.

The other car just barely skinned by the rear, the pinqui fired a
parting shot, and Cabot’s kerkool was off for the open country again.

The ant-man at his side turned out to be only stunned, which probably
accounts for his not letting go the levers and wrecking the car when he
was shot. He was rapidly recovering, and Cabot was unarmed, having
dropped his revolver when he had sprung to seize the controls.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The rifle of the ant was lying beneath the ant’s body. Cabot stopped the
kerkool as quickly as possible, and pondered for a moment on what course
to take next. Escape from the ant would be easy; but if he fled, his
whole brilliant scheme for obtaining possession of a kerkool would have
gone for naught. To attempt to wrench the rifle from beneath the rapidly
recuperating beast would probably bring the latter fully to his senses.
Therefore, the only thing to do appeared to be to grapple with the
Formian at once; and by taking him by surprise, try to get a strangle
hold on him in his present comatose condition.

Imagine tackling single-handed an ant with the brain of a man, the size
of a horse, with razor-sharp mandibles! But it was Cabot’s only hope. If
he could get the better of the Formian before the latter fully came to
his senses, Myles had a bare chance of victory.

As bad luck would have it, the ant man came to his senses before Cabot
did get the better of him. But not before Cabot had placed both hands
under the edge of the ant’s head, preparatory to twisting his neck,
which is the weakest and most vulnerable spot on a Formian, the spot
always sought in their frequent duels. A moment more of leeway, and this
plan would have succeeded. But as it was, Myles was just too late. A
sweep of the ant’s leg and Cabot’s right hand was dislodged and held
down to the floor. The ant’s jaw clicked savagely, as he turned and
faced his opponent; but still the man’s left hand held him off.

This could not last long. Cabot’s left arm was gradually weakening.
Nearer and nearer came the ant’s jaws to his throat. The fingers of his
right hand twitched convulsively as he strove to release that arm. And
then those fingers touched something familiar.

With one last supreme effort, he moved his hand sufficiently to grasp
his lost revolver. A shot severed the leg which was holding him, and in
an instant he had thrust the smoking weapon squarely between the horrid
jaws and fired again. The battle was over. It was Cabot’s last
cartridge, but the battle was over.

Cabot’s first inclination was to heave the body over among the rubbish;
but on second thought he decided to use it as the keystone of a rather
clever plan of camouflage. Propping the dead carcass up at the levers,
so that it would appear to be driving, he crouched beside it, reached in
front of it and started the kerkool. Thank Heavens he had had experience
in driving the seatless machines of the Formians, as well as the more
comfortable cars of his own people.

Cabot passed through the first town without challenge, but evidently his
strange appearance was noted and excited some curiosity, for at the
second town he was confronted by a formidable array of ant pinquis.
Hoist by his own petar, he was, for it was his own system of
radio-communication, installed throughout the Kingdom, which had enabled
the authorities to broadcast the news of his approach.

There was nothing to do but run the gantlet; so thrusting aside the dead
body of his companion, Myles took a firmer hold on the levers and
charged full into the midst of the pinquis.

The kerkool shuddered from stem to stern at the shock, but her
gyroscopes kept her steady, and Cabot sped on out of town amid a shower
of lead from the greatly surprised and demoralized enemy.

The third town proved to be even a worse proposition, for by now the
ant-men fully recognized Cabot’s identity and had thrown up a hasty
barricade in the very heart of town. Putting on the brakes, he was just
barely able to steer sharp to the right into a side street and thus
avoid a collision with the barricade.

But, alas, the side street proved to be merely a blind alley, a
cul-de-sac. He was trapped! Well, so be it. He had the rifle and
ammunition of the dead ant, and would sell his life dearly. Although the
rifle was built to fit claws rather than hands and a shoulder, still he
could use it. So parking the kerkool crossways at the end of the street,
he crouched behind it, and opened fire on the ant men as they rounded
the corner in pursuit. They at once withdrew, thus giving him a brief
respite.

But he realized that almost any moment they were likely to attack him
from the roofs of the surrounding houses; and, accordingly, as soon as
he had momentarily cleared the street, he withdrew into the house at its
end. Of course, this was taking a chance on the occupants; but whoever
they were, they discreetly kept out of the fight. The narrow window
openings, which are typical of Porovian architecture, afforded ideal
loopholes, and enabled Cabot to pick off with ease any black form which
showed itself, either at the opening of the street or at the edge of any
of the adjoining roofs. But this could not keep on forever. Even the
bandolier which he had taken from the dead driver of the kerkool would
in time become exhausted. And at any moment his enemies could be
expected to enter his stronghold from the rear.

So leaving the muzzle of his rifle conspicuously protruding from the
window, he made a hurried search of the ground floor of the house and
finally found what he wanted, namely, a chair, the legs of which were
about the same size and shape as rifle barrels. When he returned to the
window with the four chair legs, the Formians were throwing up
breastworks at the corner of the street, so that they could fire at the
window from under cover.

Cabot arranged his chair legs at four of the windows, took a few shots
at the barricade to let them know that his “force of defenders” was
still active, and then hurriedly withdrew to the rear of the house with
his real rifle and the few remaining rounds of ammunition.

The street in the rear was vacant. There were still many simple points
of the art of war, which the black rulers of Poros had yet to learn. But
evidently they were learning very quickly; for Cabot had scarcely gone
two blocks before the alley behind him was filled with rattling Formians
intent on entering the dwelling which he had just quitted. Luckily he
gained the cover of a doorway without their seeing him; and finding the
door unlocked, he entered his second house of refuge.

Within it was a Cupian. Eagerly the earthman rushed forward to greet
him. But the Cupian, giving one horrified look at the intruder’s hair
and beard, fled frantically to the upper floors. He could not hear
Cabot’s words of reassurance, nor could Cabot hear the shriek of terror
which he must have given. Undoubtedly he would spread the alarm; so
there was no time to be lost.

Rushing through this house as he had through the other, Myles found that
the rear of this house looked out upon open fields with woods beyond;
and soon he was rapidly running toward this new haven.

But before he could gain the woods, the black pack debouched from the
city in pursuit. It was now evening. The red sky in the west enabled
Myles to get his sense of direction, and to proceed due northward
through the woods, which fortunately he reached in advance of his
pursuers. But still the pack gained.

Finally he arrived at the top of a cliff, beneath which lay a placid
lake. And in the middle of the lake rose a turreted island. He had
reached his journey’s end after forty days of weary wandering. For this
was Lake Luno!

There were only a few more paraparths of daylight left: so, lying down
behind a fallen tree-trunk at the very edge of the bank, Cabot opened
fire at the oncoming Formians. They, too, at once took cover, and thus
both sides sniped at each other as the velvet blackness of the Porovian
night crept up out of the eastern sky. Between shots the earthman took
many a longing look at his home across the water.

Soon it would be too dark to see to shoot, and then the black horde
would rush Cabot’s position. So, just before the pink light had
completely faded in the west, he rapidly fired all his remaining
ammunition among the trees before him, heaved his now useless rifle over
into the water, dived off into the lake below, and struck for his
island, his family and his home.

                 *        *        *        *        *

As he cleaved the water with the long measured sweep of the trained
swimmer that he was—for he had been a distinguished member of the
aquatic team at Harvard and had never let a day go by without a dip in
the tank—his heart sang to the time of his strokes: “Going home, going
home, going home.”

There was still just enough light in the sky for him to make out the
outline of the island, but not enough for his pursuers to see him from
the top of the cliff, though they did pepper the water pretty well in a
direct line from their position to the island. But they gave him credit
for much more speed than he was capable of, and so most of their bullets
landed far ahead of him.

He knew that the Formians would not follow him farther, at least for
that night. Formians are no swimmers, having a horror of water. There
were plenty of boats along the shore of Lake Luno, but he was certain
that his enemies would not venture out in the night, for fear of a
spill. The only danger was that they might send some of their Cupian
allies across; but he doubted this, in view of the fact that they
probably thought him still armed with the rifle and respected his
marksmanship. No, he was fairly safe for the present.

Darkness had completely enveloped the planet as Cabot pulled himself
wearily upon the beach of his own island. For some time he lay weakly
upon the sand, panting, utterly worn out. But at last he roused his
exhausted frame and groped his way up the familiar path to the summit.

He was there! He was home! In a few moments he would be clasping his
Lilla close in his arms. Oh, how he loved her, who had made this planet
a home for him, instead of a mere dreary exile in the skies. In a few
moments he would see for the first time his tiny son.

Forgotten were his enemies. Forgotten was Prince Yuri, the traitor.
Forgotten was the thousand-stad journey. For as Myles clambered up the
path, his sole idea was: “Lilla and home and little Kew.”

But the civil war was abruptly recalled to his memory when he reached
the summit and found Luno Castle in total darkness! The massive door was
standing idly open. There was not a sound of occupancy within.

With an intense pang of anxiety, he rushed across the threshold. He
switched on the hall light. At least there was some comfort, for the
electricity was still in working order. But scarcely had the light gone
on, when a bullet whistled through the doorway from outside.

Doubtless the best sharpshooters of the enemy had been waiting on the
opposite bank for just such an opportunity as this! Several more bullets
followed in rapid succession, but a hasty slamming of the great door put
a stop to any further incursions of this sort. And Myles found and
lighted a pocket flash lamp, before proceeding to the upper floors. The
flash would not throw enough light to furnish a target for the Formians.

Upstairs there was evidence of considerable confusion; furniture
overturned, draperies torn and so forth; but no signs of his family, of
the doctors and nurses, or of the servants. His heart was filled with an
agony of suspense, his mind with a growing realization that he had
arrived too late. Each room he penetrated in turn, searching, ever
searching, until at last he reached the great banquet hall on the
highest story.

And there a sad sight met his eyes! A square altar had been erected in
the center of the room. Around it, in a Pythagorian triangle, stood
three candlesticks, holding the burned-out stubs of candles. And on the
altar, wrapped in the imperial robes of the Kew dynasty, lay the body of
a baby Cupian, only a few sangths old!

With a cry of anguish Cabot clasped the tiny form to his breast and
covered it with kisses. But it gave back no response; it was cold and
stiff.

For a long time he stayed with his dead. He examined the little toes,
with which, but for this cruel civil war, he might have played, “This
little pig went to market.” He chafed one tiny hand, and wrapped all its
little fingers around a finger of his own, fondly picturing himself as
strolling in the castle garden with a little toddler at his side. He
knelt by the altar and talked baby talk to the little dead darling. Then
wept bitterly and cursed the pride which had kept him from his child in
its hour of need.

And what of Lilla, more precious to him than this infant whom he had
never known? Very evidently she had been taken prisoner rather than
killed. Perhaps Yuri would hold her as a hostage, as the price of Cupian
surrender. Or more likely he would force her to marry him, as soon as he
could dispose of her husband. Whichever was his plan, it behooved Myles
to remain alive for Lilla’s sake.

If Myles’ own grief could be so sharp at the death of a baby whom he had
never known, how much more bitter must have been the grief of her who
had held this child warm and gurgling to her breast! And in addition,
she was now the captive of the murderer of her father, of her babe,
and—for all that she knew—of her husband.

Poor dear girl! Cabot roused himself and, clasping the little form close
to his breast, carried it outside, and by the light of his flash, dug
for it a shallow grave in the castle courtyard. Over the grave he said a
Christian prayer, the mound he covered with flowers, and at the head he
placed a rude cross.

The problem remained to reach the troops to the northward, and now for
the first time he realized his own predicament. Undoubtedly the shore of
Lake Luno was already thickly lined with ants, whose airplanes would
certainly start dropping bombs on the island as soon as it was daylight.
They might even attack by boat, but he rather thought that they
respected his rifle too much for this. At all events, what possible
chance was there for him ever to escape this trap?

But trap or no trap, northward again he must go, for it was only by
reaching his army that he could learn the fate of his princess.

Nothward again! After he had thought he had reached his journey’s end.
The word “northward” had already seared itself into his very soul during
his interminable quest for Luno Castle, and yet now he must travel north
once more.

If only he could travel east, or in some other direction than north!




                                  VI

                             TRAPPED AGAIN


With a heavy heart, almost despairing, Myles Cabot quit the courtyard
and returned to the banquet hall, where he noticed a letter pinned to
the side of the altar with a dagger. The dagger was encrusted with
blood, and bore the insignia of the family to which belonged Prince Yuri
and Prince Toron.

The note read: “This is what did the deed. I came too late.—Toron, King
of Cupia.”

“He might have had the delicacy to have left off his title,” thought
Cabot. “Why remind me that the baby’s death has made Toron the contender
for the throne?”

And yet Myles was glad to be reminded of it. If Toron had succeeded in
reaching the army alive, the Cupians still had time for a rallying
point.

Then a horrible suspicion began to insinuate itself into Cabot’s brain.
Yuri had assassinated Kew XII, to make himself king. Was this a family
trait? Had Toron killed the infant Kew XIII, to the same end? This
seemed more and more likely, as Cabot’s fevered brain dwelt upon the
possibility. But, if so, then what had become of Lilla?

Dismissing these speculations, Myles prepared to journey on again.
Luckily his belongings in the castle had been but little disturbed; and
so he was able to eat, shave, cut his hair—after a fashion—and fit
himself out with a fresh toga. Also he found a radio set, antennae,
false wings, a revolver and ammunition. These he wrapped in waterproof
cloth, along with the toga and some food; and, strapping the bundle to
his back, swam stealthily to the north shore of the lake, it still being
pitch black night.

Upon landing, he donned his apparatus, and crept up the bank and through
the bushes at its top. Now at last he had the advantage of being able to
hear both the movement and the radiated speech of his enemies, whereas
they could hear only radiated sounds, of which he was not making any.

Thus he easily eluded the noisy sentinels who were patrolling the lake,
and soon was far into the depths of the woods. But there he stopped. To
go on would undoubtedly mean traveling in a circle. It was safer where
he was. So crawling into the heart of a tartan bush, he gave himself up
to much needed sleep.

                 *        *        *        *        *

A crash and a roar awakened him. It was broad daylight. How long he had
slept could not be known, for all hours of the day are the same on
Poros, save only early morning and late evening.

Again the crash and the roar. Airships must be bombing the castle, in
which event all attention of the ant men was probably centered on the
island in the lake, and now was the psychological time for an escape.
Furthermore, by keeping the noise of the explosions always behind him,
Cabot could be sure of traveling ever northward without danger of
circling. So northward he pressed on, through the dense woods.

But his certainty that the Formians’ attention was directed to the lake,
proved to be his undoing, for he had scarcely gone half a stad, before
he stumbled almost into the arms of an ant man. It is hard to say which
of them was the more surprised. Cabot fired first, but missed. Then the
Formian fired and missed. Then both of them retreated precipitately.

Soon Myles heard his enemy radiating loudly for help. Other ants must
have been much nearer to him than the lake, for the S.O.S. was promptly
answered.

And now there was impressed upon the earth-man one serious difference
between his artificial radio-organs and the natural ones of the natives
of this planet. Formians and Cupians can not only vary the capacity of
their antennae—for tuning purposes—by waving them around, but also by
the same method can, to a certain extent, determine the direction from
which the incoming waves are arriving. But Cabot’s antennae, although
looking just like those of his people, were stationary. Being
artificial, they were without control-muscles at their base. He did his
tuning in by means of a variable condenser and a variocoupler on his
belt, and had no means for direction-finding. So now he was unable to
sense from which quarter came the radiations of the approaching enemy
reenforcements.

Taking a chance, however, he turned sharp to the right, and struck out
through the forest, in an easterly direction. Overhead the sky was
beginning to darken, and there was every sign of impending rain. But
Cabot did not mind this. What was a wetting compared with meeting the
ant men?

He heard no further calls from his enemies, and began to wonder if they
had not given up the pursuit. Accordingly he turned northward again, or
at least what he believed to be northward, for the bombing of Luno
Castle had stopped, and there was no longer anything to guide him.

Time and again he halted at the sight of some gnarled tree trunk which
more or less resembled a Formian. He went slowly and cautiously,
frequently stopping to listen and look about him, but not a sound nor a
radiation did he hear, not a sign of life did he see.

Reassured somewhat now, he was beginning to push on a little more
boldly, when he was startled as he saw an ant man standing motionless
beside a tree not far ahead. There could be no mistake about it this
time. This was no stump, nor was it a twisted branch; and, as if to
convince him, just then the Formian changed its position slightly. It
was holding a rifle, and was very evidently on guard, keeping a careful
watch of the woods about it.

Cabot had stopped short just as soon as he had caught a glimpse of the
ant man, and a moment’s observation convinced him that he himself had
not yet been seen. So with great caution he began to back away. If only
he could gain the shelter of a tartan bush close at hand, he would be
safe.

Cabot could not remove his gaze from the Formian before him; and, though
he kept moving away, every moment he was in an agony of fear lest the
other should turn and look in his direction. Of course Myles was armed.
A shot from his revolver would not be perceived by the antennae-sense
which takes the place of hearing among the native inhabitants of Poros.
But what he feared was that his enemy would radiate for help before the
fatal bullet could do its work. Accordingly it would pay to try to get
away by stealth.

He had taken several backward steps, and the Formian had not yet seen
him. He was beginning to hope that he could withdraw in safety now. He
could feel, rather than see, that he had almost gained the shelter he
was seeking, when suddenly the ant man turned about and looked straight
at him. The Formian was not more than two parastads away, and for a
moment his surprise was as great as that of Cabot had been.

But it lasted only for an instant, and then he raised his rifle to his
shoulder and fired. Quick as he was, however, Myles had been quicker,
and the moment he saw the movement on the part of the Formian, he
discharged his own revolver, and then turned and bounded into the
forest.

He heard the other’s bullet as it exploded in a tree near him, and also
the loud radiations of the ant man, mingled with the explosion of his
own bullet.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Cabot ran now at full speed, caring little in which direction he went,
intent on escape from the immediate danger which had confronted him.
Running swiftly though he was, he was able to hear the call of the
Formian answered. A radiation that seemed to be far away, replied; and
Cabot could not determine from which direction it came. He had no time,
however to stop and wait. His very life, and the destinies of a planet,
might depend upon his speed. So he ran swiftly on.

He was satisfied that he could outrun the ant man whom he had just
encountered, if in truth that one was in any condition to run, after
Cabot’s pot-shot at him; but the answer which had come to the S.O.S.
raised a new danger. Undoubtedly his enemies had not abandoned the
pursuit, and as one of them had been stationed in the woods, others
probably were likewise.

Cabot ran for about five paraparths before he stopped. Satisfied by now
that the Formian behind him could not overtake him, if indeed that
Formian were still alive, it was time for Myles to note where he was,
and in what direction he was running. Fortunately at that moment he
heard another explosion in the far distance to the right, presumably one
more bomb dropped on Luno Castle. Accordingly he turned sharp to the
left and started on again.

He had gone but a short distance, however, when his heart almost stood
still. Right before him was a Formian. The woods seemed to Cabot to be
full of Formians.

The other had seen him, too, but before the ant man could shoot, Myles
had dodged back among the trees and was fleeing in another direction. He
could hear the calls and responses of many of his enemies. They were
nearer now, and seemed to be on every side of him.

It was evident that they were stationed at intervals throughout the
forest, and were waiting patiently for him to appear. They must be
familiar with the region, and know just what they were doing.

Cabot was afraid. His fear was not a physical fear for his own safety as
such, but was born of a sober realization of what his life might mean to
the safety and happiness of the Princess Lilla, and to the cause of King
Toron. Cabot wanted to live to reach King Toron, and satisfy himself who
had killed baby Kew.

These thoughts were in the mind of the desperate man, as he dodged in
and out among the trees, and ran with all the speed which his sorely
tried body could command.

He did not know where to turn. The calls and replies of the ant men
seemed to rise on every side of him. But anything was better than
standing still and waiting for them to approach, and so in sheer
desperation he ran on and on.

The shouts ceased presently, and the silence of the woods returned.
Cabot was too well convinced that they had not abandoned the pursuit to
trust to that, however. But suddenly he stopped. What was that? A puff
of smoke was borne in on his face. Another and another followed, and as
he looked back into the forest, he could see that clouds of smoke were
beginning to appear. There was also an odor in the air, as of burning
leaves.

He knew the meaning of it at once, and his face became set. The ants had
set fire to the woods, and were trying to smoke or burn him out. So he
turned quickly, and ran like a hunted animal. Indeed, Cabot could recall
how he himself, in his boyhood days on earth, had considered it great
sport to “smoke out” some helpless woodchuck or fox. He had even done
the same thing with wild mathlabs on Poros. Now he realized how these
little creatures felt. But he did not waste any sympathy on himself in
his present predicament. He was thinking more of his country than of
himself.

Meanwhile he could see the smoke begin to pour in from other directions.
Plainly the Formians had set fire to the woods in many different spots,
and doubtless were lying in wait for him to rush out between these
places. They were planning either to force him out or burn him alive.

The frantic man ran desperately now, starting one way and now another,
only to be driven back each time by a cloud of smoke that would blow
full in his face and convince him that escape was not to be found in
that direction. Oh, if only the impending rain would come!

Soon he could see the flames as well as the smoke. There was a roar
which he could hear rising among the trees, for which the wind could not
account. The air was becoming warmer, and broken burning branches began
to fly over the treetops. The smoke was blinding and choking him now,
and met him full in the face in whatever direction he turned. He must do
something quickly, if he would cheat the enemy of their triumph.




                                  VII

                               A WAY OUT


Just at that moment, through a rift in the smoke, he fancied that he saw
the sparkle of water, and toward it he bent his steps. If there really
was a stream there, it might block the course of the conflagration, and
afford safety on its farther bank.

So on and on, amidst the smoke, he sped, with the roar of the fire
behind him. His one hope lay in finding the stream and in managing to
cross it.

He did not heed the choking sensation in his throat. His own life and
the fate of a nation depended on his success. He must find the water.

He had run but a few paraparths when he again caught sight of the water
between the trees, for he had been nearer than he had thought. In
another moment he gained the bank, but he groaned at the sight. For the
opposite shore was also in flames. Evidently the ant men had anticipated
his move.

What could he do now? Great volumes of smoke were pouring in on him from
behind. The air was full of flying embers, and the heat was becoming
almost unendurable. The hunted man had gained the bank of the stream,
only to find his escape cut off there by the flames on the other side.

Cabot was facing a double peril, as he fully realized. The Formians who
were pursuing him, and who had set these fires, would prove as merciless
as the flames in their dealings with him, whom they rightly regarded as
the cause of the misfortunes of their nation. Thus either way out of
this dilemma appeared to be worse than the other. And still the rain
held off.

At this moment a slight shift in the wind drove back the heat behind
him. The smoke which now came from across the little river was cool and
thin enough to be bearable, and accordingly he quickly determined to
stick close to the bank, and to proceed cautiously northward, the
direction in which the stream appeared to be flowing.

Perhaps no one was on guard at the place where the stream emerged from
the burning area, and he could there make his escape.

But, alas, no such luck! His flight was interrupted by the sight of an
ant man, who, as seen through the smoke, loomed twice his natural size.

Cabot took careful aim and fired two shots, at which his enemy crumpled
up, but not without first radiating a warning to his fellows. This made
it too late to get through at this point, so Cabot turned and retraced
his steps upstream.

Finally he came to a place where the fire appeared to be burning only on
his own side of the river. Although the current was swift he determined
to chance it and swim across, so he waded out into the stream. The cool
of the water felt soothing to his dry body, and near the surface the air
was clear and free from smoke. Cabot filled his lungs again and again
with this blessed air, then stopped to lave his parched lips in the cool
stream.

When he raised his head to resume the crossing, what should he see on
the opposite shore but two of his black enemies! Firing rapidly at them,
he backed up the bank again and lay down under cover of a log.

The Formians now promptly withdrew, and soon were lost in the smoke of
several new fires which they had started.

He heard a boom in the distance. What! Were they bombing Luno Castle
again? Another boom in a slightly different direction! Where else could
they be dropping bombs? And then he realized this must be thunder.

Now the wind shifted again, driving the flames up to Cabot’s side of the
river and forcing him back into the water. Burning brands came scudding
across the surface, so that even the water proved but little protection.
However, by making his way upstream, he finally came to a place where
the bank overhung, and the brook was about five feet deep. Here the bank
protected him from the flying embers, and he was able to breathe the
clear air near the surface of the stream. Now the fire could not touch
him, even if it should sweep to the very edge of the brook.

The sky got darker and darker. The rain began to descend. The storm,
which had been so long threatening, had broken at last, and the rain was
falling torrentially. Indeed, it soon was coming down in sheets, and
Cabot knew that if he could only maintain his position a little longer,
he would be saved from the fire, and would then have only the Formians
to cope with. The flames in the forest had not been under such headway
that they could long withstand such a deluge as was now coming down.

But the rain, by quenching the fire, greatly increased the volume of the
smoke, which now came billowing thickly out over the surface of the
water. Also the river began to rise. The swollen stream was quickly
responding to the addition of the heavy downpour of rain, and Cabot
realized that he would soon be driven from his hiding place. Yet if he
went ashore in that thick smoke, he would not be able to breathe. He was
between the devil and the deep river.

And, to make matters worse, the smoke was settling closer and closer
over the water, so that Myles was finally forced to bring his nostrils
to within a fraction of an inch of the surface, in order to get any
fresh air at all.

As he stood thus, with his nostrils just above the surface of the water,
and his eyes smarting with the acrid smoke, the smoke suddenly lifted
sufficiently to disclose a large log which the current was carrying
swiftly, end-on, directly toward his head. Then, with a crash, it
struck.

                 *        *        *        *        *

How long or how far the swift current carried him he knew not, but it
must have been many stads, for when his eyes finally opened again, the
brook had become a river.

He found himself now clinging instinctively to the very log which had
dislodged him, and doubtless it was this instinctive act which had saved
his life.

After resting a moment, and recovering his wits, he investigated his
surroundings. The river was roaring along the bottom of a deep gorge,
and right before him rose the face of a steep rocky cliff, against which
the river seemed to rush and end, turning neither to the right nor to
the left. In a flash it dawned on Cabot where he was. This was “the lost
river,” a natural phenomenon which had long perplexed the scientists of
Poros, and had long been revered by the proletariat as a symbol and
emblem of eternity.

“It will undoubtedly mean eternity to me,” thought Cabot, “for in a
moment I shall strike the face of that cliff, and all will be over.”

But, just before he reached the cliff, the log and he were sucked down,
down, by some irresistible undertow. He strangled and struggled upward,
but the pressure held him down. His lungs were bursting with
excruciating pain. His ears hurt. His mouth was filled with blood. Oh,
how he longed for the crash against the cliff, which would end it all!

But the crash never came.

He could bear it no longer, yet there was no alternative except to bear
it. And then, as suddenly as it had sucked him beneath the surface, the
river released its grip on his legs, and he shot upward, clear of the
watery grave. With what joy did he fill his straining lungs with God’s
fresh air! Again and again he breathed, as he clung to the friendly log,
until at last the pain in his throat departed, and he was somewhat his
normal self once more.

He was drifting quietly along on the surface of a placid stream. A few
moments ago all had been broad daylight, but now all was dark as a
Porovian night. Every ripple of the water echoed above and to both
sides, thus leading Cabot to infer that he was in some subterranean
grotto. So he struck out for the shore.

The shore proved to be a precipitous wall; but finally, after groping
along it for a way, he came to a ledge about a foot above the surface,
and onto this ledge he pulled himself. Shedding his toga, he wrung it
out, and finally massaged himself with it into a state resembling
dryness. But his wings and false antennae were gone, and his radio
apparatus seemed to be a hopeless mess.

At any rate, the air was fortunately not cold in the cave, so he lay
down on the ledge and slept.




                                 VIII

                           BEASTS OF THE DARK


So Cabot lay and slept on the narrow ledge about a foot above the
surface of the subterranean stream of the caves of the lost river of
Kar. His sleep was fitful and troubled by dreams, through which there
stalked Formians, and ant-bears, and Prince Yuri, and dead Cupian
babies.

Often he would awake with a shriek of horror as some one of the
nightmare figures became too realistic. His cry would echo and
reverberate throughout distant vaulted arches of the cave, until finally
it would vanish amid the dripping and rippling of the waters, and all
would be silence again. Then Cabot would drift off once more into
troubled sleep.

One of his dreams was that he was lying in the Stillman infirmary at
Harvard with cancer of the foot. His was an unusually rapid case, for he
could actually watch the progress of the disease. At first the
sensations were rather pleasant, as though some one were massaging the
foot, while he could see the skin peel off and gradually disappear. But,
as the disease worked its way deeper into the tissues, the feeling
gradually changed to a mild pain. A heavy weight seemed to be holding
his leg motionless, although he could see nothing on the hospital cot to
account for it. The bones of his foot now lay exposed, and the blood
oozed out between them as though it were being sucked by a vacuum
cleaner.

Then suddenly such an intense pain shot through his leg as to cause him
to wake with a start, and to jerk his leg and shake it violently as
though to rid his foot of the disease. The result was a loud splash in
the water close by. Quite evidently some creature had been suckling and
gnawing his foot, and had been kicked by him into the quiet stream.

Cabot sprang to his knees. The splashing continued, and indicated that
the creature was attempting to crawl out of the water back onto the
ledge to finish its rudely interrupted meal. But it was clearly having
considerable difficulty in getting a foothold. So Cabot crept in the
direction of the sounds and ran his hand along the edge of the ledge.
His fingers came in contact with two webbed paws, which did not
relinquish their grip at his touch. So, drawing back his hand, he
doubled up his fist and then shot it out just above and between the two
paws. It struck a slimy snout, which snapped feebly ere it gave way.
Then a rippling splash, followed by silence.

Cabot waited for a few moments for the return of the creature. Then
examined his foot. It appeared to be bloody and slightly lacerated, but
not seriously damaged. His fingers were bruised from their terrific
impact with the face of the aquatic monster. He was naked and cold. His
toga and radio set were gone. But otherwise he seemed to be all right.

Thoroughly aroused now, he stood erect, stretched his arms and legs,
drew a few deep breaths, and engaged in some rapid setting-up exercises.
These over, he felt much better, ready in fact to resume his journey.
But just how to resume his journey presented considerable of a problem.

Myles laughed grimly to himself as he reflected that now he did not even
know in what direction lay the north. How, then, could he continue
northward? This question was, of course, absurd. The immediate problem
was not one of the points of the compass, but rather was one of getting
out of these caves at all. He sat down on the ledge again to think.

Thus he remained for some time, but no bright ideas came. Merely
longings for Lilla, grief for the death of their baby son, and despair
for the condition of Cupia. But at last he roused himself. This would
never do!

A ripple of water drew his attention to the river which flowed by. The
river!

“It must flow somewhere,” he mused. “Why, probably it even flows north!
For that was the direction when I crawled into it to escape the fire set
by the Formians. As it entered these grottoes, so must it eventually
leave them again. If I swim down stream, there will be no danger of
circling, and sooner or later I will either emerge into daylight
again—or be drowned. But what matter? Drowning won’t kill me any deader
than starvation on this ledge.”

So saying, he dipped his hand into the stream to determine the direction
of the current. But, as he did so, a slimy body just beneath the surface
brushed his fingertips. Hastily he snatched his hand away. No river for
him!

Instead he would walk down stream along the ledge, in the hope that the
ledge would persist. At least he could follow the ledge as far as it
went, and postpone his plunge into the depths until the ledge ended. So
he groped his way cautiously along. The river wound in and out through
the cave for over a stad, and the ledge followed it.

But finally Myles came to a place where his groping foot hung in the
air. The ledge had abruptly terminated. He drew back his foot and leaned
against the wall for a few moments. Then sat down on the ledge, reclined
backward to rest his shoulders against the wall, and fell clear over,
for there was no wall there. Scrambling quickly to his feet, he bumped
his head with a resounding thwack which felled him to the floor again.

For some time he nursed his aching head. As his senses recovered from
the shock, he realized that he had fallen through the mouth of a small
tunnel which led away at right angles from the river. So into this
tunnel he crawled.

In spite of being on his hands and knees, he made faster progress than
he had along the ledge, for now there was no danger of falling off into
the river, and hence no need of feeling his way so carefully. Thus he
pressed rapidly on for quite a distance, in fact until the passageway
enlarged and he was able once more to stand erect.

“Yahoo!” he shouted, and the reverberations of his voice showed him that
he was in a large vaulted cave, very similar to that through which
flowed the river Kar, except that here there was no river. The
reverberations were followed by a fluttering noise, like that of a
flurry of dried leaves before an October storm. It was as though his
earthly voice had had some tangible physical effect in stirring up a
disturbance in this grotto. But the exact nature of the disturbance he
could not imagine. He did not need to imagine it, however, for in a
moment it burst upon him, a fluttering shower of winged creatures about
the size of sparrows. But their wings, as they brushed his face—and his
hands, which promptly tried to ward them off—appeared to be leathery
and cold, rather than warm, and covered with feathers.

“Bats!” exclaimed Cabot, as he reached out and snatched one of the small
creatures from the air. But his immediate reward was a sharp bite across
one of his fingers, which caused him to drop his captive with an “Ow!”

                 *        *        *        *        *

As he again fell to work defending his head, he noted—ever the
scientist—that the teeth marks on his injured finger felt as though
they extended clear across the two rows on each side. This was not the
localized bite of the incisors of a bat. What could these creatures be?

To satisfy his curiosity, he grabbed another one of them from the air,
and encircled its jaws with his left hand before it had time to bite him
very badly. Then holding it firmly by the head, as it struggled wildly
to escape, he ran the fingers of his right hand appraisingly over its
body.

Its head was long and rectangular, and much too large for its body,
judged by the make-up of earthly flying creatures. Its skin was cold and
scaly like that of a lizard. Its wings were bat-like, except that the
skin was stretched on a single long finger, instead of on four. The
other fingers were short and free, and equipped with sharp claws. The
back of the wing, along the arm part, was covered with long feathery
scales. The tail was as out of proportion as the head, and sported a fan
of scales at its tip. The smell was nauseatingly like that of a snake.

It was evident that he held in his hand a small variety of pterodactyl,
apparently similar in every respect to the reptilian forerunners of
birds on our own planet. But its companions were becoming altogether too
numerous and troublesome to leave him any leisure for further scientific
investigation of his captive. So, casting it from him, he set about
defending himself.

A perfect swarm of the filthy little creatures now encompassed him in
the pitch darkness of the cave. They battered against him, and tore at
his naked body with their sharp claws and teeth. More and more of them
kept arriving, so that it soon became evident that he must escape from
them in some way and in some haste, in order to avoid being overpowered.

So, warding them off as best he could with one hand, he turned sharp to
the right and groped his way around the wall of the grotto with his
other hand.

Finally he came to an opening, which he entered at once. Of course it
might be that he had completely circumnavigated the cave, and that this
was the same tunnel through which he had entered. Even so, it would be
better to return to the ledge and the river, than to be overwhelmed by
this rapidly augmenting swarm of pterodactyls. But no, it was not the
same tunnel, for it did not grow smaller as he progressed; so, after
frantically beating at the bat-like creatures with both hands for a
moment, he crossed his arms Boy Scout fashion in front of his face and
fled precipitately down the corridor.

This way proved to be practically straight. His outstretched hands
prevented any collision with the walls or other obstacles, which
otherwise must inevitably have occurred in the pitch darkness. Cabot was
not quite as helpless in the dark as most earth men would have been, for
he had over three years of experience with the inky, starless Porovian
nights.

As he ran on, his tormentors gradually dropped behind him, until finally
they were reduced to only two or three more determined members of the
breed.

Cabot accordingly slowed down to a walk. But, just as he did so, one of
his feet stepped out into nothingness. With a despairing effort he
strove to throw his body backward to safety. He reached out his hands to
the sides and then above, groping madly for some support. But all in
vain; for, after toppling for it seemed ages on the brink, he pitched
over headlong into space—

And struck the surface of a body of water with a resounding splash
within a few feet below where he had been standing. The unexpected
impact quite took his breath away. He struggled feebly on the surface
and groaned until the air flowed into his lungs again. But his relief
was supreme at this anticlimactic ending of his fall into an imagined
abyss.

When he had fully regained his breath, he struck out for where he
thought the shore to be, and was just getting up a good headway when he
ran full on into a large, soft, animate form floating idly on the
surface. Instantly this creature ceased being idle, and became a thing
of action. With a prodigious splashing, it went for Cabot, who warded it
off with his hands and feet. He had no idea what it was that he was
fighting, but it seemed like several huge rubber windmills. Back, ever
back, it forced him, until finally a long snout got by his guard, and
two toothless gums closed upon his abdomen, and dragged him beneath the
water.

Cabot was an expert swimmer. He had even saved lives on earth. And he
knew that the best possible tactics to use when a drowning person drags
you under, is to swim down, down, until your incubus lets go in terror.
Such tactics, of course, would not work on a subaquatic creature, but
the chances were about even that the beast which held him in its deadly
grip was an air-breathing denizen of the surface. At any rate, it was
worth gambling on, so Cabot struggled downward instead of upward.

This action seemed to puzzle the beast, for it resisted a few moments,
then floundered undecidedly, and then let go. Swimming far out to one
side, Myles shot upward to the air, and again struck out for the shore.
A few short strokes brought him to a ledge, where he hung for a moment
to catch his breath. In fact, he would have hung there a little longer
than he did, had not a cold and slimy form, brushing across his back,
recalled his attention to the perils of the deep.

With a kick of his feet, he chinned himself up to the level of the
ledge, bent up one elbow after the other; and then, leaning far inland,
threw up his right leg onto the ledge. He was now completely out of the
water, except his left leg, which too would be out in another instant.
But just at this moment an eel-like body wrapped itself around his left
ankle, and began to pull him back into the stream.

He squeezed the edge of the ledge with his two knees, as if he were
riding a horse. With the tips of all his fingers he gripped every slight
irregularity of the surface of the rock. He devoted every effort to pull
himself ashore, but the slimy ophidian pulled just a little more
strongly than he.

Gradually, an inch at a time, he was dragged back toward the water,
until finally his right leg slid off the edge of the ledge, with both
legs in the water.

The hauling on his left ankle continued; and, to make matters worse, a
similar attachment now fastened itself upon his other ankle as well.
With this added enemy, his movement backward and downward now became
more rapid. But just then his slipping fingers slid into a crack in the
rock, where they were able to take a firm hold. The tables were turned,
as the man began slowly to pull himself once more onto the rock.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Inch by inch Cabot regained the ground which he had lost, until with a
mighty effort he was able to swing his right leg back onto the ledge
again. But with it came the creature of the deeps. How large this
creature was, or how long it was, or just what sort of a beast it was,
he was unable to tell. But, whatever it was, it now anchored itself
somewhere on the shore, and there resumed its pulling, so that for the
present at least it constituted an ally for the earthman, who with the
aid of this new anchorage, was soon able to roll over onto his right
side, thus dragging his left leg and the second aquatic creature up onto
the rock.

But, even though he was fully ashore, what good did it do him? For his
two enemies seemed as much at home on land as in the water, and even
with his hands now free to ward them off, they still had him pretty much
at their mercy, for he must needs be very careful lest he roll back
again into the river. Gradually these two slimy beasts entwined
themselves upward around his body, in spite of all his efforts to hold
them back.

Thus battled Myles Cabot, the Minorian, against fearful odds, in pitch
darkness, on a narrow ledge overhanging the stygian stream of the Caves
of Kar.

He had traveled a thousand stads, and had encountered every kind of a
danger, from ant to ant-bear, on the way. He had swum Lake Luno amid the
rifle fire of the enemy, only to find his castle sacked, his princess
gone, and his baby slain. He knew not how fared his princess or his
army. He had been burned out of the woods north of Luno, and had been
nearly strangled beneath the waters of the lost river. He had been
attacked by pterodactyls and other strange reptiles.

And now he was battling alone and for his life against two powerful and
unknown beasts, all in the absolute black darkness of a reverberating
cave. Who would ever know, or care, the outcome of that battle?

And yet he never for an instant thought of giving up the struggle. Such
was the unconquerable will that had led to the adoption of Poblath’s
proverb: “You cannot kill a Minorian.”

But this proverb seemed due to encounter the exception which should
prove the rule, unless help came quickly. And from whence could help
come in the Caves of Kar?

By this time the coils had completely enveloped him, hand and foot, so
that he could not stir; and then, after a brief pause, the two creatures
began slowly to drag him along the ledge.

Suddenly a third creature landed on top of them all. What manner of
beast this newcomer was, Cabot did not know, but it soon became evident
that it was no friend of the others, and that it intended to contest
with them the possession of their prey. For it seized Cabot’s body with
what appeared to be two hands, and started tearing away the snake coils
with what certainly seemed to be still other hands.

What could it be? In all of Poros, Cabot knew of no animal with more
than two hands.

As the coils were torn away, Cabot’s arms finally became free, and he
was able not only to “take a hand” in the struggle, but also
occasionally to run his fingers over the paws that gripped him or those
that held his snaky enemies. All four extremities of his rescuer
resembled human hands, and each of the four had six fingers as in the
case of Cupians.

Then Cabot swooned from sheer fatigue, his last thought being to wonder
vaguely whether it would after all be any more pleasant to be eaten by
this strange new beast than by its predecessors.




                                  IX

                            THE CAVES OF KAR


Myles Cabot awoke in bed, presumably his own bed, feeling very
comfortable and very tired. For a long time he lingered in that twilight
zone which lies between dreamland and reality, dimly conscious of a
nightmare series of events, and dimly reassured by the conviction that
these events had merely been a nightmare after all, and that everything
was well with him and his loved ones.

Then he slept once more, and, when at last he woke again, it was with
the clouded brain of high fever. Thus for many days he lay and tossed,
and was ministered unto by tender hands, with no very clear realization
of where, or even who, he might be.

Occasionally he even imagined that he heard human voices speaking in a
strange and alien tongue, which of course was impossible, for Cupians
are the only humans on Poros, and they radiate, instead of giving forth
audible speech.

Finally, after many days, his brain cleared, and he was able to take an
interest in his surroundings. He was alone in a small cell hewn from the
solid rock, but equipped with every modern convenience and lighted with
electric vapor lamps.

He called aloud, and the walls reverberated; but there came no answer.
Of course not for Cupians cannot perceive human speech. But if the
inhabitants of these grottoes were Cupians, then how about the spoken
words which he was sure he had heard in his delirium?

No one entered. Gradually his mind reconstructed the events which had
brought him here, and he realized that he was in the caves of the famous
lost river of Kar. No one had ever known that there were such caves, or
that the planet Poros had any subterranean inhabitants. But there was a
popular legend to the effect that the first man and first woman had
arisen from the soil to populate the world, although the more prevalent
legend told that these two forerunners of the race had come from another
land beyond the boiling seas. Perhaps the first legend was right after
all, and Cabot was now in the presence of the remnants of the
prehistoric inhabitants of Poros. But, if so, then how explain the
culture evidenced by the bed, the other furniture, and the electric
lights? He gave it up, and lay back weakly to await some further clue.

Not long did he have to wait, for presently a venerable man entered the
room. This man was unmistakably Cupian, for he had the antennae, the
lack of ears, the rudimentary wings and the six digits on each hand,
which distinguish the human inhabitants of Poros from those of the
planet Earth. He was clad, however, in a different style from that
prevalent among the Cupians to whom Cabot was accustomed; for, in place
of a toga reaching only to the knees, he wore a ground-sweeping gown of
many folds, and instead of bare feet, he wore sandals. On the front of
his gown was a red triangle. His face had that calm sweet majesty which
one sees on the faces of many of the prelates of the Roman Catholic
Church.

Producing a pad of paper and a stylus, he wrote in Cupian characters the
message: “Good morning, Myles Cabot; I rejoice to see that you have thus
far recovered.”

Myles stared at the paper with surprise and not a little horror.

“How do you know my name?” he wrote in reply.

“Why not?” the man countered. “Myles Cabot is well known throughout all
of Cupia.”

“Then I am still in Cupia?” Myles asked.

“You are,” the man replied. “To be more specific, you are in the Caves
of Kar. But write no more, for you are ill and weak. Lie down and rest.”

And he started to take away the pad, but Myles snatched it back and
wrote: “If, then, you know so much about the outside world, tell me of
the Princess Lilla.”

“She is well and safe,” the man replied.

“And my army?”

“It is holding its own in the northern mountains.”

This time the old man retained the pad, thus leaving his patient
speechless.

Next he rang a soundless bell, and there entered one of the strangest
creatures which Cabot had ever seen. In general appearance it bore out
the same relation to a Cupian as does a small gorilla to a human being
on earth. Its head was prognathous and set deep on its shoulders. Its
skin was hairless, except on the top of its head, and was the color of
bluish slate. Its arms were long and gangling. It stood with a stoop and
walked with a shuffle. Like the Cupians, it was earless, and had
antennae, rudimentary wings, and six digits on each hand and foot.

In the past Cabot had occasionally heard of the legendary blue apes
which were sometimes said to be seen emerging from caves in the Okarze
Mountains, but never before had he seen one.

Furthermore, the presence and general appearance of this beast afforded
a rational explanation of the manner of Cabot’s rescue from two aquatic
boa-constrictors on the ledge above the river in the subterranean
darkness, and of his presence here. His rescuer had had four hands; so
had this blue ape.

In the manuscript, which Myles Cabot shot from Venus to the earth in a
streamline projectile, and which was published to mankind under the
title of “The Radio Man,” it was stated that the Cupians had no basis
for any Darwinian theory; but now Myles began to doubt that statement of
his. Perhaps this was the true scientific basis of the legend of the
subterranean origin of mankind. Perhaps the Cupians were descended from
the blue apes of the Caves of Kar.

This particular ape appeared to be a slave or servant of the old man,
for at an inaudible command of the latter he brought a basin of warm
water, with which the old man tenderly bathed his guest.

Then, still wondering where he was, and why, Cabot dropped off to sleep
again. When he reawoke, the old man was sitting in the room, and with
him was a younger man, of the same general appearance and garb.

The older handed over the following message: “Myles Cabot, this is
Nan-nan, one of our electricians. He is at your service.”

At once Cabot caught the drift of these remarks, and wrote back: “Bring
me my apparatus, and let us try to repair it.”

His two hosts glanced significantly at each other, and Myles began to
fear that his radio set had been lost beneath the waves of the river
Kar. But no, for an ape slave came bringing it, together with a bench
and tools which they placed beside the couch. Then the electrician and
Myles set to work.

It took a long time, several sangths in fact, for the earth man was very
weak, and all conversation had to be carried on in writing.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The present occasion reminded Myles of those days at the ant university
at Mooni, shortly after his arrival on the planet Venus, when he had
struggled for many weary sangths to produce artificial antennae and a
portable radio set, in order to see if this would not furnish a means
for oral communication with the lovely Lilla, Princess Royal of the
Cupians, whom he then worshipped from afar. Before he had completed that
experiment, he had had no means of knowing whether or not the beings of
this strange planet used radio waves to talk with.

Their own scientists, both Cupian and Formian, had doubted it decidedly;
but the earth man had persisted, basing his hopes on the speculations of
some American savants, which he had read shortly before his departure
from the earth, to the effect that insects communicate with each other
by means of exceedingly short Hertzian waves.

In those hectic days at Mooni he had had as his laboratory assistant the
youthful Prince Toron, then a slave to the Formians; now he had another
youthful Cupian, though evidently of some strange tribe. Now, as then,
all conversation had to be carried on by means of pad and stylus. But on
the present occasion there were several advantages over Mooni. In the
first place, his work was not interrupted by frequent exhibitings of
himself to classes of students as a horrible example of what nature can
do in an off moment. In the second place, he was now thoroughly familiar
with Porovian tools and electrical symbology and equipment. And, in the
third place, he was now merely duplicating an apparatus thoroughly
tested and understood. But, offsetting these present advantages, was the
fact that he was very weak and nervous as the result of his trying
experiences during his long journey northward from Kuana to the Caves of
Kar, where he now was.

The venerable gentleman, whose name turned out to be Glamp-glamp,
hovered constantly around, administering to the bodily needs of his
guest, and taking very good care not to let him work long enough at a
stretch so as to overtax himself.

Finally the apparatus was fully repaired, and two more Cupians knew the
jealously guarded secret of this means of communication.

Cabot’s first spoken words were: “Tell me more about my princess.”

Of course, Glamp-glamp had already given him in writing, from time to
time, a general outline of the happenings at Luno Castle; but the
completion of Cabot’s artificial speech organs furnished the first real
opportunity for an extended story. The following are the events as
narrated by the venerable old man:

“Shortly after the news of the birth of your son, the little Prince Kew,
had been broadcast from the Luno wireless station, a radiogram was
received announcing the assassination of your father-in-law, King Kew
the Twelfth, in the Kuana stadium. Princess Lilla was, of course,
prostrated by the news, and was in no condition to rise to the situation
and assume charge of the affairs of the nation.

“But fortunately there was, among the attending physicians, a military
man named Emsul, who, though primarily a veterinarian, was present to
represent the army. You remember Emsul, don’t you?”

“Yes,” replied Cabot; “he tended my pet buntlote, Tabby, the time she
died. He was just about to arrive at Lake Luno when I left for the fatal
Peace Day exercises in the stadium. But go on with the story.”

“As I was saying,” continued Glamp-glamp, “Emsul, by virtue of his
military title—”

“Merely a bar-pootah,” mused Myles aloud.

“—took command in the name of the infant king, and proclaimed a state
of siege. No boats were permitted on the face of the lake, except those
emanating from one certain landing place, at which a guard was posted to
make careful examinations of all wishing to pass or repass. Notices were
put up in the near-by towns, calling on the inhabitants to rally to the
banner of little King Kew. The appeal met with practically a unanimous
response—for you are very popular with the hill folk, O! Myles
Cabot—with the result that Emsul was able to garrison the towns, to man
Luno Castle, and to throw a strong cordon around the lake.

“Toward the close of the day of the assassination word came that the
traitor, Prince Yuri, supported by his black hordes from beyond the
pale, was in full control of the capital. But from that time on no
further news arrived at Luno.”

“I think I know why,” interjected the earth man, “for, on my way up
here, I found the apparatus in one of the radio relay stations totally
wrecked.”

The old man went on:

“The first sign of the forces of Yuri was the arrival of a fleet of
airships from the south, early in the morning two days later. Some of
the ships flew yellow pennants and some black, the flags of Yuri and his
ant allies. What delayed this fleet is a mystery; for, assuming that
they left Kuana shortly after the assassination, they ought by rights to
have reached Luno that evening, instead of a day and a half later. But,
whatever the cause of this delay, it was indeed most fortunate, for it
gave Emsul sufficient time to consolidate the country around your castle
in behalf of your son.

“Another fortunate occurrence was the presence near by of an
antiaircraft gun. This part of the Okarze Mountains had recently been
the scene of numerous and frequent attacks by huge whistling bees on the
green cows of the farmers, and accordingly an antiaircraft gun, mounted
on a kerkool, had been dispatched from Kuana only about a sangth before,
for the purpose of combating these predatory creatures, and putting a
stop to the bovicides. One of Emsul’s first official acts had been to
requisition this engine of destruction and to station it on the southern
shore of the lake.

“Yuri and his naval officers evidently were unaware of this, for the
planes flew in bombing formation straight at Luno Castle, so low as
almost to be within rifle shot. But, just as they topped the edge of the
lake, the trained gun crew let loose at them. Three are now sunk in the
lake, one was shot down on shore and captured, and the rest beat a hasty
retreat toward Kuana.”

“But where was Poblath, the philosopher, all this while?” interrupted
Myles.

“Give him time,” replied Glamp-glamp. “Give him time! It is a thousand
stads from Kuana to Luno, four full days’ travel by kerkool. By going
night and day, Poblath with the jail kerkools made it in a little over
two days, arriving late at night on the same day as that of the repulse
of the attack of Yuri’s planes. The arrival of these newcomers was the
first intimation that those at the lake had had that any opposition was
being made to Yuri’s control. The news greatly heartened your forces,
and they accordingly determined to hold out to the utmost.

“After the mango and his men had rested, Poblath assumed command by
virtue of his rank, designating Emsul as chief of staff, in recognition
of his services. The former’s philosophical wit did much to put every
one in good humor, and even relieved the princess of some of her
anxiety. And you may be sure that Bthuh, Poblath’s wife, who was in
attendance on the princess, was glad to see her husband.

“Two days later the vanguard of Yuri’s forces arrived by kerkool at a
point several stads south of the lake, but were repulsed. Nevertheless,
as reenforcements kept coming up, Yuri’s army finally numbered about the
same as the loyal mountaineers. Both sides thereupon dug in and waited.”

“But what of the Formian air navy?” asked Cabot.

“It was being kept busy suppressing your supporters in other parts of
the kingdom,” was the reply. “Besides, they doubtless feared the
antiaircraft gun.

“Thus matters remained at a deadlock until forty days after the
assassination, by which time the ant forces had become sufficiently
augmented to dare launch a general attack. But, just as this was in
progress, the army of Buh Tedn, which all this time had been marching
north from Kuana, arrived with thousands of recruits which they had
gathered on the way, and attacked the Formians in the rear. Needless to
state, the entire ant force was wiped out.”

“Something to be thankful for,” interjected Myles, with a grin.

The old man continued:

“But Buh Tedn scarcely had time to communicate to the castle the
disheartening news of your death at the Kuana barricade forty days
before, when an overwhelming force of Formians and renegade Cupians, led
by Yuri and the black queen in person, fell upon him in turn.
Accompanying this force was a large detachment of the air navy. It was
too much. Gradually the Kew army was forced northward, up to Lake Luno,
past Lake Luno, into the woods beyond, into the very mountains under
which we now sit in these caves.

“Yuri then besieged Luno Castle, for the Princess Lilla and the baby
King had had no opportunity to leave it during the battle. Under threat
of airplane bombardment the defenders finally surrendered, on the
strength of Yuri’s solemn promise to harm no person, to take only Lilla
back to Kuana, to maintain her there as befitted her royal rank, and to
permit all others free passage to join your army for the safety of the
infant king, and on Poblath’s advice, the princess consented. So Yuri
sent a strong detachment over by boat to carry out his promise.”

“Did he carry out his promise?” asked the earth man.

“He did,” replied his host with a peculiar gleam in his eye.

“Then, _who_ killed my baby?” exclaimed Cabot.




                                   X

                               TREACHERY


“Who killed your baby?” replied the venerable old man of the Caves of
Kar. “I will tell you. Even such a traitor as the renegade Yuri would
not dare to violate his solemn oath. He had sworn to harm no person. Yet
little Kew stood between him and a coveted throne. What could he do
under such circumstances? Only a diabolical brain, like that possessed
by Yuri, could conceive of the solution which he concocted. In his
capacity as king and hence interpreter of all laws, he interpreted his
own promise as follows—”

“Yes, yes! Go on!” exclaimed Cabot, exasperated. “Don’t keep me in
suspense.”

“I was just about to tell you when you interrupted me,” resumed
Glamp-glamp in a mildly reproving tone. “Prince Yuri ruled that, because
little Kew was your son, and because you are a beast from another world,
therefore little Kew was a beast, likewise, and so was not a ‘person,’
strictly speaking, and so did not come within the literal scope of the
protection of the promise, which was ‘to harm no _person_.’ Having ruled
thus, the miscreant then proceeded to stab the baby through the heart
with his own hands.”

“The villain!” hissed Cabot, clenching his fists. But what could a mere
earth man do against such a schemer?

Glamp-glamp went on with his story:

“He left his jeweled dagger sticking in the death wound which it had
made, sneeringly remarking: ‘Thus, with the seal of my family, I seal
the deed which makes me King of Cupia.’ So came King Yuri the First to
the Cupian throne.”

“Not yet, by a long shot!” exclaimed the earth man, with a sudden burst
of loyalty and affection toward the man whom he had wrongly suspected
all this while, “for you forget Prince Toron. The Assembly long ago
canceled Yuri’s title to the crown because of his treason in the Great
War of Liberation. The succession they awarded to his younger brother,
the loyal Toron. So Yuri’s foul deed made Toron king, unless”—and here
a horrible fear clouded Cabot’s firmament—“unless Toron is among the
missing.”

“You have spoken well,” replied the old man, “for Toron truly is among
the missing. He has not been seen or heard of since the assassination of
the old king.”

Myles groaned. Then he remembered something which, in fact, had scarcely
been absent from his thoughts for as much as a paraparth ever since he
had found the body of his murdered son in the banquet hall at Luno
Castle. It is remarkable how a fact which you remember in one connection
will often fail to suggest itself in another connection, although
equally pat. This is doubtless for much the same psychological reason as
is set forth in the following proverb of Poblath, the philosopher: “A
face well known to you in Kuana is oft a stranger in Ktuth.”

So, in the present instance, the note which Cabot had found, signed by
the name of Toron and pinned to the baby’s bier by a jeweled dagger, had
suggested so vividly to Cabot that Toron might perhaps be the actual
murderer, that he had failed to grasp the really more obvious
significance of the note, namely, that Toron had come at least as far as
Luno alive and well. This latter significance now dawned on the earth
man for the first time, and hurriedly he imparted the information to his
aged host.

“It is well,” Glamp-glamp replied, “for if Toron got that far, doubtless
he _has_ reached, or _will_ reach, your army. Almost would I think that
he came from your planet Minos, for, as Poblath says: ‘You cannot kill a
Minorian.’”

“But we have strayed far from the story you were telling,” said the
Minorian himself. “You had just related how that accursed yellow Yuri
murdered my little son. What then?”

Glamp-glamp resumed his tale: “The attendants of the princess at once
attacked the forces of Yuri for his duplicity, but were driven into the
lake. Yuri then sped to the southward with his prize, and the surviving
loyalists, led by Poblath and Emsul, retreated north to join your army.
Since then the ant men have consolidated all the territory from Kuana to
a point just north of Lake Luno, but have not been able to penetrate
very far into the mountains. The princess is safe, and is respectfully
treated in Kuana.”

Cabot heaved a sigh of relief. Then a suspicion clouded his mind.

“How do you know all this?” he asked, to which Glamp-glamp replied
enigmatically, “The holy father knows everything.”

“Who is this ‘holy father,’” Cabot interrogated, “and who are all of
you?”

The reply was astounding, for it revealed a bit of the history of Poros
which somehow had never before come to Cabot’s attention:

“We are the lost religion of this planet. Innumerable ages ago, we
sprang from the ground, fully formed and possessed of the only true key
to the mysteries of the universe. From our ranks came the Cupians, who
were destined by the Master Builder to populate this continent. But the
leaders of the faith remained within the Caves of Kar, as you see us
to-day, excepting those of us who went forth to officiate at the temples
of the Cupians.

“Then came the first Great War, which resulted in the enslavement of
Cupia. Queen Formis, with the assistance of King Kew the First, decreed
the razing of our temples and death to all our priests, and the true
religion vanished from the face of Poros.

“So, for many generations, we have watched and waited in our mountain
strongholds, for the great liberator whose coming was fore-ordained.
When you appeared from the Planet Minos and overthrew the ant empire, we
still waited, for the prophecy of your coming had also contained the
warning that we must remain in hiding until you shall have destroyed the
last Formian. This you have not yet done. And this you must do, ere the
true religion can be reestablished.”

That certainly was an antenna-full!

“What assurance have you that I will restore your spiritual dominion
over Poros?” Cabot asked. “For I worship the God of Minos.”

“We ask no assurance, and we need none,” Glamp-glamp replied, “the Great
Architect of the Universe, call him by what name you will, has sent you
to redeem Poros, and that is enough for us. In due course you will
reestablish His religion.”

Such calm faith! Cabot was almost convinced himself. Then a new
suspicion clouded his firmament.

“Am I a prisoner as hostage for this scheme?” he asked.

“The Builder forbid!” the old priest exclaimed. “You are our honored
guest, and are free to go as the winds. But first we must be sure of
your complete recovery, for we have much at stake in your well-being.”

Cabot was instantly sorry that he had spoken so; and humbly apologized.
But the priest would have none of it.

“Under the circumstances,” he said, “your suspicions were entirely
justified.”

Just then a blue ape entered the room with a message. The priest read
the note, and then informed Cabot that he was to be granted an audience
forthwith by the holy father.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Cabot was washed, shaved and dressed in a clean, Cupian toga, and then
led, with steps feeble from his long illness, through many corridors to
a door on which his conductor knocked several times. The knock was
repeated from within, and the door swung slowly open, admitting them to
a gorgeous vaulted hall, paved with precious stones, flanked with
gold-chased pillars, and lighted on three sides by electric lamps in the
shape of equilateral triangles. The hangings were magnificent tapestries
in cloth of gold, platinum, copper and other metals, depicting early
traditional scenes in the history of the planet.

About fifty priests, dressed like Cabot’s conductor, were seated along
the walls, some on special raised thrones; and in the center of the
opposite side, on a raised platform, sat the leader of the faith, Owva,
the holy father, who was the only cowled figure in the room. Owva’s face
was the most serene and to-be-trusted that Myles Cabot had ever seen on
any human being. One look at that face, and all Myles’s troubles passed
away.

The holy father inspired him, as a mother inspires a child, to absolute
trust and confidence in the future.

But Cabot’s perverse Americanism led him to stand erect with arms
folded, as his conductor made humble obeisance and motioned to him to do
likewise. Myles Cabot was the Regent of Cupia; why should he do homage
to the church? Then he remembered that his claim to the regency lay
buried in the courtyard of Luno Castle. And then he felt thoroughly
ashamed of his grossness, for the holy father descended from the throne
and bowed low to _him_, saying:

“Welcome to Kar, Myles Cabot, defender of the faith.”

Ever these priests were teaching Cabot manners. He now bowed low in turn
himself, and stammered out some kind of an apology.

The holy father reascended the throne and gave his guest the seat of
honor on his left hand, where they conversed for several minutes, before
he introduced Cabot to the assembly.

“Priests of the true religion,” said Owva, “ye all recall the prophecy,
how from the very moment when our ancestors and predecessors in title
sprang from the soil to people the planet Poros, we have known that our
religion was doomed to be wiped from the face of the continent by an
alien race. That sad event in the history of the true religion came to
pass five hundred years ago, when Formia overran our fair planet.

“Ye also know that the prophecy continued by stating that after many
generations there should come a beast from another world, to redeem
Cupia, and restore us to our pristine power. ‘Fight fire with fire, and
beasts with beasts.’ Permit me to present to you Myles Cabot, the beast
from Minos. The vanquisher of the Formians. The hero of Poros. I have
spoken.”

“Priests of Kar,” said Myles (just barely restraining himself from
saying, “Priests of the true religion”), “it is reassuring to me to meet
such an abiding faith in the destinies of Poros. Strengthened by your
tender ministrations, I go forth to redeem the planet with your
assistance. May God’s will be done.”

There was a rustle of disapproval at the mention of a strange Supreme
Being, but the holy father silenced them with a gesture. Then he signed
to Cabot that the interview was at an end, and Cabot returned to his
room.

A few days later Myles was pronounced well enough to leave the
subterranean city. First he bid an affectionate farewell to Glamp-glamp,
who had tended him through all his illness. Then, gathering up his
belongings, he set forth through many a winding passage, under the
leadership of the young electrician-priest, Nan-nan, who had shed his
red-embroidered robe and now had on instead an ordinary Cupian toga for
the occasion. Both men wore sandals on their feet, as had become
customary in military circles, although the inhabitants of Poros
normally went barefoot.

As they neared the outer air, Cabot was blindfolded and thereafter for
several stads submitted to the guidance of a hand beneath his arm.

Finally they halted and the bandage was removed. They were now standing
in dense woods at the foot of a steep hill, up the side of which ran a
winding path.

Nan-nan thus instructed Cabot: “Follow that road for about three stads,
keeping yourself thoroughly prepared all the way to halt the moment you
are so commanded. Somewhere _en route_ you will be challenged by a
Cupian sentinel. When asked your identity, say ‘Arta,’ and make a sign
like this.”

Here he indicated a sign with his hands, then continued: “Be very
guarded in your remarks. May the Great Architect bless you. Good-by.”

“Hold on for a paraparth,” ejaculated Cabot, seizing the young priest by
the arm. “You can’t let me go blindly like this. This method of
procedure may appeal to your sense of intrigue or your love of mystery,
but surely it is highly impractical to send me into enemy territory with
absolutely no disguise, and no intimation as to who I am supposed to be,
or how I am supposed to act.”

Nan-nan mildly remonstrated, “As to who you are supposed to be, I have
already informed you that you are ‘Arta.’ As to how you are supposed to
act, I have already instructed you, when challenged by any sentinel, to
give your name and show the sign.”

“But who is Arta,” expostulated Myles, “and why all the hocus pocus?”

“Ah,” replied the priest, “the less you know, the less secure you will
feel. And the less secure you feel, the more careful you will be. Is it
not so?”

“I suppose so,” assented the earth-man grudgingly.

“Then,” said his mentor, “Good-by. And may the Builder bless you.”

And patting Cabot’s cheek, he turned and strode off down the path whence
they had come. Myles drew his revolver and a deep breath, and set out
resolutely to scale the hill ahead. But he walked slowly, although
steadily, for his strength was not yet all that it should be.

Thus about a parth passed, when suddenly from in front of him came the
words: “Stop, in the name of the king!”

A Cupian stood before him with a revolver in his left hand. For a moment
they sized each other up.

Then “Which king?” Cabot asked.

The sentinel answered, “Yuri, ruler of Cupia.”




                                  XI

                             WITH THE ARMY


For a moment Myles was dumfounded. Almost he fired. Then, remembering
his instructions, “Arta,” he said, and made the sign.

“It is well,” the sentinel replied, lowering his gun. “Come, I will
conduct you.”

Where the sentinel was to lead him, the Lord only knew, but Cabot
trusted in the foresight of the priests, and followed.

The fellow proved a most loquacious guide, so that Myles had little
difficulty to remain reticent. The guide started talking almost at once.

“From the capital?” he asked.

“No,” Myles replied, “what is the news from the capital?”

The sentinel smiled a sagacious smile.

“Yuri reigns over Cupia,” said he, “and beside him on the throne sits
Formis, the black hag of the ants. Surely you have heard the ribald
jests which this has caused among both races?”

Cabot shook his head.

“Too many damned ants in this country now,” the Cupian continued, “but
we have been given to understand that this is only a temporary measure.
Of course King Yuri cannot know whom to trust among his own people—I
hope that I have not offended?”

“Not at all,” said Cabot. “Go on.”

“I don’t know that there is much more to say. Our leaders tell us that
Cabot the Minorian is the cause of all our troubles. But for my own
part, I share the belief of most of the common soldiers that he was a
great patriot. I can say this without treason, now that he is dead. May
he rest beyond the seas! But I talk too much; that is always my failing.
Do I offend?”

“Certainly not,” Cabot replied. “In fact, I share your belief to a large
extent. But just how did the Minorian die?”

“They burned him to death in the woods north of Luno. No man could live
in that blaze, and he was completely surrounded. But they never found
his body. Not that I doubt his death,” he added hastily, “still there be
many who say that Cabot is supernatural. And there is ample grounds for
that belief. Did he not vanquish a whistling bee alone and single-handed
at Saltona? Did he not escape alive from the Valley of the Howling
Rocks, after his ant executioners had actually seen him perish because
of the terrible din, and after he had been pronounced officially dead?
Did he not slay a woofus in the woods south of Kuana? In the present
war, was he not killed at the barricade north of the capital, only to
show up alive forty-three days later at Lake Luno? All of these events
are evidence pointing to the conclusion that Cabot is not mortal. And,
unless he be supernatural, how did he ever get to this planet in the
first place, from Minos, twenty-five million stads away through space?
Answer me that. But I mustn’t talk so much.”

“Go right on,” said Myles, “though, of course, I cannot agree with you
that this Cabot person is any different from the rest of us.”

This started the guide off on a new track, an anatomical discussion of
earth-born peculiarities, while Cabot permitted his attention to center
on wondering whither he was being led and why. Great were the
ramifications of the lost religion!

The guide discussed how this remarkable Cabot person, being a Minorian,
had strange mushroomy growths at the sides of his head, the use of
which, if any, was vague and uncertain, but apparently something like
that of antennae. Also, how he had no real antennae and no vestigial
wings, as he ought to have if he were a veritable Cupian.

But mostly, the guide dwelt on the fact that this Cabot had five fingers
on each hand, instead of the proper six. At these remarks, Cabot himself
carefully hid both of his telltale hands in the folds of his toga. His
artificial wings, his electrical antennae, his sandals, and the locks of
hair which concealed his ears, all served as a perfect disguise,
provided that he could keep his hands from being seen. But the guide was
too intent on his own conversation to notice anything, even if Myles had
not taken this precaution. So he rambled on, as they wended their way
through the mountains.

Around noon they stopped to mess with a small encampment of Cupians. As
they waited for the meal to be served, they sat down on the crest of a
slope overlooking a fertile valley, at the other side of which rose a
range of hills.

The guide indicated these hills with a wave of his hand and said,
“Thither lies our enemy on whom you have been sent to report.”

So that was what this trip was supposed to be for.

“Tell me,” said Myles, “their condition.”

The guide turned inquiringly to one of the other Cupian soldiers and
explained: “This is Arta, a messenger on reconnaissance. He has the
sign, so you may tell him all.”

Whereat the soldier stated: “Know then that those hills beyond that
valley hold a force of Cupians which greatly outnumber us. The enemy are
too scattered and too little is known of their exact disposition to
enable us to bomb them out by airplane. But on the other hand, our
complete control of the air prevents them from attacking us. We are
rapidly completing a topographical survey by airplane. New planes are
arriving from Mooni as fast as the factories there can turn them out.
And ant reenforcements are arriving as fast as kerkools can bring them
up. The stage is nearly set for the victorious advance of King Yuri, and
for the end of the pretendership of his brother Toron. But, of course,
being from headquarters, you know all this; what you now want is
details. Is not that so?”

Just then the food arrived, bowls of alta and green milk. The guest was
served first.

Instinctively Cabot extended his hand to accept the proffered bowl, and
instinctively the soldier with whom he had been talking followed his
movement with his eyes. All too late Cabot realized what he had done;
for there, exposed before them, was a right hand with no counterpart on
all Poros, a hand with only five fingers, not six, the hand of Cabot,
the earth-man.

Simultaneously the two sprang to their feet, overturning the bowls of
food, as the Cupian soldier shrieked: “Not Arta, but Cabot! Cabot the
Minorian has come to life again!”

Out shot the right fist of the earth-man and tumbled the soldier in the
dust. Then, before the rest of the astounded company had time to grab
their rifles, Cabot had leaped from their midst and was rushing down the
grassy slope to the valley below. A volley of shots followed him, and
then the chase began.

But his earthly agility stood him in good stead, in spite of his
weakness, for he covered the ground much more rapidly than his pursuers,
and finally cleared at one bound the brook at the bottom, whereas they
were forced to halt and ford it. But this halt brought forth several
more volleys of bullets, one of which nicked the lobe of his ear, where
the tiny ear-phone failed to cover it.

Cabot smiled grimly as he raced up the opposite slope. He could never
repay that outrage, for Cupians have no ears.

                 *        *        *        *        *

At last he dropped panting in a little ravine which shielded him from
his pursuers, whom he was confident would not dare to penetrate thus far
into enemy territory.

But a peremptory cry of “Halt!” brought him suddenly to his feet again.
He found himself looking into the muzzle of a Cupian rifle.

“I _am_ halted,” he replied somewhat testily.

“Then stay halted,” countered the Cupian, “in the name of the king.”

“Which king, O! sentinel?” asked the earth-man.

To which there came back the answer: “Toron, rightful ruler of all
Poros.”

“Thank God,” exclaimed Cabot, dropping once more to the ground, “for I
am Myles Cabot.”

At last he had reached his journey’s end!

The sentinel hastily summoned assistance, and their exhausted leader was
carried on a litter to army headquarters, where Buh Tedn, Poblath and
the others crowded around him and patted his cheek with every expression
of joy at his deliverance, Poblath exclaiming jovially: “I told you they
could never kill a Minorian!”

Even Hah Babbuh was there, too. How he had gotten there, when he was
supposed to be holding the Kuana jail as a nucleus for the loyal
elements at the capital, was a mystery to Cabot, but the earthman had
not time to inquire, for other matters of more immediate importance now
engrossed his attention.

Hah was in charge of the loyal forces; and Myles, because of his
weakened condition, permitted his friend to retain the active command,
which otherwise would have reverted to him as field-marshal of Cupia.

While the greetings were in progress, who should enter but Prince Toron!
It was instantly evident that he had not been informed of Cabot’s
arrival and was taken by complete surprise. So much so, in fact, that
the young fellow appeared embarrassed and confused. The earth-man sensed
this, and immediately there was reawakened in his breast the suspicion
which had been born when he had read Toron’s note pinned by the dead
body of the baby king, but which had been stilled for a time by the
plausible story told by the priests of the lost religion in the Caves of
Kar.

Accordingly the greetings between these two were a bit formal and
stilted.

After the cheek-patting between them was over, Myles controlled his
voice as much as possible, and asked: “Your majesty, does your majesty
happen to know anything about the death of my son, the baby king?”

Toron started, and his face darkened.

“Were you at Luno Castle?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Cabot grimly.

“Then did you not find the body, and the note pinned with a dagger?”

“Yes,” said his inquisitor. “That was what aroused my curiosity.”

“But the note told the facts,” exclaimed the startled young prince.

“Yes?” said Myles. “And, as I remember it, the words were merely: ‘This
is what did the deed. I came too late.—Toron, King of Cupia.’ That
explains nothing. It does not even state _who_ killed little Kew.”

Cabot snapped his words short with an air of finality. A look of horror
gradually spread over Toron’s face, as he stared at the other.

“My Builder!” he exclaimed, “you don’t mean to say you think that _I_
did it.”

“This is treason!” Hah Babbuh declared in a determined tone.

“Now see here,” interjected Poblath soothingly, “let’s get this
straight. I don’t believe that our good friend from Minos is quite
himself after all his hardships, but I can assure him that I saw the
blow struck, and that Prince Toron had not then even arrived at Luno.”

Toron and Cabot both collapsed limply, and looked at each other with
pity in their eyes.

“I, too, have suffered and am not myself,” said the young prince in
extenuation.

“Toron, cousin of my wife, forgive me,” replied Myles.

Whereat Poblath, the philosopher, to relieve the strained situation,
hastily suggested: “Come, Myles Cabot, tell us all that has happened to
you these many days since we last saw you in my mangool at Kuana.”

Cabot roused himself.

“But no,” said he, “for I want first to hear the tale of my good friend
Prince—er, King—Toron.”

“Yes, yes, tell him,” said Poblath hurriedly.

The boyish contender for the throne looked inquiringly around the
circle, and, receiving several nods of approval, began:

“It happened this way, Myles. The instant that my uncle was shot dead by
my murderous brother at the Peace Day exercises, my first thought was of
my beloved cousin, the Princess Lilla. I did not even stop to consider
that the assassination had given me a claim to the throne. If I had
paused, it might have occurred to me that the proper place to strike a
blow for her safety was right there in the stadium, in an attack on the
pretender Yuri. But, as it was, I had but one idea: Northward!”

“I have had that idea myself,” Cabot interjected with a smile.

The tension was broken, Poblath remarking dryly. “Great minds think
alike.”

“So,” the boy continued, “I rushed for the nearest exit, and gained my
own plane before the fighting in the stadium got really under way. But,
as I helicoptered up into the air, I noted that my fuel tanks were
nearly out of alcohol. This meant stopping at the nearest
filling-station, and a delay of many precious paraparths. Nevertheless
there was no alternative.

“The keeper of the station did not recognize me, but, noticing our
family crest on the machine, he asked: ‘A supporter of Yuri?’

“This gave me an idea.

“‘You, too?’ I replied.

“He assented.

“‘Then, in the name of the Great Architect, lend me a rifle and a yellow
pennant, so that I may join his forces in safety.’

“He readily complied. In fact, he seemed to know all about the _coup_.
And thus it happened that I rose into the air, flying the accursed
colors of the new dynasty. But, even as my plane left the ground, there
passed overhead a Formian fleet of bombers headed northward, undoubtedly
bound for Lake Luno on some devilish errand. It was up to me to
interfere.”

“You mean to say,” interjected Myles, “that you dared to tackle,
single-handed, a whole squadron of Mooni-trained ant men?”

Toron shrugged his youthful shoulders.

“Why not?” said he. “I am a graduate of the ant-university. It would be
a good lark. ‘A Cupian can only die once, so he might just as well die
happily,’ as Poblath here would say. Besides,” and his face hardened,
“it was necessary for my cousin Lilla’s sake. So up I went and after
them.

“My newly acquired yellow banner gave me free passage into the very
midst of the fleet. And then I let loose with the rifle. Oh, it was fun,
to see the black beasts drop. My only regret was that I didn’t have
explosive bullets, like those which we used in the War of Liberation.

“Of course,” ruefully, “eventually they shot me down, but it was a great
fight while it lasted.”

“Were you hurt?” asked the earth-man.

“Oh, no,” the boy replied, “they merely got my fuel tank, and so I was
able to make a fair landing one hundred stads or so north of Kuana. But
down they all came on top of me.”

“And captured you?” inquired Myles.




                                  XII

                         THE TROUBLES OF TORON


“No, the ant-fliers did not capture me,” replied the young Prince Toron,
“for when they punctured my fuel tank, I fluttered down and landed in a
tree in some thick woods. Of course this wrecked my plane, but that
didn’t matter, for the machine was no good anyhow without any fuel, and
where could I have my tank repaired or get any alcohol, with the whole
country plunged in civil war?

“The ants, however, had good cause to conserve their planes, and so must
needs land in a field at some distance from me, in order to pursue me.
If they had only had sense enough to drop a few bombs on my tree, they
would have had me then and there, and the succession to the throne would
have been infinitely simplified. But luckily they tried to capture me.
Undoubtedly they had by this time figured out who I was, and had decided
that I would be a worthwhile prize to bring back alive to my loving
brother.

“I remained in the tree until I saw them hover down to the ground, and
thus knew what their plans were; then, shedding my toga, I hastily
rigged up a dummy of myself, left it in the cockpit, and clambered down
the tree. The branches were close, and the foliage thick, so that
climbing up that tree would be absolutely impossible for a creature so
large as a Formian.

“Yet my dummy body high aloft looked so natural from the ground, that I
was sure that the enemy would try to ascend, and would finally resort to
chopping, or even gnawing it down, in order to capture me. They had
landed to the north of my position, for the evident purpose of cutting
off any further advance on my part, so I set out as nearly due west as I
could, lining up one tree after another to keep from traveling in a
circle, until finally I came to the main highway which runs north from
Kuana.”

“But what good did it do you?” interrupted Cabot. “You were stark naked,
weren’t you?”

“Naked as the day I was born,” Toron replied. “A dainty situation for a
prince of the royal house to be in! But I had scarcely reached the road
when night fell. The dense Porovian darkness would serve as my toga for
the present, and also would enable me to avoid any approaching kerkools
by virtue of the warning radiance cast by their headlights, even before
those lights themselves became visible. You see, Cabot, I cannot hear a
kerkool, as I could an airplane, for kerkools have trophil engines,
which do not radiate, and I do not possess those funny cups on the side
of my head, with which you exercise that uncanny earth-sense that
enables you to hear things which make no sound. So it is only at night
that I could be safe from approaching cars.

“Of course, travel by night was most difficult. I fell off the road many
times and bruised myself considerably. Yet there was nothing for me to
do but press on to the northward.”

Cabot smiled reminiscently at the word.

“And so,” the young prince continued, “I kept on. I remember figuring
out, during one period of rest after a particularly severe fall from the
road, that it would take me at least ninety days to reach Lake Luno at
the rate at which I was going. But still I pressed on, for there was no
alternative.

“Just before daybreak I reached a town, and started to skirt around its
edges; but I became terribly involved in some outlying lanes and alleys.
Soon I found myself hemmed-in in a narrow street. By groping my way from
one side to the other, I discovered that there were high fences on each
side, therefore I continued on down this alley. It twisted and turned so
that I kept bumping against the fences, and finally had no very clear
idea of direction. And then, to add to my discomfiture, a dull glow
gradually diffused the air behind me, thus showing that a kerkool was
slowly picking its way down the same street. Naturally I started to run,
and equally naturally I hadn’t gone far when I collided head-on with a
fence. The shock hurled me to the ground, and supplied me with plenty of
light for a few moments, only it was light which didn’t do me much of
any good.

“But just as the kerkool rounded the turn behind me, I groped my way to
my feet, and luckily in so doing I found a door in the fence against
which I had just run. It was unlocked. In another instant I was through,
with the door carefully shut.

“I felt for some bolt or bar, but there was none, so I set out carefully
at right angles to the fence. The light from the kerkool now so filled
the street that I could see my way dimly. The place was some sort of
garden, either vegetable or flower. I was standing in a bed, but I
quickly stepped out and hurried down one of the paths. Meanwhile the
kerkool had stopped outside, but for what reason I could not imagine. I
doubt if the driver heard me, for I had radiated nothing since entering
the garden; but perhaps he had seen me as I passed through the gate.”

“Perhaps the gate made a noise,” suggested Myles mildly.

“Of course not. Gates don’t radiate,” Prince Toron scornfully replied,
then laughed, “I forgot. You can hear gates and all sorts of other
noiseless sounds; but we Cupians, who have no mushrooms on the sides of
our faces, are not so gifted.

“Well, as I was saying, the kerkool stopped, and presently the gate
opened, letting a flood of light through into the garden. Then I did run
indeed. But, as I heard no radiations behind me, I could not tell
whether or not I was pursued. As I ran, and as I got farther and farther
away from the fence, my surroundings became dimmer and dimmer, until I
could scarcely see, when suddenly there loomed up in front of me a long
row of ghostly figures gesticulating wildly, though in perfect silence,
and shifting uneasily about, without however disturbing their perfect
alignment. My escape was completely cut off. At once I stayed my
headlong flight. But my new enemies did not advance upon me, nor did
they utter a sound. It was most uncanny!

“Glancing furtively behind me I could see that the distant gate still
stood open and that the figure of an ant man was silhouetted in the
light which flooded through it. So there was no turning back. The line
of enemies in front of me still maintained their positions, and still
kept up their restless motions. Most of them stood nearly shoulder to
shoulder, but between two of them was a gap several paces wide, and
through this gap I suddenly plunged, intending to take them by surprise.

“But it was evidently a trap, for just as I passed through, a slipnoose
tightened about my throat and I was thrown backward to the ground. With
my last fading consciousness, I could see my enemies about to pounce
upon me.”

Toron paused in his narrative, and smiled mysteriously.

“Yes, yes, go on,” said Myles eagerly; but still the prince maintained
his silence, with a twinkle in his clear blue eyes.

“Go on,” Myles impatiently repeated. “What sort of folks were these? I
have seen many strange sights since my advent on your planet, but never
have I seen any group of Cupians stand in a row at night and sway back
and forth like trees. Who were they, and what did they do to you when
they captured you?”




                                 XIII

                       TORON CONTINUES HIS STORY


But still the young prince did not reply.

Myles Cabot glanced around the little group and saw that they all were
grinning broadly. They had heard the story before.

Cabot turned back to Toron again and urged, “Go on. You have just said
that, as you dashed through the row of ghostly figures, some one lassoed
you around the neck. What happened then?”

“What happened then?” replied the prince tantalizingly. “The next thing
that I knew the red light of morning was flooding the eastern sky. I was
lying naked on the ground in a garden, while just above me stretched a
clothesline with a row of Cupian togas fluttering in the breeze. These
were the ghostly row of sentinels of the night before, and the rope
which had cut off my wind so summarily had not been a lasso at all, but
merely the clothesline itself.”

Myles looked very uncomfortable and sheepish as a general laugh went up
at his expense. Then he declared: “Toron, you are a first class
story-teller, and you certainly had me fooled. Did it really happen?”

“Honestly,” the boy replied.

And Poblath added: “It couldn’t have been better if he had made it up.”

Then Toron went on with the narrative of his adventures: “The
clothesline was Builder-sent in my then naked condition. Hastily
grabbing one of the togas from off the rope, I donned it and hurried out
of the garden, just as the morning life began to stir in the little
village. Before folks had fully awakened for the day’s round of
pleasures and work, I had gained the fields and the woods beyond, and
there I slept throughout the day.

“Just before nightfall, I found some red clay with which to dye my
telltale yellow hair, and then set out once more to grope my weary way
northward through the jet black night. Thus I kept on for several days
of sleep and nights of travel, until one night a kerkool rounded a turn
too quickly for me and deluged me with its light before I had time to
scuttle into the woods. Scuttle I did, however, and soon several flash
lamps appeared among the trees in pursuit.

“The lights of my enemies showed me their whereabouts and thus enabled
me to dodge them. But on the other hand, I could not see to find my way,
whereas they could; with the result that finally they surrounded me.
There were four of them, four Formians. I was unarmed. ‘Foolhardiness is
not courage,’ as Poblath would say. So I surrendered. Luckily they did
not recognize me.”

“Why should they,” Cabot remarked, “without your yellow curls and your
royal robes?”

“Anyhow,” the prince continued, “they didn’t. I asked them what was the
idea of arresting a poor farmer in the middle of the night, and they
replied that it was this middle-of-the-night part of it that made my
actions suspicious. Where was I going, and what was I doing? I cooked up
some sort of a yarn about being out of a job and out of tickets, and
they appeared to believe me. However, they said that the orders of Queen
Formis were to make a census of all male Cupians, for the purpose of
either impressing them into service or killing them, as soon as the army
of King Yuri should come along on its triumphal march northward.

“Of course, I did not want to be listed and quartered on any of these
villages, where my identity would probably be recognized, so with mock
eagerness I asserted my loyalty to my brother—naturally not referring
to him as such—and inquired as to whether there were any openings for
mechanics in the air service, thanking my luck the while, that we
Cupians do not have registration numbers painted on our backs like the
Formians.

“As a result of my apparent eagerness to serve in the army, which seemed
perfectly plausible in view of my being out of a job, only a few
perfunctory questions were asked as to my identity, and I was taken
along to an encampment of the ants. I had picked the air service,
because that would undoubtedly be manned almost entirely by Formians,
who would not be so likely to recognize me as would my own countrymen,
unless I happened to run across some of my former instructors at the
University of Mooni. I had to take a chance on that.

“To make a long story short, the motley army of the yellow and black
allies came along a few days later bound northward, and I was assigned
to one of the kerkools which carried repair parts and machine tools for
the airplanes. We then proceeded north without event until the entire
army went into action south of Lake Luno. And, just in time for this
battle, there arrived a large force of fliers gathered from all over the
two kingdoms for the final drive that was to end the war.

“According to word brought back to the air base where I was stationed,
the army of my baby cousin had only one plane and one antiaircraft gun,
but these accounted for quite a number of ant fliers, and soon we were
busily at work making repairs.”

“Just a moment,” Myles Cabot interrupted. “Didn’t it give you a guilty
feeling to be repairing the airships that were to fly against your own
people?”

“Not at all,” Prince Toron replied with a smile, “for most of my efforts
were directed toward filing stay-wires almost to the breaking point,
drilling small holes in fuel tanks and plugging them with loose wooden
pegs, adding grit to the lubricating oil, and performing other similar
acts of sabotage. I really believe that I brought down fully as many
Formian planes as did the opposing army.

“But in spite of my loyal efforts and those of the brave Cupians
fighting under Hah and Tedn and Poblath, the black hordes were too
numerous and too well equipped, and so finally triumphed. Word came back
to us that the Kew forces had been driven beyond Lake Luno, and that
Luno Castle was under siege. Airplanes no longer returned for repairs,
and most of our mechanics—ants they were—drifted forward to get a view
of the fighting, leaving me all alone.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“Now was my chance to act. Near by stood one ship which had been brought
in for some minor adjustments, and on which I had secretly grounded the
ignition, thus putting the machine out of commission. It was a simple
matter to open the short-circuit, and soon I was humming up into the
air.

“Straight up I rose until I could get a pterodactyl’s eye view of the
lake and the surrounding hills. Several stads to the north was the
slowly retreating line of Hah Babbuh and Buh Tedn, followed by an
opposing line of the forces of Yuri, while other ant troops surmounted
the heights overlooking the little lake. Over the contending armies flew
the navies of Formis, dropping bombs, but their marksmanship was not
proving very destructive, for they were flying high to avoid the eddies
which rose from the gorges of the mountainous country to the northward.

“Even as I gazed, a party of fliers detached themselves from the advance
and returned toward Luno Castle, so I settled slowly down to join them.
Of course, they suspected nothing, until I got within a few parastads of
them and started dropping bombs. Two planes fell, and you should have
seen the rest scatter!

“But just as I was exulting over my momentary victory, my attention was
attracted to the island of the Castle. Fighting was in progress on the
heights and on the beaches. Cupians were leaping from the cliffs into
the water and swimming toward the northern shore of the lake. Many
Formians were rowing across from the mainland to the southern shore of
the island, where they disembarked and got into the fray, and very soon
after that every one of my countrymen had been driven into the water.

“They all seemed to be good swimmers, but on the northern mainland
cliffs awaited an eager throng of armed ant-men. Without a moment’s
hesitation I turned the nose of my plane straight down and dropped
almost to the level of the lake; then, quickly righting her, I skimmed
along the cliffs and cleared them of the black enemy with a few
well-placed bombs, just in time for the brave survivors of the castle to
land and make their way through the hostile cordon.”

“Yes,” Poblath confirmed, “if it hadn’t been for Toron, we never should
have succeeded in rejoining the army. We got through the next lines in a
storm which followed soon after.”

The young prince continued his story: “But this maneuver placed me below
the enemy fliers whom I had just dispersed. Back they came and swooped
down on me as I rose to meet them. My plan was to fly straight up
through them, for the reason that a target coming head on at a slight
angle is the hardest to hit from an airship. But they got me with a bomb
before I could make it; and my plane fluttered down into the water like
a falling leaf, completely out of control.

“It took me some paraparths to disentangle myself from the floating
wreckage; and by the time that I had done so, the storm, of which
Poblath speaks, had broken. It was not much of a storm as Porovian
storms go, but in the semi-darkness and rough waves I managed to swim
undetected to the island, where I concealed myself in one of the shore
caves until nightfall, when I ascended to the castle.

“There I found matters much as I imagine you found them, Myles, a day or
two later, except that the darling baby king, whom I had never seen
alive, was lying dead, kicked unceremoniously into a corner, with the
jeweled dagger of my brother stuck through its tiny chest. So I prepared
the funeral bier as you found it, and left that note to let you know
that Cupia still had a king. That is all.”

“But how did you get through the enemy lines to join our army?” asked
Cabot.

“That would take too long to tell,” replied Toron, “for we are anxious
to hear your adventures. I had a most difficult time hiding in the hills
and escaping from one danger only to fall into another. But luck was
with me and I finally got through after several sangths of wandering.
Now tell us _your_ story.”

So Cabot told of how he had been left for dead at the blockade on the
outskirts of Kuana the evening of the assassination, how he had
journeyed north with insufficient arms and no headset, how he had been
captured and then had escaped in the relay station, how he had fallen
into the trap of the ant-bear, how he had seized the kerkool and reached
Lake Luno, how he had been burned out of the woods and washed away by
the lost river, how he had fought the beasts of the dark in the Caves of
Kar until the blue ape had rescued him, how the priests had nursed him
back to health, and finally how he had made his way through the forces
of Yuri to safety and freedom.

When the comparing of notes had ceased, the newcomer outlined what he
had learned of the plans of the army of Yuri.

“Would that we could gain control of the air!” sighed Prince Toron,
“but, alas, we have not one single plane. Every day the enemy scouts fly
over us, mapping our positions. In fact, the only thing which holds them
at all in check is the large number of whistling bees which infest this
region, and an occasional shot from our two anti-aircraft guns.”

By this time the pink twilight had fallen over the face of the planet;
and Cabot, tired but somewhat relieved, withdrew to the quarters
prepared for him, and tumbled into the rough cot which he found there.

The next thing he knew, it was morning. He was awakened by an orderly
arriving at his tent, to inform him that the commanding general desired
his presence for a trip of inspection along the front. So with some
difficulty he shaved, made himself presentable, and reported at
headquarters, where Hah was awaiting him with a few of his more
immediate personal staff. A rough soldiers’ meal of green milk and alta
was served, and then the party started on their reconnaissance.

During the meal, and as they walked along, Hah sketched to his old
friend and associate the events which had occurred since Myles and Buh
Tedn with their loyal troops had left the mangool at Kuana on the
evening of the assassination, to begin their long march northward. Hah
had been instructed to hold the jail at all costs, as a rallying place
for whatever loyalists might remain at the capital. Throughout the rest
of that afternoon and all through the following night, the forces in the
mangool gradually augmented. By morning the jail was jammed with
supporters of the baby king. They even overflowed into all the
surrounding blocks.

                 *        *        *        *        *

But with the daylight came the inevitable, namely a few effective bombs
from Formian fliers, which forced Hah Babbuh and his men out into the
open. Just as he and his immediate advisers were wondering what course
to take, a messenger arrived from Kamel Barsarkar of Ktuth, stating that
he was in control of the city and pledging his allegiance to little Kew.
Instantly Hah decided to take the road which runs southeastward from
Kuana until it skirts the old pale which used to mark the boundary
between Cupia and Formia. This road then curves northward again until it
reaches the city of Ktuth.

So thither Hah set out, and met with practically no resistance, as Yuri
and his ants were all engaged to the northward and were naturally
expecting that Hah would head for Lake Luno. But the ant-men soon
discovered the plans of the loyal Cupians, and therefore attacked Ktuth
in force shortly after the newcomers reached there.

In Cupia there are but two principal roads running from the cities which
border the old pale to the northern part of the Okarze Mountains, at the
foothills of which lies Lake Luno. One of these roads starts at Kuana,
and is the one over which Poblath and his jail kerkools, Buh Tedn and
his foot troops, Prince Toron, the army of Yuri, and lastly Myles Cabot
himself, made their way. This is the direct road. The other runs north
from Ktuth and enters the Okarze range at a point northeast of Luno. And
it was over this second road that Kamel and Hah retreated.

It was well that they did, for they gathered additional supporters from
every town through which they passed, and they kept the enemy from
making a hurried advance along this road, and thus perhaps reaching the
mountains, and possibly even Luno Castle, ahead of the main Cupian army.

As it was, Hah and Kamel held the road, beat a masterly retreat and
joined the main army as it was entrenching itself just after the battle
of Lake Luno.

So much for Hah’s account, which I have greatly boiled down, as its
details would have but little bearing on the main events which I am
endeavoring to cover.

Now that Myles had heard this latest narrative, he was able to piece
together a very complete history of the war to date, compiled from the
events in Kuana before all the parties separated at the mangool, and
from his own adventures, and the stories told by the priests of Kar, by
Prince Toron, and by Hah Babbuh.

During the reconnaissance which now was in progress, Cabot’s attention
was chiefly devoted to recalling to memory and checking up these various
accounts.

Save for the cheers of the loyal troops, the trip along the front was
uneventful until there was heard in the southern skies the familiar purr
of a nearing motor. An enemy plane on scout duty. Instantly Hah and
Myles and their party got under cover.

On came the plane; but presently another sound was borne to the antennae
of the watchers, namely a shrill whistling from the woods on their
right.

“Now we’ll see some fun,” Hah softly radiated, “for here comes a
whistling bee to do battle with the plane controlled by the ant-men.”

And sure enough, even as he spoke, a huge orange and black insect winged
its way into the silver sky. The fight took place almost directly
overhead, and was a repetition of the two battles in which Cabot himself
had taken part near Saltona, while still a guest of the ant-men at
Wautoosa during the early part of his stay on the planet.

Both parties appeared to be adepts in the art of aerial warfare; but, of
course, the bee had only his sting and legs with which to defend
himself, whereas the plane had its fighting tail, its grapple hooks, and
at least one rifle. Given a fair deal, with only side-slips, spirals,
loop-the-loops and tailjabs, the bee would have had the advantage; but
what chance had he against explosive bullets? And so in due course of
time the bee was shot down, and fell screaming to the ground; while the
plane, evidently injured to some extent itself, retired again to the
southward.

The bee fell quite close to where the observers were stationed; and,
impelled by curiosity to see how badly it was damaged—for every
whistling bee remaining alive meant just one more obstacle to the air
fleet of the enemy—Hah and Cabot and their suits drew near to the
disabled creature, keeping their revolvers ready, however, lest it
should attack them.

Cabot’s radio headset had been working badly that morning, and now
apparently it began playing tricks upon him, for as he walked along he
thought he heard a very faint voice calling. “Cabot, Cabot, O Myles
Cabot!”

But as his radio was nondirectional, he could not tell whence seemed to
come the voice. He stopped and began to adjust the controls. Clearer and
yet more clear sounded the voice until, at the shortest wave length of
which his set was capable, entirely outside the range of Cupian
conversation, the sound became no longer a vague suggestion, but rather
an unmistakable voice, speaking the universal language of Poros:

“Cabot, Cabot, O Myles Cabot!”




                                  XIV

                               PORTHERIS


“Cabot,” the voice continued, “do you not know me? Do you not recognize
him whom you rescued from the spider web and who afterward spared your
life near Saltona, although you had robbed his honey store? It is I,
Portheris, who speak to you. Put down your gun and give me help, or I
perish.”

There could be no longer any doubt as to the source of that mysterious
voice. It was the whistling bee who was speaking! Cabot sheathed his
weapon. Switching his controls back to the normal range of Cupian
speech, he instructed Hah Babbuh to put up his weapon likewise. Hah, who
had heard nothing, was much mystified, but nevertheless obeyed his
superior.

Switching to the bee’s wave length again, Cabot said: “Portheris, once
you spared me. ‘A life for a life.’ I am yours to command. How badly are
you hurt?”

“I cannot exactly tell. But I think and hope that it is nothing more
than a broken wing-joint.”

At Cupian wave length Cabot then asked: “Is there with our army any one
versed in insect ailments?”

“There is,” Hah replied, “for my aide, Emsul, studied such under the ant
men at Mooni. But surely you do not contemplate helping this bee, for it
is well known that the whistling bees, although unwittingly they are
assisting us in this war, yet nevertheless do not themselves distinguish
between Cupians and Formians as enemies.”

“_This_ bee is a friend of mine,” the earthman asserted, “and will not
hurt Emsul, if I tell it not to. Quick, send for Emsul, for if he can
save the life of this whistler, I believe that we are about to receive
an important accession to our forces.”

But Hah was still unconvinced. “How can you ‘tell’ him? Whistling bees
cannot talk.”

“I can whistle, though,” laconically replied his superior.

So a private was sent on the double quick for Emsul.

The veterinarian, when he arrived a few paraparths later, approached the
wounded insect most gingerly; but finally his professional curiosity got
the better of him, and he plunged into his work. It was the first time
that any physician, either Cupian or Formian, had ever examined a live
bee, and accordingly it was a great day for science!

Emsul’s inspection convinced him that all that was amiss was a broken
wing and shock, and that with care Portheris would entirely recover, so
a huge litter was improvised. Then came the question of getting the
enormous creature onto this litter. He was too weak to be of very much
assistance; but, by dint of great effort, and much prying by means of
poles, and some kicking by the bee’s own legs, they finally got him on.
Then six men grasped each end of each handle, and bore the striped
creature in triumph to headquarters, where he excited the wonder of the
entire staff, and not a little fear.

To appreciate the situation fully, we must use an earthly analogy.
Imagine a party of British officers hunting in the jungles of India in
the company of a near-human creature from another planet—say Mars, for
instance—and coming upon a wounded man-eating tiger. Imagine the man
from the skies talking in apparent silence with the tiger, and then
informing the astonished hunters that the tiger is a friend of his, and
must be brought into camp and treated for his wounds. How could they
know that the ferocious beast would not turn and devour them, when
cured, or even during the process? Only a supreme confidence in the man
from the other planet would induce them to go through with the program.

But the Cupians had just such a trust in Myles Cabot, and so they dared
to risk befriending the bee. Emsul set the wing-joint in a splint, and
several green cows were driven in for the bee’s delectation. After that
he slept.

                 *        *        *        *        *

When Portheris had rested, Cabot called in Toron, Hah Babbuh, Poblath
and Buh Tedn, and—alternately tuning to the two ranges of
speech—broached to them his plan.

“Portheris,” he asked the bee, “how is it that you know our language
although your range is so different from ours?”

“That question has oft been discussed among us,” Portheris replied, “and
we have always regarded the other inhabitants of Poros as either stupid
or rude. Do you remember shouting to me after the fight at Saltona,
‘Don’t! Was it for this that I saved you from the spider?’ I heard you,
and stayed my sting. Yet, when I answered you, you gave no heed. It has
always been thus. Cupians and Formians alike have never replied when
spoken to by Hymernians, or ‘bees’ as you call us. Why is it, I ask you
in turn?”

“Stop this whistling,” interjected Poblath, “and tell us what it is all
about.”

Cabot, being tuned to another wave length, did not hear him. The bee,
however, heard and informed Cabot, who obligingly shifted his controls
and explained.

“As I figure it out,” he said, “these bees can send and receive on
either of two different wave lengths. One of these is about the same as
that of Cupian speech, and on this the bees merely whistle, so that
whistling is the only sound which you ever hear them utter. On the other
wave length they talk, but as this is outside the range of your
antennae, you never hear it. But they can hear you talk, when they are
tuned to receive the whistles of their own breed. And I can both hear
them and send to them, by tuning my artificial speech-organs to their
higher wave length.”

“It sounds plausible,” Toron assented judicially.

The others were astounded.

Then tuning back to the shorter wave length, the earthman continued his
conversation with the bee.

“If you Hymernians have the intelligence to understand and to talk our
language, how is it that you have no more sense than to attack the ant
men, whose rifles render them invincible against you?”

“I know not,” Portheris replied, “save that we cannot resist a fight. I
suppose it is for the same reason that smaller insects seek a light,
only to be destroyed.”

“Then if you _must_ fight,” Cabot suggested, “why do you not fight in
swarms, and thus overwhelm your adversaries by sheer weight of numbers?”

“It never occurred to any of us,” the bee answered, simply. “We are an
independent race. We fight for the love of fighting, rather than any
desire for victory.”

“Would you consider a project whereby you could achieve more effective
battles?” Myles asked.

“Probably.”

“What do you think, then, of this plan? I will equip each Hymernian with
a fighting man armed with a rifle, to ride upon his back. If you will
assemble your brethren together, I will train them in the tactics of
aerial battle formation. Of course, all your fighting will have to be
done right-side-up, lest you dislodge your riders. No side-slips, no
spirals, no loop-the-loops. But this disadvantage will be offset by the
weight of overwhelming numbers. By the way, speaking of numbers, how
many Hymernians could you muster?”

The bee made a mental calculation.

“About three thousand.”

“Fine!” the earth-man ejaculated. “The Formians at present cannot have
more than a thousand ships. Thus, with the training which we can give
you, and with the equipment which we can supply to you, you can go forth
and conquer your hereditary enemies, the ant men. And when you have
returned victorious, you shall live at peace with the Cupians, who will
breed for you special herds of the choicest green-cows to satisfy your
need for food. What do you say, O Hymernian?”

“It is a wonderful plan!” Portheris murmured devoutly. “May the Great
Architect speed the mending of my wing.”

The plan and its approval were then conveyed to the assembled Cupians,
who went wild with enthusiasm at the prospect of once more regaining
control of the air.

“It spells sure victory,” Hah Babbuh soberly declared.

“Yes,” Poblath the philosopher assented. “The Great Architect builds to
peculiar plans, but the resulting edifice is perfect.”

“Let’s go,” said Toron, who was beginning to pick up earth slang from
Cabot.

And so, a few sangths later, when Portheris had entirely recovered, he
flew away, to return in several days with a vast concourse of his winged
brethren.

It was indeed an imposing spectacle. Three thousand orange-and-black
bees, each the size of a horse, winging their way through the air in
such swarms that they obscured the silver skies and darkened the ground
beneath. And the noise! Cabot alone could hear the combined hum of
twelve thousand wings, but the Cupians were nearly deafened by the
whistling.

Finally all the bees settled down and found resting places on the
surrounding rocks. Portheris reported that all had agreed to follow him
in this new undertaking, and their battle lust was hard to restrain.

There, in the presence of a large part of the Cupian army and of his own
followers, Portheris the First was crowned King of the Bees, and he and
Toron concluded the treaty of alliance between Cupia and the bee-people.
Cupia at last had an air navy!

But Cupia by no means yet had control of the air. First it would be
necessary to discipline and train that wild and lawless winged horde.
And some task it was! Cabot had to take personal charge of the
instruction, for although others could talk _to_ the Hymernians, he was
the only person on all Poros who could hear and understand their
replies.

And it was with great difficulty that he kept back the half-trained bees
from spoiling the whole show by picking a fight with every Formian
airplane which appeared.

At last, however, the animate air fleet were completely subjugated and
trained. All that the Cupian leaders awaited was the auspicious moment
at which to strike.




                                  XV

                         FOR CONTROL OF THE AIR


Toron, King of Cupia; Portheris, King of the Bees; and Myles Cabot, the
earthman; conferred together on the situation.

Said Toron: “The latest advices from Kuana are that Yuri has convinced
the Princess Lilla of your death, O Cabot, and that she has consented to
wed him, in order that her poor country may again be at peace.”

“Is that exactly loyal to you, the rightful king?” asked Portheris, but
Cabot refused to put the question, for fear of hurting Toron’s feeling.
So he explained to the bee that Lilla’s high patriotism transcended any
mere personal loyalty.

“How do you come by this information?” he then asked Toron. “And how do
you know it to be authentic? For, if true, it demands immediate action.
Otherwise I am loath to strike until the time is right. Most of the
wireless relay-stations have been destroyed. Is some supporter of ours
at the capital possessed of a sufficiently powerful set to send from
Kuana to here? And, if so, how do you prevent the interception of
messages?”

Toron’s reply astounded him: “Yuri’s forces naturally expect radio from
the army of Myles Cabot, the radio man; and so I have dropped wireless
for the present and have turned to optics. I have been eager to tell you
about this for some time, but have not yet had the opportunity.

“My apparatus consists of a telescope on a tripod. At the focus of the
telescope is a small electric-light bulb. Thus, when two of these
telescopes are focused on each other, at a distance say of eleven or
twelve stads, the flashing of one bulb can be distinctly seen in the
other telescope, and cannot possibly be intercepted except on a path
less than a third of a parastad—about twelve feet—wide, even if the
enemy should learn of the existence of our device, which there is no
evidence that they have done. But, to make assurance doubly sure, both
instruments are masked with screens which admit only the black light
about which you taught me. Do you remember?

“We have spies in Kuana,” he went on, “equipped with these instruments,
and we have relay stations at intervals all the way from here to there.
We use the dot-dash code, of course.”

“Toron,” exclaimed Myles Cabot, “you are a genius! Your invention has
probably saved the day. Send word to Kuana that Myles Cabot has returned
to life and is about to march to do battle against his foes. I guess
that that will not give too much information as to our plans. ‘March’ is
good, for they will never suspect that it means ‘fly.’ Eh, Portheris?”

The bee wiggled his antennae in appreciation.

Hah Babbuh, Buh Tedn and Poblath were then called in, and the plans were
laid for the attack.

The next morning, as the invisible sun rose over Poros, there rose also
the serried ranks of the orange and black air navy of the bees, led by
Myles Cabot, mounted on the back of Portheris, the striped King of the
Hymernians. Each bee carried a Cupian sharpshooter, armed with a rifle
and a basket of bombs. The whole formation flew over the hills and
ravines which housed the gathering armies of Cupia, then out across the
broad valley which divided the two contending forces.

The Formians, and the few renegade Cupians who fought with them under
the banners of Yuri, were prepared for an attack, by reason of Cabot’s
message which had been flashed to the capital, but they were totally
unprepared for such an attack as this. The ant sentinels, eagerly
scanning the opposing row of hills for the first appearance of the foot
troops of Cabot, were picked off by fire from the air almost before they
could give warning. Then the animated planes swept on and began bombing
the hastily assembling Formians.

Close in the wake of the bees, came the foot troops of Cupia, surging
across the plain and easily mopping up the demoralized Formians.

Soon, however, appeared the battle planes of the ants; but they were
surprised and bewildered at the new aerial tactics of their enemies.
They had fought against bees before; but never before against bees
manned with sharpshooters. And so, although the advance of the striped
fleet was stayed and many bees were shot down, an equal number of planes
fell victims of the encounter.

By night the Cupians had consolidated their position to the south of
Lake Luno, and Cabot had established his headquarters in the ruins of
Luno Castle.

That evening, at a conference with his generals, it was decided that it
would not do for the advance to continue too precipitately. In the first
place, the air force ought not to be permitted to get too far ahead of
the infantry. And in the second place, the casualties among the bees had
been altogether too high. Planes could be rebuilt by the Formians, but
bees could not be bred to order for Cupia. This was something which
Cabot had not figured on.

So, now that the first shock attack was over, the advance progressed
more slowly in the days that followed, strategy taking the place of
brute force. Captured airplanes were repaired and manned by ex-flyers of
the old Cupian air navy, and were used whenever possible in place of the
bees, but still the mortality of these winged allies continued, until it
became evident that, unless something were speedily done, the ant-men
would soon regain control of the air. But what was to be done?

One day an aviator from a distant point on the front landed at
headquarters with a message. As he stood talking to Myles Cabot, he
suddenly remarked: “Why, I left my engine running. How careless of me!”

And he looked intently at his plane for a moment, whereat the motor
ceased its purring.

“How did that happen?” Cabot exclaimed. “Does your engine stop whenever
you want it to?”

“I merely spoke to it, and it obeyed me,” answered the Cupian, simply,
yet with suppressed pride. “There are several of us in the air service
who have learned that trick.”

“What do you mean? How can mere words stop an alcohol motor?”

“Oh, it isn’t _words_ that do it,” the airman explained, “but rather a
sort of radiation akin to speech. The right kind of an emanation from
our antennae will effectively interfere with the ignition at a distance
of as much as one parastad.”

“And can the same principle be invoked against a kerkool?”

“Of course not,” laughed the aviator, “for kerkools employ trophil
engines, which ignite by compression, rather than by electricity.”

“So they do,” said Cabot. “That is what we call a ‘diesel’ engine on
Minos.”

And then there was born in the mind of the radio man, the germ of a
great idea. He hurriedly sent for Toron, ablest electrician of the whole
planet, and for Oya Buh, who had been professor of electricity at the
University of Kuana before the civil war.

                 *        *        *        *        *

First, he had the flyer demonstrate to them his ability to stop his
machine by rays from his antennae. Then he outlined his plan as follows:
“If the weak emanations from the speech organs of a Cupian can stop
ignition at a distance of twelve paces, cannot we build a directional
radio apparatus which will bring down enemy planes at a distance of a
stad or more?”

“That ought to be possible,” Oya gravely assented, “but the apparatus
would probably be too heavy to mount on a plane. Or on a bee,” he added,
laughing.

“Mount it on a kerkool, then,” Cabot replied. “It would be infinitely
more effective than an antiaircraft gun, and the planes which we shoot
down by this means will be unharmed for our own immediate use.”

“But what is to prevent Yuri from learning of our contrivance and
employing it against our planes?” interjected Toron. “For there be great
electricians among the Formians.”

“That is where the second part of my plan comes in,” Cabot replied, with
a twinkle in his eye. “We will equip all _our_ planes with _trophil_
engines. Let us send for Mitchfix, the trophil expert.”

And so it came to pass that the energies of all the mechanics of the
Cupian army were turned to two tasks; namely, the trophilizing of the
airplanes, and the construction of several kerkool-mounted radio
machines for the propagation of the mysterious and fatal ray which was
to stop the engines of the enemy. Meanwhile, of course, the advance
stopped. The infantry dug in, and the activities of the bees were
limited to the irreducible minimum necessary to keep off hostile
scouting planes. Delay was irksome; but now Cabot, assured of eventual
air control, could afford to wait.

One day, as he was scouting along the front on the back of Portheris,
the whistling bee, they were suddenly boxed by three enemy planes which
appeared unexpectedly from three different quarters. Such carelessness!
Why had he, on whom so much depended, ventured so far from his own lines
without an adequate escort? Well, there was nothing left to do now, but
fight, so he unslung his rifle and entered into the fray.

Cabot was no mean shot. An animate airplane, to which he had merely to
speak and which could converse with him in turn, was a decided
advantage. But, even so, he was no match for three of the best flyers of
the ant navy.

Nevertheless he brought down one enemy plane before the other two forced
him to descend. His bee fell with him into a narrow gorge with
precipitous sides. Although the bee was severely wounded, Cabot made the
landing without mishap.

He had noticed during the fight that his enemies had apparently directed
their shots at his mount rather than at him; and now, instead of
dropping bombs, which would have been very effective in the confined
space in which he found himself, they hovered down and attacked him on
foot.

He still had his rifle, his bandolier of cartridges, and several hand
grenades. The large boulders, with which the floor of the valley was
strewn, afforded ample cover. The ant men were advancing with only their
rifles, but also were taking advantage of the cover. Sniping between
both sides continued without results.

Finally one of the ants held up two crossed sticks—the Porovian flag of
truce—and Cabot stepped out into the open for a conference. Then, with
a cry of glad surprise, he recognized the Formian. It was none other
than the ant who had captured him on his first day on this planet,
rescued him from the carnivorous plant, had acted as his defense counsel
in his trial before Queen Formis, and had been his and Lilla’s friend in
Kuana.

“Doggo!” he exclaimed, “what are you doing here? I haven’t seen you, or
heard of you, since Peace Day, 358.”

“Fighting for my own country, of course,” Doggo laconically replied.
“But to get down to business: ‘A life for a life.’ In your accursed ‘War
of Liberation,’ you very kindly gave orders that I was to be spared. I
now spare your life, for that and for old time’s sake. But I must ask
you to surrender unconditionally.”

“What then?”

“I shall then take you to Kuana as a prisoner,” answered the ant. “I
cannot promise that there your life will be spared, but I will use every
bit of my influence, which is apt to be great, as I am now the winko of
the entire air navy of Formia. You know me well enough to depend upon my
word.”

“Yes, Doggo, old friend, I do,” said Cabot. He thought intently for a
moment, then tuned his radio set to a shorter wave length and hastily
addressed the bee: “Are you so badly hurt that you cannot reach
headquarters?”

“I think not,” was the reply.

“Then tell Hah Babbuh that I go to Kuana a prisoner—to rescue the
Princess Lilla.”

“But how can I tell him?” asked the bee, “seeing as you, alone of all
the Cupians, can hear our speech, although all of us Hymernians can hear
all of you.”

That indeed presented a complication which had never before occurred to
the radio man. The ability of the bees to receive on the wave length of
the Cupians had been all that had been necessary for tactical purposes,
and any communications _from_ the bees had always been transmitted
through Cabot. But at last he had an inspiration, which he explained as
follows:

“I do not know how much you Hymernians understand about radio. Have you
ever observed Cupians in battle formation?”

“Many times,” replied the bee.

“Then undoubtedly you have noticed the little boxes which our officers
wear strapped upon their heads between their antennae.”

The bee assented.

Cabot continued: “These are selective sending and receiving sets. Each
one contains a wave trap, which silences the radiations of ordinary
speech. You bees speak at a different wave length from the Cupians.
Well, these boxes contain a wave length adjuster, which, by much the
same principle, enables the officers to send to each other at different
wave lengths, above the din of battle-cries.”

“I get the general idea.”

“Go then to Toron,” Myles directed. “Speak to him, and point with your
paw to his selective set. Perhaps that will suggest to him to tune the
instrument to your wave length, and perhaps your wave length is within
the range of that instrument. At all events, it is our only chance.”

At this point, noticing that Doggo was frantically agitating his
antennae, the radio man tuned back to Doggo’s wave length just in time
to hear him say: “Come, my friend, reply to my offer. Will you, or will
you not, surrender?”

“I surrender,” replied Cabot, “but on one condition, namely, that you
spare the life of my faithful bee.”

“Granted,” said Doggo. “From henceforth you are my prisoner.”




                                  XVI

                          THE BEASTS OF KUANA


And so, Portheris, the whistling bee, returned to headquarters with his
message.

And so Cabot, the earth-man, returned southward in a few parths to the
city from which he had wearily journeyed but a short while ago. He had
departed a fugitive; he returned a prisoner.

On the trip back in the ant airplane, he and Doggo conversed freely, out
of antennae shot of the pilot.

“I bear you no malice, my old friend,” said the ant man, “for I blame
Prince Yuri for the unhappy condition of my country, more than I blame
you. Had it not been for his treachery, our two nations would still be
living at peace, as they were when you first set foot on this planet.
Were it not for his recent machinations, what is left of Formia would
still be living unmolested within the restricted borders to which the
‘War of Liberation’ reduced us. In such a position, we could win our way
back by our mental superiority, our greater industry and our culture;
instead of risking, in the scales of war, what little we have left.

“Prince Yuri cares not to reestablish Formia. He is merely using us as
means to his own ends, and will turn against us when it suits his
private purpose. You and I may yet live to fight side by side against
the usurper. But, for the present, he is the official ally of Formia,
and I am fighting for my country.”

“As is just and right,” Cabot added. “But, tell me how will Yuri and
Formia relish your bringing me back alive, instead of dead?”

“I have thought of that,” his captor answered. “Of course, there is
danger that the populace may rally to your rescue. But I do not intend
that the populace shall get a sight of you. If Yuri wishes you dead, he
doubtless will enjoy killing you with his own hands. But I rather
believe that he would prefer to have you alive for bargaining purposes.
Do you not think that your princess would trade even her beautiful body
in exchange for your safety?”

“No, I do not!” the earthman stoutly declared. “You do not realize her
intense loyalty to her country. For little Kew, she might have done so,
as he was not only her baby, but also her king. But for me, never. Yuri
misplayed, indeed, when he killed little Kew, for I am sure that Yuri
would rather have Lilla even than the throne.”

“Then why does he not swap the throne for Lilla?” asked Doggo
devilishly.

“Just what do you mean?” asked Cabot.

Doggo explained: “You have cited the intense loyalty of the princess
royal. Also you have expressed an opinion that Yuri would prefer Lilla
to the throne. Then would it not be natural for him to offer to abdicate
in favor of your candidate, Toron, in return for Lilla’s marrying him
upon your sudden decease, which could be conveniently arranged? Such a
settlement would bring permanent peace to this harassed continent, and
every one would be happy—except, of course, Lilla and you. But you
would be dead in the Elysian fields beyond the boiling seas, and she
would be upheld by the consciousness of her noble martyrdom.”

“My God!” Myles exclaimed, “she might accept _that_.”

“Never fear, I shall not suggest it,” the ant man replied, “for I am
still your friend to that extent, in spite of the warfare between our
two countries.”

Cabot heaved a sigh of relief.

“And what of Formis?” he asked.

“Oh,” answered Doggo, “she is not the great Formis whom you knew. That
Formis is dead. This queen is merely a newly-hatched one, who does
pretty much as Yuri suggests.”

The conversation then veered into personal reminiscences; the two former
friends, now captor and captive, each recounting what had befallen him
since their last meeting before the previous war.

As Cabot told of his age-long journey northward to rejoin his army, the
ant remarked dryly, “Poblath will have to invent a proverb to the effect
that ‘You cannot kill a Minorian.’”

Cabot laughed and said, “He has already done so.”

The tension was relieved for the first time since his capture.

Finally they reached Kuana, and hovered down onto the landing stage on
the palace, the very palace where he and Lilla had lived together so
happily as guests of the king, her father. That palace was now occupied
by the usurper Yuri and the black hag Formis; and Lilla was here held a
prisoner by the murderer of her father and of her babe.

Cabot was manacled, and then was led into the presence of the king and
queen: Yuri, the man with the heart of a beast; and Formis, the ant with
the brains of a man. Together they stood beneath a scarlet canopy, which
set off to perfection the shiny black naked body of the ant queen, and
the black toga which her ally was wearing in honor of their alliance.

“Well, this is indeed a pleasure!” King Yuri exclaimed, rubbing his
hands, as Myles Cabot entered the throne-room. “Welcome to Kuana, your
cursed spot of sunshine. Formis, permit me to present to you the
arch-enemy of your people.”

The black queen inclined her head slightly, but said nothing. Cabot,
too, maintained a dignified silence. But his eyes showed the intense
hatred and scorn which he felt for the betrayer of his country and
murderer of his son.

Yuri continued, “To-night you shall be my guest. To-morrow I shall
decide how best you can be made to serve the welfare of my beloved
people. By the way, would you like to see your wife?”

Cabot was caught off his guard.

“Yes!” he responded eagerly.

Yuri smiled.

“I think it can be arranged,” he said. “Ho, sentinel, bring in the
princess.”

One of the ant soldiers withdrew, and presently returned with Princess
Lilla, who entered the audience chamber inquiringly.

In spite of his studied composure, Myles started forward. Here was his
beloved wife, from whom he had been absent scarcely a moment since their
marriage, until the cruel civil war had separated them. How he longed to
rush to her side, and hold her in his love-starved arms and whisper
comforting words into her antennae! But, with a great effort, he
restrained himself. Yuri must not be permitted to see his emotion. So
the earthman stood still, as his loyal wife swept into the room.

She was no longer the little girl whom Myles Cabot had married. Bearing
a child, and the subsequent sorrows and horrors which had crowded upon
her, had made her a woman since he had left her on the fatal morning
many sangths ago, to fly to the Peace Day exercises which had turned out
so fatally. A beautiful woman she was. Her sorrows had not marred her
fair face, and she still outshone all the other women of her race, or of
any race for that matter. Cabot noted with a pang that she was dressed,
not in royal blue as became one who was in mourning, but rather in
black, presumably by order of Yuri, in honor of the visiting queen from
ant-land.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Her eyes sought those of the king, then followed his glance until they
rested on her husband. For a moment she stood aghast, then rushed across
the room and flung her arms around his neck.

“Myles! Myles!” she cried. “Is it really you? They told me you were
dead. Then came the news that you had rejoined your troops and were
leading them again to victory. The people believed and were glad, but
Yuri told me that it was all a lie, concocted to win the throne away
from him, and that your body lay burned to a crisp in the woods north of
Lake Luno. Yet still I would not marry him, even for the sake of my
country, while there yet was a chance that you lived. But what brings
you here? And why are you handcuffed?”

“Doggo brings me here,” Cabot replied with a wan smile, “and I am
handcuffed lest I wring the neck of the reigning monarch.”

“Which doubtless would give you great pleasure,” Yuri interposed.

“Very great pleasure, your majesty,” Cabot admitted with mock deference.

Yuri turned to Lilla with a devilish grin and spoke, “At last I have
decided what steps to take for the welfare of my beloved country. The
assembly will pass a law annulling your marriage on the ground that your
husband is nothing but a lower animal. Then you shall have your choice
of marriage to me as the price of Cabot’s life, or of life with me as my
slave and Cabot’s death. Two sangths shall you have in which to decide.
Meanwhile the woofuses shall guard your husband in the arena. I have
spoken.”

Said Cabot, “Choose my death, O princess; for the armies of Cupia will
avenge it, and Toron will become king.”

“Not Toron!” Lilla exclaimed. Then caught herself, and to King Yuri she
replied: “I have chosen, king. You may kill Myles Cabot, if you can, but
I will never disgrace Cupia by marrying a beast. There may be some doubt
about _Cabot_ being a _Cupian_, but there is no doubt that _you_ are a
_beast_. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’ Now I have spoken.”

“Which reminds me,” said Yuri, not in the least perturbed, “that I must
kill Poblath too, and add his lovely wife, Bthuh, to my retinue. Ho,
hum, ’tis a weary job being a king. There are so many details to look
after. Take them away; I am tired.” And he turned and engaged in some
inaudible conversation with the black queen.

Lilla flung her arms once more around the neck of her shackled husband.
Then both were seized by the ant-soldiers, and were led out through
different exits. During the interview, Doggo had withdrawn, doubtless
because he felt that it might be difficult for him to restrain himself,
when he saw the indignities to which he had subjected his old friend.

Myles wondered if King Yuri would deprive him of his electrical
antennae, for that had always been Yuri’s move in the past. But no, for
he was dragged away with his set still intact.

Then the guard wrapped Myles completely up in a blanket, and bundled him
into a kerkool.

“A good sign,” thought Myles. “It indicates that Yuri fears to show me
to the populace. Well, here I am in Kuana, and a lot of good it does me!
Anyhow, I have seen my Lilla, and she is well. Also, I know how matters
stand at court. The new ant-queen is a colorless creature.”

And he smiled to himself at the pun. Somehow, he felt the same calm
detachment which he had experienced during his trial for treason before
the former Queen Formis. He could not help remembering that, after all,
this was only a nest of ants!

But he lost some of his calm when he found what was in store for him.
The kerkool stopped in front of the Kuana stadium, and he was led into
the arena. There his shackles were removed and he was given food and
drink. Then five woofuses were led forth. Each woofus wore a leather
collar buckled about its neck. To this collar was fastened a pole held
by two ant-men, and a chain held by another, by means of which devices
the clawing scratching purple creature was kept under control.

Cabot was now placed in the center of a circle formed by five equally
spaced posts, each post being about two woofus-chain-lengths from the
next. To each of these posts was fastened the chain of one woofus; and
then the ant men withdrew, leaving Cabot to his own devices.

The woofus is the most dreaded carnivore of all Poros. It is about the
size and general appearance of an earthly mountain-lion, except that it
is hairless, is lavender in color, has webbed feet, and has pale blue
antennae instead of ears. A woofus is a match for ten Cupians in fair
fight; and its chief occupation, when not fighting, is just to sit and
howl.

Most of the fauna of the planet are either reptiles or insects. Birds
are unknown. Mathlabs, fireworms, blue apes and Cupians are about the
only mammals. The insects run through all the sizes from tiny bugs up to
the ant men and the huge whistling bees. The reptiles range from the
brink, which is a tiny kangaroo-like toad a quarter-inch in length, up
to the woofus, which I have just described.

A pleasant situation for Cabot, indeed, to have five of these howling
beasts staked about him in a circle.

Now he understood why he had been permitted to retain his apparatus. It
was so that he might be tormented by the howling of these guards.




                                 XVII

                        “THE LION AND THE MOUSE”


There is an ancient Cupian fable about a brink which once did a favor
for a woofus, thus so surprising the woofus that he died of the shock.
But in the present case, the brinks figured a little bit differently, as
you shall see as you read on.

To realize Cabot’s predicament, take a pair of compasses and draw five
equally spaced circles, each tangent to the next.

The center of each circle will then represent a post, and the circle
will represent the area in which the woofus, tied to that post can bite.
The small star-shaped figure, bounded by the five circles, will
represent the space in which Myles Cabot was to live during the next
twenty-four days, while King Yuri was getting Cabot’s marriage annulled
by the Assembly, and was trying to persuade Lilla to reconsider her
choice.

What irony of fate! The ground which Cabot now occupied was the
identical spot where, a little over two years ago, he had directed the
firing of the first shot for Cupian freedom. Here had been erected by
him the stadium to commemorate his victory over the Formians. And here
he now languished in his own stadium, a prisoner of those same accursed
Formians, whom he had thought he had driven from Cupia forever. What
irony of fate!

The first night of his peculiar incarceration was uneventfully spent.
Cabot switched off his headset, so as to shut out the screaming of the
purple beasts, and slept the sleep of the just. The joke was on the
king, if that august personage had thought to annoy his victim with the
noise of the woofuses.

The next morning was unusually hot. Myles awoke, stretched himself, sat
up and watched his purple jailers. The largest of them appeared to be
ill. Its eyes were running, and its head was covered with swarms of
brinks, those tiny hopping lizards which infest the concrete roads and
other flat open spaces of Poros.

Instantly Cabot’s interest turned to pity. This poor creature was, of
course, a dreaded carnivore, a man-eater, and all that; but it was in
dire trouble. Switching on his headset, he started talking to the woofus
in a soothing crooning tone.

The huge beast pricked up its antennae, then whined and rubbed its paw
across its face, to wipe off some of the crawling brinks. The other
purple saurians eyed Cabot hungrily and ferociously.

Cabot’s bowl of water from the night before was still standing at his
side. Tearing off one corner of his toga, he dipped it in the bowl, and
shook a few drops onto the head of the sick woofus. The poor beast
stiffened with surprise, then settled down again and whined a bit more
contentedly.

Creeping cautiously forward, Cabot wiped some of the brinks away with
the cool, wet rag. The whining ceased, and the woofus flattened itself
out with a sigh. It made no attempt to strike at its benefactor; and
Cabot, emboldened, drew the bowl nearer and tenderly cleaned every
filthy brink from the creature’s face.

As the washing was concluded, the woofus opened its eyes and stared
steadily at the man, yet still made no move to attack him; and Cabot
with a sudden inspiration, began to scratch the edge of the woofus’ jaw.
The beast stretched its claws with pleasure and submitted to the caress.

Thus the prisoner seemed to have made a friend where one would be least
expected. Yet, when the man moved as if to pass by his keeper, the
latter growled menacingly and started to rise; whereat Cabot beat a
hasty retreat to the center of his prison.

After a while the huge woofus settled down again. Then it whined softly.
Once more Cabot bathed its sore eyes. They were friends again.

All this time Cabot kept a careful watch for his Formian jailers, and
finally one of them arrived with breakfast, which was shoved in to him
at the end of a long pole. Plain fare, but satisfying, alta and green
milk.

Cabot asked for wash water, rags, and a clean toga. The wash water and
rags were forthcoming, but the toga was refused. Then the Formian
withdrew, and Cabot resumed the care of his patient.

Off and on throughout the day he bathed the poor creature’s eyes and
massaged its tired muscles.

Toward evening Yuri appeared, carrying a long whip, with which he
proceeded to flick the five purple guardians into a state of frenzy.

“Stand up, or I’ll flick you, too,” he called out to the captive.
“Haven’t you sufficient manners to stand in the presence of your king?”

“Yes,” Myles answered, “but, according to your own statement, I am only
a mere animal, by which token you are not _my_ king, unless you lay
claim to being king of the beasts.”

In reply, Yuri gave a few vicious swipes at Cabot’s pet woofus, which
strained at its chain with rage. The earthman went white.

“Are you doing that to frighten me, or just for the fun of it?” he asked
tensely.

“Not that it is any of your business,” answered the king, “but, as a
matter of fact, I am doing it merely because it gives me intense
pleasure to demonstrate my power over these five fierce creatures, any
one of which is a match for ten Cupians.”

“Then stop it at once,” Cabot thundered, rising to his feet, “or, by all
that is holy, I’ll risk my life to untie their chains.”

Yuri saw that Myles meant it, and so desisted, but could not resist a
parting shot: “So you did stand up for your king after all! I thought I
could get you to.”

And he strode away, laughing.

When Yuri had made his exit from the arena, Cabot walked over to his
woofus, which, with foaming mouth and staring eyes, was still straining
at its leash. Myles patted him on the back. It was the supreme test. The
woofus ceased his straining and rubbed against the man’s side. So they
were still friends, and here was a friendship which would last.

Night came, and no guards entered the dimly lighted stadium. Cabot’s
huge pet slept with its head contentedly in his lap like a St. Bernard
dog. As the earthman stroked the sleek purple hide, he suddenly had an
idea, and immediately put it into execution. He unstrapped and removed
the collar from the neck of the beast.

“You are free, my friend,” said he, “and if you take your freedom, it
will leave me free too.”

At his words, the woofus stirred, stood erect, shook itself, and then
bounded off silently into the darkness. And the captive, now a captive
no longer, followed through the gap which the woofus had left vacant. In
a few strides, he reached the parapet which divided the tiers of seats
from the sands, and was just about to leap up and grasp its edge, when a
swift rushing form collided with him and sent him sprawling. Then great
webbed paws were planted on his chest, and he saw the horrid face of a
woofus leering down at him out of the half-darkness.

Nearer and nearer came the dripping jaws to his face,
until—finally—the creature lapped his cheek. It was his own woofus,
come back for him.

And thereupon Cabot abruptly changed his plans.

All through that warm tropical night, Cabot, the earthman, and this huge
purple saurian of the planet Venus, ranged the Kuana stadium together,
alone and in silence.

Myles started teaching the beast to heel, to lie down, and to attack, at
his command. And, as the first touch of pink diffused the eastern sky,
the two returned to the charmed circle together, the collar was snapped
again in its proper place, and Cabot switched off his headset and lay
down in the center for a sleep.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Night after night this performance was repeated, until the woofus was as
letter-perfect as any dog ever trained. Then Myles started to teach the
woofus to hate the other four, above which it towered now that it had
regained its health. In fact he had never seen a larger or a more
perfect specimen.

Meanwhile Cabot’s hair and beard grew long and unkempt, and his toga
became indescribably filthy. And every day came Yuri to gloat over him.
But never again did he bring his whip, and the purple beasts, although
they glared at him with the eyes of rage, did nothing further to
evidence their intense hatred of him.

One day Yuri brought Lilla. Her compassion at her husband’s appearance
was pitiful, but what could she do?

“My poor, poor dear, how are you?” she cried.

“Fine,” Myles replied. “Never felt better in my life. Please don’t worry
about me, dear. I know I look horribly, but I feel perfectly fit, and
with a few more days of rest and wholesome food, I shall be able to
wring the necks of at least four out of these five woofuses.”

“Good!” Yuri exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Then we shall have capital
fun, for I plan to have you fight all five of them in the arena day
after to-morrow, for the delectation of our sport-loving people. The two
sangths will then be up, and the princess has not relented.”

“But please, Yuri, do me one little favor,” begged Lilla. “Please let
Myles shave, and give him a clean toga for the occasion.”

Cabot smiled. How feminine of her! If her husband had to be a corpse,
she at least wished him to be a presentable one.

But Yuri was obdurate. “I am sorry not to be able to do as you wish, but
I can think of no better way to impress upon my deluded people the fact
that this Minorian is after all merely a lower animal than to let them
see him in his present filthy condition.”

“Grant me this one favor,” again urged Lilla, “and I will try to be a
docile slave.”

“You had better be,” Yuri sneered, “favor or no favor. Else will I throw
you to the Royal Husbands of Queen Formis when I have done with you. I
have spoken.”

Lilla winced. Cabot noted it, and stiffened.

“Sic ’em,” said he, under his breath.

There came a flash of purple and the clink of a taut chain, then a thud,
as the largest woofus dropped to the ground with its neck nearly broken.
Yuri and Lilla staggered backward affrighted.

“I am content,” Myles said to himself. And that night he drilled his pet
as never before.

The next day was uneventful. Yuri did not appear, but along toward
evening, Formian guards came with poles, and led the five purple beasts
away to cells under the stadium. The earthman was similarly confined.

It was filthy, and hot, and circus-smelling in his cell, and accordingly
he spent a bad night; but when morning came, he felt unusually well,
buoyed up by the excitement of the occasion. Shortly after breakfast, he
heard the crowd tramping over his head, as they began to fill the
stadium.

He knew that his army undoubtedly had word of the “games” by means of
the black-light signal-telescopes of Toron, and he knew that they would
make every effort to reach the city in time to rescue him. But he was
not counting on their aid. He hoped, in fact, to have the tables
effectually turned on Yuri, long before their arrival.

Thus he mused, until finally he was led out onto the sands. The seats
were nearly filled. All the standing-space was crowded with black
Formians. The royal box was occupied by Lilla, Yuri and Queen Formis,
surrounded by a bodyguard of ants.

Cabot walked over the edge of the arena nearest the box and waved to
Lilla. At this a sporadic cheer arose, which the king suppressed with an
angry gesture. But there remained a tenseness in the air as though there
were many others present who would like to cheer, but dared not.

Yuri was plainly annoyed, for it was evident that his victim, wretched
and bearded though he was, had quite a following in the audience.

Cabot waved again to Lilla.

“Be of good cheer, my princess,” he called up to her. “My enemies have
had me nearer to death than this before. But ‘they cannot kill a
Minorian.’”

His supreme confidence reassured Lilla somewhat, and for a moment even
Yuri’s brow darkened with uncertainty. But then the king smiled
quizzically, as one who knows a very amusing secret.

At last the stands were full. Yuri arose, and spoke into the self-same
broadcaster which the present victim, before his downfall, had rigged up
for the use of the venerable King Kew.

“People of Cupia,” he declaimed, “behold Cabot the Minorian, the beast
from another world. Long has he deceived you by disguising himself as a
Cupian being; but now he stands before you in his true nature;
hairy-faced, long-locked, filthy and bestial. It is he who brought war
upon this peaceful planet. For that crime he is to die, to be torn to
pieces by other creatures no lower than he. And, with his well-deserved
death, peace and tranquillity will return upon Poros. Let his punishment
be a lesson to those misguided Cupians to whom he taught the art of war.
I have spoken.”

A tense silence met the king’s words. He paused a moment, expectantly
awaiting the cheer that never came, then frowned and raised his hand as
a signal. The iron gates at one end of the arena were pulled aside, and
out trotted one woofus, then another, and another, and another.

Cabot strained his eyes for the appearance of the fifth woofus, _his_
woofus, but it was nowhere to be seen. The iron gates swung shut; and
the four beasts, each a match for ten Cupians, trotted out to do him
battle.

Upon entering the arena, each woofus blinked its eyes for a few
paraparths until it became accustomed to the glare; then stretched
itself, and began to sniff and stare around and agitate its antennae.

Finally one of them noticed their prospective victim and called to the
others. They pricked up their antennae, and gazed in Myles’ direction.
Then all four started a stealthy catlike crawl toward him.

Where was his own trained woofus?




                                 XVIII

                            SANGRE Y ARENAS


Thus collapsed Cabot’s plan. Thus went for naught his many nights of
instruction!

He had counted on his trained woofus, the largest of the five, to hold
off the other four, and perhaps cause a diversion during which he could
reach the side of his princess. Had some one guessed his plans, and kept
the woofus from him?

The four purple beasts, which had been admitted to the arena for the
purpose of making an end of the earthman, now slowly and stealthily
approached their victim, who watched them with fascinated eyes, in more
or less of a daze.

“O Minorian, beast from another world,” Yuri shouted in glee from the
stand, “give antennae unto me! What think you now? Can you _alone_
vanquish these four?”

The meaning of his emphasis was most evident, and showed that the king
knew that Cabot had counted on the assistance of his trained woofus.

“Not alone, O King,” he replied with a meaning all his own, then raised
his eyes reverently to Heaven. An angry rustle arose from the stands,
like leaves before an approaching storm. Evidently Cabot still had a
following in Kuana.

There he stood alone, a stranger from another world, bearded,
long-haired, disheveled, and unkempt. A pitiable sight indeed! And yet
there was something heroic in his bearing, so that a large section of
the populace, remembering his past deeds, were still glad to acclaim him
as their leader.

But what good would this following do, for the purple beasts were now
nearly upon him in their slow and stealthy approach.

At this moment a crash resounded throughout the stadium, but it was
heard by the ears of the earth-man alone. The iron gates gave way, and
out bounded a fifth woofus, larger than any of the rest. The woofus
shrieked, and Lilla and Yuri both shuddered, but each for a different
cause: Lilla because she thought that it was a new menace to her
husband; Yuri because it represented the one eventuality which he had
felt sure he had guarded against. Cabot thrilled.

“Not alone,” he repeated, but with a new meaning now. “Look well, O
King!”

Like a purple streak of lightning, the newcomer shot across the arena
with a long-drawn crescendo howl!

The sound of a woofus is indescribable. Myles Cabot has tried many times
to describe it to me, but has failed. The nearest that he can come to it
is to say that it resembles the noise obtained by placing the receiver
of a telephone-set over the mouthpiece, when one wishes to get even with
the girl at Central for being particularly and unusually ornery. It was
to prevent this that French phones were invented.

But, to go on with the story. As the fifth woofus charged across the
sands, the other four heard his battle-cry, and, pausing in their
approach toward Cabot, turned and faced the newcomer, who at once
stopped in his onrush.

For a few paraparths, the five beasts, four on one side and one on the
other, confronted each other with bristling antennae.

Then “Sic ’em!” shouted the earth-man.

At that, his pet woofus, electrified, sprang at the other four. A
clawing, snarling ball of purple hate resulted, out of which finally
catapulted one huge woofus, which fled across the silver sands. The four
quickly disentangled themselves and followed. Cabot stood aghast, for
his woofus, his own brave woofus, was in flight.

Round and round the arena it ran, pursued by the other four. This was a
spectacle the like of which had never been vouchsafed to the
sport-loving Cupians, or to the bloodthirsty Formians for that matter.
It appealed alike to the predominating trait of each race, and the
throngs in the stands went wild with enthusiasm, even the supporters of
Cabot forgetting their partisanship in their glee.

The fight could now have but one outcome, namely, the ultimate
overtaking and overcoming of the pursued; and, after that, a horrible
death for the earth-man. Gradually the chase lengthened out, until each
pursuer was separated from the next by almost as many parastads as lay
between their leader and the beast which fled before them. Cabot sat
down in the center of the sands and watched the race with a feeling of
strange detachment, scarcely conscious of the fact that, at the end of
all this, he was destined to be torn to bits. His only sentiment was
sorrow that his pet should have proved a craven, and anxiety for its
safety. Why couldn’t the woofus die fighting, as befitted a creature
trained by Myles Cabot, the Minorian?

With this thought in mind, Myles jumped to his feet, and hastening over
to one side of the stadium, stood directly in the path of the oncoming
beasts. He heard Lilla gasp in the stands above, and then the woofuses
were upon him. His own pet, tired and frantic as it was, saw and
recognized its master, and paused to turn to one side and so avoid
running him down; and, at this instant, Cabot shouted peremptorily: “Sic
’em, Tige! Sic ’em!”

Habit proved stronger than fear. The woofus wheeled, and in an instant
had laid its surprised pursuer in the dust.

“Run!” ordered the earth-man, and again the largest woofus fled,
followed now by only three enemies.

The line strung out as before, and again circled the stadium. And again
the earth-man halted the procession when it reached him. But this time
the second pursuing woofus put up a better fight than its predecessor,
with the result that the other two caught up, and joined the fray.

Cabot’s woofus was soon lying on the ground, with its three enemies on
top of it, but its jaws were firmly fixed in the throat of one of them,
and the body of this one protected it in a measure from the other two.

The earthman stood by, an interested but an impotent onlooker, for there
was nothing he could do to help. But at last the underdog wriggled clear
of the pile and fled again around the enclosure. This time it was
followed by only two, for the second of its enemies lay stretched upon
the gory sands.

                 *        *        *        *        *

One of the two pursuers now rapidly gained upon the pursued and overtook
it as it reached the opposite side of the stadium from that on which
Cabot was standing, so Myles raced across to observe the battle close at
hand.

But before he reached the other side the fight was over. His own woofus
raised its bloody head aloft with a paean of triumph and planted its
forepaws upon the body of its third victim. The fourth pursuer halted in
its mad rush. For a few paraparths the two beasts glared at each other;
then, with arched backs and stiffened legs, they slowly circled each
other, watching for an opening.

“Divide and conquer,” the radio man commented to himself. Then to his
pet, “Sic ’em!”

The huge beast sprang at its opponent with a snarl. And now the tables
were turned, for it was the other which fled. Round and round the arena
they ran, the pursued gradually drawing away from the pursuer.

Myles could see that his own beast was more tired than the other, and,
accordingly, he became afraid that even yet the battle might be lost. So
hastily deciding upon a rash plan, he placed himself directly in the
path of the oncoming beasts. Straight toward him they came, yet Cabot
did not flinch. Then, with a bound, his enemy was upon him, and down he
crashed, flat on his back on the silver sands.

But his hands warded off the slathering jaws from his throat. His
strength was sufficient for this for just a few moments; and a few
moments were enough. With a crunch, the jaws of his own woofus closed on
the spine of his enemy. And in another instant the bearded, disheveled,
gory earthman and his equally gory purple pet arose from the ground and
stood erect, victors of the arena. Four dead forms lay on the bloody
sands, bearing mute witness to the efficient combination of brute
strength and human cunning which had triumphed that day.

Then the woofus stepped over to its master and rubbed against his side.

Lilla shuddered, and hid her eyes, but Cabot smiled, and looking down,
patted the bloody head.

At this moment the king arose and gave some hurried orders to his
guards. It was his undoing. The woofus heard and recognized the voice,
and in another instant it had cleared the railing with one bound and was
making its way through the frantic throng toward the royal box.

Cabot called and called, but forgotten were his teachings, for the
woofus had wind of his maltreater, and was obsessed with a single
thought, namely, revenge.

So Cabot followed hastily in the wake of the beast, and easily
surmounted the barrier. The whole stadium was in an uproar. Red, yellow
and black flags were being waved by the various factions, and cries of
“Long life to Cabot, the Minorian! Down with the usurper! Death to the
Formians!” filled the air, mingled with cries of fear from those near
the royal box, and shots fired by the royal bodyguard. The red pennant
of the Kew dynasty predominated. Evidently the place had been
intentionally packed with the followers of the dead baby king.

But Cabot had no time to exult over this coup, for his every energy was
bent upon reaching Lilla in time to save her from the terror which he
had loosed upon them.

In spite of Cabot’s haste, however, the beast broke through the guards,
undeterred by their firing, and reached the royal box before him. Lilla
shrieked and cringed to one side, but she had no need to do so, for
straight as an arrow flew the huge animal at Yuri, and down went the
king with a crash beneath the impact of the beast. Then the Formian
bodyguard closed over Yuri, the woofus, Lilla and Queen Formis, in a
snarling, fighting, reeking pile.

“To the rescue of the princess!” shouted Myles Cabot, and a full hundred
Cupians responded, falling upon the black writhing mass, with swords,
pistol-butts, and even chairs.

Cabot stood to one side, directing the attack. As more and more of his
faction rallied about him, he formed the latecomers in a cordon, facing
outward, so as to keep off any Cupians so rash as to try to assist their
king, or any Formians so temerarious as to come to the rescue of their
queen.

So intent was the swarming black pile upon getting at the woofus which
had Yuri pinned beneath it, that they did not heed the enemy upon their
own backs; but those at the bottom of the pile were careful to bridge
their bodies, so as to keep the weight off the ant-queen Formis and the
Cupian Princess Lilla.

Cabot’s Cupians stabbed and hacked and pulled. Occasionally an ant would
turn and snap savagely at them. But one by one the black ant men were
crushed and torn away, until at last the bottom of the pile was reached.
There on the floor of the royal box lay a battered and bloody purple
body, beside a gaping hole which clearly indicated the avenue of escape
by which had disappeared Yuri and Formis, with Lilla as their prize. The
floor of the box had evidently given way under the weight of the
conflict, and through the hole, thus formed, the enemy had escaped.

Cabot and his immediate followers stared at this hole for a mere
paraparth; then, realizing the situation, they plunged into the dark
depths beneath. The drop was nearly half a parastad, but luckily the
hole led into one of the cells for confining beasts of the arena, and
the floor was covered deep with straw which broke their fall. The first
few of the company jumped, and then called to their companions that it
was all right; but those above delayed in following, for fear of landing
on those below. And, during this moment of indecision, those in the cell
suddenly found themselves set upon from all sides, for quite a number of
ant men had fallen through with their leaders, and had remained behind
to bar the passage.

The fighting was in nearly pitch darkness, but fortunately there was
little danger of mistaking friends from foes, for huge ants ten feet
long bear but little resemblance to Cupian beings, even in the dark.
Nevertheless, the sharp mandibles of the Formians proved effective
weapons at close quarters.

Those of the Cupians who had remained on the stand, hearing the shouts
of the conflict below, poured into the hole with weapons poised, and
struck home whenever they chanced to land upon an enemy.

Finally all was silence, but whether the Formians had all been slain or
had merely retired to some nook from which to rush out again and renew
the conflict, could not be told. There was no time, however, to stop and
find out.

“Quick!” the earthman shouted, “we must follow the usurper!”

Whereat all the party started groping about to try and discover an exit.

A shout of “Here is the door!” from one of them, and all pressed in his
direction, Cabot merely following with the crowd, since his antennae
gave him no clue as to the source of the cry. The door opened into a
passageway. In silence the party threaded the dim corridors beneath the
stadium, until a sudden turn brought them out into the daylight, facing
the city. And, as they debouched, they saw, just out of reach, a kerkool
which bore Yuri, Formis and Lilla toward Kuana.

Out of the other exits were pouring a fighting, seething crowd of
Cupians and Formians, as on that other day not so long ago, when Prince
Yuri had assassinated King Kew at the Peace Day exercises, and had thus
made himself King. But this time the red pennants of Kew outnumbered the
yellow of Yuri and the black of Formis combined.

Other kerkools were standing beside the stadium. Without awaiting the
outcome of the fighting, Cabot and those with him seized the nearest
cars and sped after the fleeing king.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Straight for the palace drove Yuri, and straight for the palace drove
his pursuers. Yuri arrived there first, entered the capitol ground and
barred the gates, whereat the Kew faction surrounded the entire group of
buildings on the top of Kuana hill. They were quickly augmented by the
victorious reds from the stadium. Then Cabot and a handful of the more
intrepid of his faction battered down one of the palace gates and forced
their way inside.

As the door crashed in, the assaulting force was met by a volley of
shots, but it had been a bit premature and so most of the bullets went
wild. Within the doorway stood rank upon rank of the palace guard,
Cupians of unquestioned loyalty to the usurper Yuri, his own personal
bodyguard, who had been recruited from the unspeakables of the city by
Trisp, the bar-mango of Kuana. They were armed with rifles.

But before they could recover from their surprise sufficiently to fire a
second round, the assaulting party swept in and engaged them in hand to
hand combat. Some of the guard possessed revolvers as well as the longer
weapon, and so were able to defend themselves manfully at close range,
but they were merely thugs who fought for the love of fighting, whereas
the attackers were inspired by the enthusiasm of an ideal, the ideal of
Cupian freedom which had been engendered by Cabot, the Minorian, in the
first War of Liberation, and which now had been born anew in the second.
Their onrush proved irresistible, and soon the few remaining survivors
of Yuri’s guard had fled into the interior of the palace.

Myles and his men stripped the dead of their arms and ammunition, and
followed. The grip of an automatic in Cabot’s hand gave him new courage.

“Forward for Princess Lilla!” he cried.

And his followers echoed, “For Princess Lilla! Death to the Formians!”

Thus shouting, they threaded their way through the palace corridors,
hunting, ever hunting. Many a black antman they slew, and many a
familiar spot they traversed, but not a sign did they find of Lilla or
of her abductors.

The royal palace of Kuana is set upon the crest of Capitol Hill, in the
midst of the group of monumental white buildings which comprise the
far-famed University of Cupia. Its main elevation looks to the southward
across the plaza to the fields and stadium and hills beyond. Surrounding
the university group and the palace and the plaza, are the lesser
buildings of Kuana, built in stucco in graceful lines, with
high-pitched, red-tiled roofs, a style of architecture quite unlike that
employed by the ant men, whose houses are square and chunky affairs,
resembling exaggerated piles of toy building blocks.

Because the palace stands upon the summit of a hill, the ground
entrances lead into what are practically its cellars; hence the
interminable labyrinthine corridors which the earthman and his
supporters now threaded. Every turn, every door, every side hallway had
to be approached with utmost caution, to avoid a surprise attack; and at
each intersecting or forking corridor, the party divided, so as to
defend their flanks.

Thus the numbers with Cabot rapidly dwindled, and soon he found himself
searching through the passageways alone. Now he had to proceed with even
greater caution. No Cupians did he meet, but time and again, after
rounding some turn or mounting some stair, he found himself face to face
with a Formian. Usually he was quicker on the draw, for the human hand
has a craft unequalled by the claw of an insect, even though the insect
may possess a superior brain. Only one Formian whom he encountered fired
first, and fortunately that one missed.

Thus, step by step, the earth man emerged from the subterranean depths
of the palace cellars to the upper levels.

He had just annihilated one more black antagonist, when he saw
approaching him a Cupian in a toga which bore the insignia of the palace
guards. Here indeed was a victim greatly to his taste, for he had tired
of killing ants, and longed to get his hands on some one closer to King
Yuri.

But just as he was about to fire, the other spoke, “Stop, Cabot! Do you
not know Nan-nan of the Caves of Kar?”

Cabot lowered his weapon in surprise.

“What are you doing here? And in that garb!” he exclaimed. “I scarcely
recognize you without your red-embroidered robe.”

The young priest smiled. “Great are the ramifications of the lost
religion. For instance, I might tell you who it was that loosed your pet
woofus in the arena this morning when you appealed unto the God of
Minos. But, for the present, my duty is merely to lead you to the
princess. Follow me.”

And back he led Myles Cabot, down again into the depths from which the
earth man had so laboriously fought his way. Finally they halted and the
priest said:

“There are reasons why I cannot accompany you farther. But you can find
the route from here to the princess without difficulty. First right,
then left, then straight ahead. And may the Great Builder go with you! I
cannot, for I have other work to do.”

And he passed Cabot and vanished down the long corridor.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Taking a firm grip on his revolver, Myles strode around the first turn
to the right, then around the first turn to the left, and then pressed
on until he found the way blocked by a thick heavy curtain. This he
flung to one side, and stepped boldly into the room beyond.

The room beyond was circular, about one parastad in diameter. Its roof
was vaulted and lit by a single large vapor lamp. A continuous stretch
of crimson curtains lined the walls. At the opposite side of the room
from that at which he had entered there was a small raised platform. And
on this platform stood King Yuri, with Lilla held close in his arms. He
was making ardent love to her, which she seemed too tired and beaten to
resist. Yuri’s torn toga, and the deep scratches on one of his arms
showed only too clearly the handiwork of the purple beast on the stands
of the stadium. Or had Lilla done this?

“Stop!” Cabot thundered, covering the king with his revolver.

Yuri turned and faced his accuser, but still kept one arm around the
princess, who stared at Cabot almost unseeing out of dull and weary
eyes. The king appeared a bit surprised, but nevertheless maintained the
calm which was so typical of him.

“Yuri, your end has come,” the earthman announced, “and with your death
there begins a slaughter which shall not cease until every black Formian
is driven from the face of this planet. For only so can war be banished
forever.”

“Is that so?” sneered the king. “And may I ask who it was that first
brought war here from Minos?”

Cabot winced. The accusation was true.

“That is neither here nor there,” he asserted. “Maybe I did bring war;
but, if so, what I have commenced I shall finish.”

Yuri’s lip curled in scorn. “Behold, I am unarmed. Is it the custom on
your planet to shoot down unarmed men? I had thought better, even of a
beast from Minos.”

“If you thought so, then you made the mistake of your life,” Cabot
replied. “I am no story-book character. Often have I read, in tales of
chivalrous adventure, how the hero, having the villain finally at bay,
gave him his chance, and then vanquished him in fair fight. If I had
only myself to think of, O king, I would fling this gun aside, and
strangle you with my bare hands. But what of the princess and of Cupia?
I have no right to sacrifice Lilla’s happiness and the safety of my
country on the altar of my own personal honor. That would be selfish
indeed!”

“Wisely spoken,” the princess interjected.

“And so,” Myles continued, “armed or unarmed, you die!”

And he raised his pistol.

“Just a moment,” Yuri put in hurriedly, seeming for the first time a bit
perturbed. “After you entered this chamber, a door automatically slid
shut behind you, thus barring your exit. If you do not believe me, you
can back up, still keeping me covered, and feel of it. That door is so
thick and so secure that you could never break through it. I, and I
alone, know the secret of that door. I am not afraid to die, though it
is a bit unpleasant to be killed by a coward; but, unless you spare my
life, neither you nor the princess will ever leave this room.”

“‘Better a wise coward than a brave fool,’” Myles quoted from one of
Poblath’s proverbs.

“That may be,” the king testily resumed, “but, as I have said, if you
kill me, you will never leave this room. Your only hope of escape is to
spare my life.”

Cabot considered for a moment. Naturally he did not believe Yuri, yet
how simple to test him by trying the door.

Just as he was about to do this, however, he remembered something.

“Your threat holds no terror for me,” he asserted. “Nan-nan directed me
here. If I do not reappear, he will bring hordes of my followers to
batter down your door.”

Yuri laughed a sneering laugh. “You lose! Did not this Nan-nan, of whom
you speak, wear the uniform of my bodyguard?”

Cabot grudgingly admitted it.

“I thought so,” the usurper resumed in triumph. “Know then that I sent
Nan-nan to lure you here, so that you might become my victim.”

The earthman’s suspicions were aroused. Whom could he trust? Then he
reflected that Yuri was unarmed, which fact seemed to knock the bottom
out from under his story. An unarmed person would scarcely have given
orders to have an armed person sent to him as a prospective victim.

Why not try the door, however? That would determine in a measure whether
Yuri lied. But as Myles started to put this plan into effect, he was
stayed by the sound of a human voice, a strange and raucous human voice.

Could he be dreaming? Had his mind given way under the strain of his
many vicissitudes? For there were no human voices on Poros.

Yet there could be no mistaking the sound. It was not the radiated
antennae speech of Poros. It was a real human voice smiting against his
human ears. Cabot stood still in perplexity.




                                  XIX

                               TREACHERY


“Myles,” said the voice, “show no signs of surprise. It is I, Lilla,
speaking to you with my mouth, so that the antennae of Yuri may not
hear. Neither can I hear, myself, which makes it difficult for me to
talk thus, in spite of all my secret practice. Do not back up, to try
the door, for there is a man behind you in the curtains. Remain where
you are. When I raise my hand, you must wheel and fire. Then turn
quickly back, lest Yuri escape us.”

Cabot stood aghast. He scarce took in the purport of the words. Was that
raucous sound the voice of his lovely Lilla? Better, then, she stick to
antennae speech for the rest of her days!

But there could be no doubt about it, for her lips were moving with the
words.

Then up shot her arm. Instantly Cabot realized what she had said. He
wheeled just in time to see a Cupian separate the curtains and make a
rush at him. This newcomer wore the uniform toga of the palace guards,
and held in his upraised left hand a sharp stiletto. How fortunate that
it had not been a revolver, for with such a weapon he could have fired
at Myles from behind the curtains.

The face of the onrushing Cupian was a snarl of hatred and triumph, and
full into that hideous countenance Cabot fired. The expression changed
to one of surprise and thwarted rage. One frantic final effort to reach
forward with the dagger, and then the enemy collapsed almost at the feet
of his intended victim. Cabot wheeled again to fire at the king.

But Lilla stood alone on the platform. Yuri was no longer there. A faint
swaying of the curtains behind the rostrum showed only too clearly the
king’s avenue of escape. Rushing forward, Cabot flung these curtains to
one side and disclosed a long, dimly lighted corridor stretching away.
It was empty. Yuri had quite evidently already rounded the turn at its
end. So after him dashed the earthman. But a cry from Lilla’s antennae
stayed his steps.

“Don’t leave me alone!” she begged. “I am weak and tired and affrighted.
Protect me!”

Once again she was merely a little girl. Her husband returned and
comforted her. Then together they searched the walls of the room.

Yuri had lied. Behind the curtains were many exits, and not one was
closed. But, then, Yuri might be expected to lie. What mattered it to
Myles and Lilla as they clasped each other in their arms? At last they
were together and free after their long separation and captivity.

As Myles held close the warm girlish form of his beloved, his tense
troubles dropped from him, and a perfect peace descended upon his soul.
Lilla pressed limply against him, home at last in the haven of his
embrace.

Thus they replighted their love. Thus they stood in the subterranean
cellars of the Kuana Palace, oblivious of time and space; Cabot, the
earth man, dirty, long-haired, bearded, and disheveled; and Lilla,
Princess of Poros, lovely, dainty, and immaculate. Beauty and the beast,
indeed! But they adored each other, with a love unequaled on two
planets.

Myles was reunited with his princess, it is true; but there should have
been three of them there instead of merely two. All through the fabric
of his joy ran a thread of intense grief at the absence of their little
son.

“Lilla, dearest,” he started to say, “our darling baby—”

He was interrupted by the arrival of Nan-nan, the young priest, who had
shed his palace guard uniform and now wore an ordinary Cupian toga.

Said Lilla, hurriedly: “Please, please don’t mention it yet!”

Myles thought he understood how she felt about it, and so desisted.
Probably her grief was still too poignant to bear discussion. He little
guessed that her real reason was that she did not know how much
confidence to place in this newcomer.

“Lilla,” Cabot said, “this is Nan-nan, one of the priests of the Caves
of Kar, who tended me during all my illness.”

The priest bowed low before her in acknowledgment of the introduction.

“You forget, dear,” Lilla declared, “that you haven’t yet told me a
single thing of what has happened to you since you left Luno Castle half
a year ago to fly to the Peace Day exercises, which turned out so
fatally.”

“When have I had time?” Myles asked, in reply. “Let’s sit right down
here and begin.”

But Nan-nan cut in with: “Pardon me for interrupting, O princess, and
thou, O defender of the faith. But there is much work to be done. It is
now night. There is fighting in the streets. You must consolidate the
palace, Cabot, and hold it until your army from the north can reach
Kuana.”

“But what of Yuri?” asked Myles. “We must run him down before he escapes
us, or there will be more villainy afoot.”

Nan-nan laughed. “You yourself don’t seem to be doing very much running
just this moment. But compose yourself. In spite of your many followers,
who at this moment swarm every corridor of this palace, none of them
dared lay hands on the person of the king. Word has just reached me that
he has safely left the building, and this is why I have sought you out.
Your men are now gathering in the Council Hall above.”

“Then lead to the Council Hall, Nan-nan, and I follow,” the earthman
replied.

                 *        *        *        *        *

As the three of them entered the great Council Hall of the palace they
found it filled with a jostling leaderless throng of Cupians.

Nan-nan mounted the rostrum and held up his hand. The crowd faced him
and became silent.

“Patriots of Kuana,” he shouted, “I present to you your leader, Myles
Cabot, the beast from Minos, protector of Cupia.”

Up shot every hand.

“Yahoo!” they radiated, in unison, the cheery Porovian greeting.

“And your rightful ruler, the Princess Lilla.”

Again the salute and the shout of greeting.

Cabot then joined the young priest upon the stage. In spite of his
condition, there was a look in his cold gray eyes that inspired
confidence and respect.

“Men of Cupia,” he said, “and I can call you by no more noble title—men
of Cupia, to the northward lies our army of liberation, equipped with
the most modern engines of destruction. We must hold this city until
they arrive. And then we must keep on until the last Formian lies dead.
There is no room on any one planet for two ruling races. So it must be
war to the hilt, asking no quarter, giving none, until the Kew dynasty
is restored to the throne, and Cupia is made permanently free. Are you
with me?”

“We are,” came back the unanimous shout.

“Then every pootah hold up his hand.”

Up shot the hands of all those who had commanded the old “hundreds”, or
athletic clubs, which Cabot had used as military companies, and on which
he had based the organization of the first army which Cupia had ever
known.

“Good!” said he. “Let the pootahs step over to me.”

They did so.

“Now let every bar-pootah hold up his hand.”

Up shot the hands of all the lieutenants.

“Let each pootah choose two bar-pootahs.”

The choices were quickly made, and thus the earthman had established the
skeleton framework of an army.

“Are there any of the higher officers here?”

One colonel and several men of intermediate grade signified their
persons. A colonel is one who commanded a “thousand”—that is to say, a
body composed of twelve of the hundreds. I perforce use the earth word
“colonel,” as the Porovian term is utterly unpronounceable. The colonel
gave his name as Wotsn.

Cabot divided the non-officers by lot among the various pootahs. In a
few moments the disorderly mob was organized. To Colonel Wotsn was
intrusted the disposition of the troops and the posting of guards. Then
Cabot, Lilla, and Nan-nan proceeded to one of the upper terraces to get
a view of the city.

The night was warm, tropical, moist, and scented, as are all nights on
Poros. Beneath them on every side were dotted the street lights of the
great city. All was so peaceful and serene that it hardly seemed
possible they could actually be at this very moment in the midst of a
civil war.

Myles inhaled the fragrant hothouse air with long breaths. The princess
leaned against him in perfect contentment as he quoted:

    “And over all, as soft as thine own cheek,
     Brooded the velvet stillness of the night.”

From time to time Cabot’s earthly ears discerned faint popping noises
here and there throughout the capital. It sounded, for all the world,
like the night before the Fourth of July in any American city; but Myles
realized full and well that it meant that shooting was in progress
between the opposing factions. These were not firecrackers—this was
war!

Even so, what could they do about it just then?

So the love-starved earthman held his princess close in his arms and
waited.

Finally he had an idea; so he dispatched one of the orderlies, who had
followed them to the roof, to instruct the colonel to send out patrols
into the streets to gather in more of their supporters. Then ensued
another period of waiting, during which Myles Cabot and his princess sat
side by side on the parapet of the terrace surveying the city below and
saying very little. For, “Perfect communion needs no speech,” as Poblath
would put it.

At last Lilla broke the silence to remark: “Now would be a very good
opportunity to tell me of your adventures.”

He was glad of the chance, for by starting at the very beginning with
the assassination of the old king in the stadium, he hoped to be able to
lead up gradually to the sad death of little Kew. It would be well, for
undoubtedly her grief would continue to fester within her heart until
she had discussed it and thus given it an outlet.

So Myles recounted the inception of the revolution, and the first part
of his age-long journey northward. He had just reached the point where
he had abandoned his kerkool and had taken refuge in a house at the end
of a blind alley, when Nan-nan interrupted to direct their attention to
the northward, where waving phosphorescent streamers of light began to
appear on the horizon.

“Northern lights,” thought Myles. He had never observed this phenomenon
before on Poros.

“Airplanes,” the priest laconically remarked. “Your fleet is driving the
enemy flyers southward toward Kuana. Those are the searchlights of the
contenders.”

And he was right, for in a few paraparths the fighting was directly over
the city. But what puzzled the observers on the palace top was the fact
that many of the contending planes and all of the contending bees
appeared to carry no searchlights. No, that wasn’t exactly correct—they
carried searchlights, but these were unlit. Not an air fighter on the
Cupian side was directing a single beam on the enemy; whereas each of
the ant flyers carried a light on a long pole, which it could project in
any direction so that the light would not reveal the true position of
the craft.

Thus the Formians possessed a tremendous advantage. It is true that this
equipment was difficult to maniulate and hard to hold focused upon the
bees and the Cupian airships; yet how much better it was than no lights
at all! The Cupians had lights. Why, then, did they not use them? Was it
because, not being on long poles, the Cupian searchlights would serve as
targets and thus aid the enemy more than they would aid their owners?

The ants outnumbered the Cupians and their bee allies. Only the ants
were equipped with means to illuminate their enemy. Not being illumined
themselves, they could hold their planes steady, and did not have to
dodge about as did the forces of Toron. Yet, in spite of these
advantages, the Cupians were steadily forcing them southward and were
shooting down Formian after Formian, with scarcely any casualties of
their own. How could they do it?

Cabot was thrilled, but dumfounded.

“Can you make it out?” he asked of Nan-nan.

“Yes,” the priest replied, with a smile; “it is very easy.”

“Then, for the love of the Great Builder, tell me,” the earthman
exclaimed. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

But all that Nan-nan would say was: “Wait!”

Cabot was about to remonstrate again, when he noticed a peculiar thing:
the Cupian flyers seemed to be manipulating their unlit searchlights,
just as though they were lighted. What was the great idea? What could it
mean?

His thoughts were interrupted by something dropping with a thud on the
soft silver sward beside him. He groped for it and picked it up. It was
a pair of binoculars, quite evidently lost overboard from one of the
battling flyers. Now Cabot and his party would be able to observe the
fight from closer quarters. Courteously he offered the glasses to the
princess, and she in turn to the priest; but the latter declined them
with a shrug, and again that quizzical smile, which a passing gleam of
light revealed for a moment. So Lilla adjusted them and peered up into
the velvet sky. Then she uttered a little exclamation of surprise.

“Myles, Myles,” she cried, “our ships have at last lit their
searchlights! Now, indeed, we shall win.”

“We were winning already,” he replied, likewise peering into the black
abyss above. “But why do you say that our ships are using their lights?
It still seems to me as though they were not.”

“Here, take the glasses and see for yourself,” said Lilla, and she
handed them over, adding, as she looked into the sky with her naked
eyes: “But now it seems as though the lights of our fliers have been
extinguished. How strange!”

Cabot adjusted the lenses to his own vision, and sure enough all the
ships on both sides, were illumined. And still the young priest
continued to smile. Cabot passed the binoculars back to Lilla, and again
all the Cupian searchlights became dark to him. It was most mystifying.
He glanced at his companions in perplexity and suddenly saw the teeth
and eyeballs of Nan-nan glow phosphorescent. Then, and not until then,
did the truth dawn on Cabot.

“They are using the black light!” he gasped.

“The black light?” Lilla inquired. “What is that? How can light be
black?”

“They are using the black light,” Myles continued, “just as my country,
America, did to protect our convoys in the last great war on my own
planet, Minos. Our warships swept the waters far and near with beams of
the black light. These beams could not be seen by the German submarines,
and thus did not reveal the position of our ships. When a beam played
full upon a submarine, the luckless craft even then did not realize that
it was observed; did not realize its fate until the high explosive
projectile followed close in the wake of the light. Thus the scourge was
driven from the seas, and the Germans never even suspected how it was
done. I have discussed it with Toron, so this must be his idea.

“Your glowing teeth and eyes revealed the secret to me, O Nan-nan. And
that reminds me of a funny story. Major Rob Wood, of the American army,
the inventor of the black light, was once demonstrating it in his
laboratory to Sir Oliver Lodge shortly after the close of the war. The
room appeared to be in darkness, and yet in fact a powerful searchlight
was throwing a beam of black light straight across the middle of the
room.

“So the major gave his guest a hand mirror, and told him to walk around
with it until he could see his own teeth, when he would thus know that
he was in the path of the beam. But Sir Oliver skirted the laboratory in
vain. His teeth never showed up white at all; for you see, he had a set
of false teeth, and only _real_ teeth will glow in the black light.
Major Wood and I were horribly embarrassed.”

“That is all very well,” Lilla broke in, laughing, “but if our men have
the black light, and the Formians can’t see it, how can our men see it
either?”

“A fair question,” her husband replied, “and the explanation is easy.
These binoculars, like those used by the American navy in the World War,
are equipped with a fluorescent screen, or light filter, the effect of
which is to make the black light appear as though it were the ordinary
white light to which our eyes are accustomed. Thus to us the light is
white, whereas to our enemies it is—well, for them it does not exist at
all.”

“So that is why the ant men do not dodge, not knowing that they are
illumined by the Cupian searchlights, and thus they fall an easy prey to
the rifles of the Cupians.”

By this time the tide of battle had swept to the southward. The party on
the terrace withdrew for much needed rest and refreshment. Cabot was
elated, but Nan-nan threw a wet blanket over his hopes.

                 *        *        *        *        *

“Do not forget,” the young priest reminded him, “that with daylight the
Formians will return in full force. What will your black light then
avail you?”

They separated for the night, Cabot pondering deeply on the parting
words of the priest.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Lilla and Myles made their way to her old quarters, where he had courted
her in the days when he had been a mere barsarkar, newly arrived in
Kuana, after his escape from the Formians. Here, too, they had lived as
guests of King Kew, her father, after their marriage; except of course,
during such time as they had spent at their own country residence on the
beautiful little island in the midst of Lake Luno. The fatal Lake Luno!

In Lilla’s recent captivity under Yuri, she had been permitted to occupy
these same quarters. And Bthuh, her best friend, and wife of Poblath,
had accompanied her as lady in waiting, and had taken charge as of old.

Yuri, still hoping to win the princess, had not violated the sanctuary
of those rooms.

Lilla and Myles entered the quarters together.

“Lie down for a minute on this couch,” she said, “while I find your
things.”

He obeyed. In a moment she was back, but the weary earthman was sound
asleep where he had dropped. Tenderly she kissed the unshaven face; then
spread a blanket over him and left him there in the outer room, while
she retired to her chamber for the night.

The next thing he knew some one was shaking his shoulder. He awoke with
a start.

Bthuh, the wife of Poblath, lady in waiting to the princess, was
standing over him with an electric candle in her hand.

“Myles, Myles,” she cried, “I am glad to see you again, but make haste,
arise. An orderly is at the door with a message.”

Cabot jumped to his feet and went to the door. The Cupian soldier
standing there informed him that Colonel Wotsn desired his presence as
soon as convenient. Then the man withdrew, and Cabot returned to the
room. The three dials of the clock on the wall showed that the time was
two hundred and sixty o’clock, not quite daybreak.

“Is Lilla up?” he asked.

“No,” Bthuh replied. “She still sleeps.”

“Then do not disturb her,” he said. “She needs the rest.”

So, dismissing Bthuh, he shaved, bathed, and donned a fresh toga. Then,
as the princess had not yet appeared, he penciled a hasty note for her,
and went to have breakfast with the Colonel. Nan-nan, the priest, was
also there.

Wotsn announced that during the night the city had fallen completely
into their hands, and that the loyal army from the north was about to
enter it at daybreak, but that the Formian air fleet was already on its
way northward from Wautoosa to give battle.

He wished Cabot to be on hand to see these developments.

As the first pink light from the invisible sun diffused through the
silver clouds of the eastern sky, these three and their attendants
charged up on the highest terrace of the palace. There was the hum of
many motors in the air. The early morning light disclosed to the
southward the long serried ranks of the imperial air navy of the ant
empire, while from the north came the whistling bees and their Cupian
allies. It was a truly impressive sight.

The two forces would meet for battle squarely over the city. The outcome
was in the hands of the gods.

And then Cabot saw what filled his heart with intense joy and security.
Several kerkools, manned by Cupian soldiers, drove in from the north and
halted beside the palace. And each kerkool bore the familiar electrical
machinery designed by Cabot and Prince Toron, the machinery which
propagated that peculiar ray which was capable of silencing the ignition
of any airplane motor—except, of course, the trophil engines with which
the Cupian planes were equipped.

“Let them come!” Cabot exulted. “For, look, there is the means to bring
every black flyer to the dust.”

But Nan-nan, the priest, shook his head sadly.

“That device has passed its usefulness,” he declared, “for every Formian
plane now has a trophil engine the same as ours. If your fleet relies on
any assistance from these machines they are lost.”

“How do you know this?” Cabot asked him.

To which the priest replied, as was his wont: “The holy father knows
everything.”

“Then we are indeed lost,” added Lilla, who had just joined them, “for
look—the force from the south outnumbers that from the north, and the
Formians are the more experienced flyers, as we well know.”

“How does it happen,” Myles asked, “that the ant men do outnumber us?
When I was captured, _we_ were rapidly gaining the ascendancy.”

“That is true,” Nan-nan replied, “but your troops, in their rocky
fastnesses, did not possess the facilities for the construction and
repair of airships which Prince Yuri had at Wautoosa and at Mooni and at
Kuana.

“So that, in spite of the greater fatalities among his forces, his fleet
steadily grew until it outnumbered yours. And when he learned the secret
of the ray, his ascendancy became complete. Even before your capture he
had complete control of the sky, if he but chose to exercise it. Last
night’s air battle, which your fleet won by the aid of the black light,
was the first to its credit in two sangths. And I am afraid that this
morning the tables will be turned.”

“Only a miracle can save us!” Lilla exclaimed.

“True, too true! But there will be no miracle,” Nan-nan asserted
positively.

And Cabot added: “We must trust to the brains and patriotism of Cupia,
and to them alone.”




                                  XX

                           THE TABLES TURNED


But the men in charge of the kerkools in the street below, the kerkools
which bore the machinery for the short-circuiting ray, busied themselves
about their outfits as though they did not realize that their rays were
impotent against the trophil engines of the enemy.

The vanguard of the Formian fleet arrived over the city. The watchers on
the terrace could distinctly see the low-flying-point-plane. But, to get
a clearer view, Cabot removed the black light filters from the
binoculars which had dropped beside him the night before, and focused
the glasses on the oncoming flyer. He noted her black crew. He noted
that she carried the black pennant of the ant empire, rather than the
yellow pennant of Yuri. And then he uttered an exclamation of surprise.

“She is a bomber,” he cried, “and is about to bomb the palace!”

At these words Lilla started to rush down into the interior; but Nan-nan
put out a restraining hand. “You are safer here,” he said, “and what the
Great Builder wills let us accept.”

Cabot drew his princess close to him and waited.

But the plane never reached the palace. Suddenly and inexplicably it
burst into flames and dropped like a meteor into the plaza just to the
southward. The plane on its left quickly followed suit, and then that on
its right. Other planes along the line met the same fate, and yet the
Cupian fleet had not yet come within range. What could be the
explanation?

And then into that disorganized and demoralized line of ants, which but
a few paraparths ago had been advancing so serenely confident upon
Kuana, there charged the united forces of the Cupians and their
Hymernian allies. The Formians broke. They retreated southward again.
Their retreat became a rout. But how had it been accomplished?

“It is the miracle for which I prayed,” Lilla exclaimed.

“Tell us, O Nan-nan,” Cabot demanded, “you of the lost religion, whose
holy father knows everything.”

But the young priest merely grinned sheepishly.

“Doubtless the holy father does know,” he said, “but he omitted to
impart his knowledge to me before I left the Caves of Kar.”

“Well said!” Cabot remarked. “That is the best crawl I have ever
witnessed. As an alibi artist you beat even a certain classmate of mine,
who was noted for that at Harvard, and later in his practice of the
law.”

Nan-nan’s grin became even more sheepish.

Cabot continued: “But this should be an occasion for rejoicing rather
than for questionable humor on my part. Forgive me, Nan-nan. We have
just been present at a great victory. You and Glamp-glamp saved my life
in the Caves of Kar, so that I might live to see this day. You yourself
saved my princess by directing me to her in the passage beneath the
palace, and thus she too is present on this joyous occasion. Cupia is
again free. And no little of the credit belongs to the priests of the
lost religion.”

“The credit all belongs to Myles Cabot,” magnanimously replied Nan-nan.

They were interrupted by a boyish figure which rushed up the stairs onto
the terrace. It was Prince Toron. His youthful face was suffused with
joy. In fact, he seemed more like his former carefree self than he had
at any time since the beginning of the war.

“Well, well,” he cried. “Greetings, my cousins! This is indeed a happy
occasion. Even now the vanguard of our army of liberation is entering
the capital. But I came on in advance to superintend my machines.”

“And to take over your palace, I suppose,” Cabot added dryly and not
without malice. Ever since he had found the dead body of the baby Cupian
on the royal bier in the deserted castle on the island of Lake Luno,
with the note signed “Toron, King of Cupia,” Myles had borne ill-will
against his wife’s cousin. At first he had suspected Toron of the deed.
But this suspicion had been allayed by the account of the happenings at
Luno Castle which had been told him by the priests of the Caves of Kar.
It had awakened, only to be stilled again by Toron’s own story and by
the assurances given by Poblath. Nevertheless, he still resented Toron’s
bad taste in signing the note with his royal title—resented even the
fact that Toron, that any one else than Lilla’s own son, was King of
Cupia. This resentment had been only slightly mitigated by the
unquestioned loyalty of Toron to Cupia and the common cause.

And so Myles permitted his feelings to get the better of his manners
when he greeted Toron on this joyous occasion which should have been
free from all malice.

Lilla appeared shocked and surprised at her husband’s language, and
started to remonstrate; but he, sensing the situation at once, cut in
ahead of her with a question.

“By the way, your majesty,” he said, “we are all most inquisitive to
learn just how you contrived to bring down those enemy planes, and thus
save the day when all seemed lost.”

“I thought you would want to know,” Toron replied, with boyish pride.
“So that was one of the reasons why I rushed up here to greet you. You
remember the day with our army in the mountains, when that young aviator
excited your attention by stopping his airplane motor with a word, and
how we perfected a machine which would send a ray which would accomplish
the same thing. But perhaps you were not so intimately acquainted with
our later experiments with that ray. You remember how we were not able
to understand fully just why this ray accomplished what it did. This
intrigued me to such an extent that I resolved to discover the secret.
And I hit upon the clue just about the time that you were captured.”

“Yes, yes,” Cabot interrupted, “but I am not asking about the
motor-stopping ray, which became useless as soon as the enemy copied us
by adopting trophil engines. What I am asking is how you destroyed the
foremost planes of the enemy advance in this morning’s battle?”

                 *        *        *        *        *

Toron smiled indulgently.

“Wait a paraparth,” he said. “I am just getting to that. To get back to
the motor-stopping ray, which I was telling you about, I discovered that
it was not the radio impulse which actually did the work, but rather a
sort of sub-wave, or by-product of it, which was more of the nature of a
light-wave than anything else. In fact, it was a bit like the black
light of which you taught us, and which we used so effectively in our
signaling and in our searchlights. This led me to turn my efforts to
producing the sub-wave directly, rather than as a by-product of a radio
impulse.

“When this had been accomplished I discovered that this new wave worked
by converting its path through the air into an electric conductor more
perfect even than heavy electric cable. It was this conductive path,
falling athwart the wiring of the airplane, that short-circuited the
ignition and stopped the motor.

“From this discovery it was but a simple step to use the wave as a
power-line. In the battle this morning we would focus two rays on the
fuel tank of an enemy plane, send a high potential current up one wave
and down the other—and bang goes the tank. Very neat, wasn’t it?”

“Toron, you’re a genius!” Cabot exclaimed, patting the other warmly on
the cheek. “The radio man from the earth yields the palm to the radio
man of the planet Poros.”

“This is something which the holy father must know at once,” Nan-nan
interjected.

“In order to maintain his reputation for omniscience,” Cabot laughingly
added.

This reminded him that he had ignored the presence of the priest and the
colonel, ever since the sudden arrival of Toron, so he turned with an
apology and introduced them.

“I must beg your majesty’s pardon and that of my two distinguished
friends here,” he said. “Your majesty, permit me to present Colonel
Wotsn, impressed into service as chief of staff of the palace forces,
and Nan-nan, one of the priests of the lost religion, who ministered
unto me in the Caves of Kar. A very human individual, in spite of being
a priest.”

Toron patted the cheek of each in turn as they bowed low before him.

Again Lilla sought to interrupt: “But my cousin is not king.”

“What do you mean?” Cabot exclaimed, amazed. “Certainly you hold no
brief for his brother, the renegade Yuri.”

“Certainly not,” the princess remonstrated, “but you forget our little
son. It’s our little Kew who is King of Cupia.”

All the party turned to look at her in horror! Was her mind becoming
unhinged by the ordeals which she had gone through? Did she not remember
the terrible doings in Luno Castle, when Yuri’s dagger had stilled
forever the heart of the little babe?

Toron had found the dead body and had withdrawn the dagger and prepared
the funeral bier. Cabot had buried the little corpse with his own hands.
Nan-nan knew the whole ghastly story in its every detail, from the spies
of the lost religion. And even Wotsn shared in the general popular
knowledge.

Had Lilla’s mind gone blank on this subject? Lilla, from whose own arms
the babe had been snatched by its assassin!

Myles flung a protecting arm about her.

“My poor, poor, dear girl,” he said comfortingly, “our little darling
lies dead and buried in the courtyard of Luno Castle.”

Indignantly she broke away from him, and stormed: “I’ll _not_ be soothed
as though I were drunk with saffra-root. I know what I know. And—”

But suddenly Nan-nan exclaimed, “Look! Look at the street below!”

Instantly all were attention. And no wonder, for the street below was
filled with the ranks of marching ant men!

“Is it a _coup_?” Cabot shouted. “Are we betrayed? You, whose religion
tells you everything, answer me that.”

All stood doubly dumfounded. What signified the marching Formians? And
what meant Princess Lilla’s words about the infant king?




                                  XXI

                            BUT WHO IS KING?


Myles Cabot, Lilla, Toron, Nan-nan and Wotsn watched the marching
Formians for a moment in amazement from the palace terrace. Then, “They
are unarmed!” Nan-nan exclaimed, with relief.

True. Not a single one of the black ant men carried a weapon. And then
there appeared in their wake rank upon rank of armed Cupians, the army
of liberation.

“No _coup_ at all, thank God,” said Cabot, “but merely prisoners of
war!”

Lilla, too, sighed with relief.

“And now that that is over,” she said, “I _will_ be heard on the subject
of who is king. Our baby is safe and sound, disguised as a peasant
child, in the care of my old nurse in the village of Pronth in the
Okarze Mountains.”

“But, darling, I buried him myself at Lake Luno,” Cabot remonstrated,
still unconvinced.

Lilla explained: “That baby, whom Yuri slew, and whom you buried, was
merely a borrowed orphan which we substituted for little Kew immediately
after his birth, fearing exactly what eventually did happen, I grew to
love the little substitute greatly, and his death grieved me almost as
much as though he had been really mine. But our own baby still lives,
and is King of Cupia!”

A warm thrill flooded through Myles Cabot’s body. He was still a father.
The little hands would yet clasp his. The little toddler would yet walk
by his side. All was well with Cupia, and his loved ones were safe.

Prince Toron stood the blow nobly, though his boyish face went a bit
haggard.

“I seem to be out of a job,” he remarked grimly. “Today is not our
family’s lucky day. First my brother loses his throne, and then in rapid
succession I lose the same throne. Let us hope, however, that this run
of bad luck does not extend to my infant cousin.”

And he strode over and patted Lilla warmly on the cheek. It was an act
of congratulation and renunciation.

“Toron, you are a true sport,” said Cabot, “and some day I hope to repay
you for your loyalty.”

Gone was every trace of his long resentment toward the young prince.

Lilla continued her explanation: “To make sure of little Kew’s
identification, in case anything went wrong with me, I took several
prints of the six little fingers of his right hand, and inscribed each
one with the words: ‘The fingerprint of the true king.’ One copy I sewed
into his little toga, one I secreted at Luno Castle, and one I took with
me.”

“That word ‘pbrs’—truth—well illustrates, in the present instance,
Poblath’s proverb: ‘Truth has an unpleasant sound,’” Toron dryly
remarked, “for it will certainly have a very unpleasant sound to my
brother Yuri when he learns that the true king still lives. There always
was some doubt as to the validity of my own claim to the throne, but
there can be no question as to the claim of little Kew, so this makes
the situation much worse for Yuri.”

Just at this moment Hah Babbuh and the other generals of the army of
liberation burst in upon the scene.

“We have been looking for you everywhere, your majesty,” exclaimed Hah.

“Don’t majesty me any more,” Toron replied with a sigh and a smile, “for
little Kew still lives. All hail the true King of Cupia!”

And every one present held his right hand aloft as a sign of fealty.
Then warm were the greetings between Myles Cabot and his former
associates.

When these were finished, “The war must go on,” Hah asserted. “I have
made Poblath the commandant of this city. He is already establishing the
police, and arranging for the quartering of our troops. All the
prisoners have been placed in the stadium. The enemy have fallen back to
the line of the old pale, where they are entrenching. Our fliers have
passed over them and are now attacking the enemy air base at Wautoosa.
What do you propose, excellency?”

“I propose that we dine,” Cabot wearily replied. Once more he must take
the field as winko of the troops of a nation. And that being so, the
question of prime importance was: “When do we eat?”

So the whole party adjourned to the banquet hall of the palace, where a
rough fare, somewhat hastily gathered, was served. And there, after the
meal, was held a conference of war. There Portheris, the leader of the
whistling bees, joined them.

“First,” Myles Cabot asserted from the head of the table, “let me lay
down the principle that the mistake of the last war must not be
repeated. We must ask no quarter, and give none. We must go on until
there is not a single Formian left living on the face of all Poros. For
there is no room on any given planet for more than one race of
intelligent beings. What do you say?”

Hah Babbuh, his chief of staff, answered: “I agree with you. And I
believe that the rabble have learned their lesson. But it all depends on
Count Kamel. It was he, more than anyone else, who blocked the
successful completion of the last war.”

“Make him a sarkar, and he’ll stand for anything,” Prince Toron dryly
observed. “You remember how he gave up his agitation for a two-hour day,
when you made him minister of public works. And he has been fighting
loyally in our ranks ever since this present war started.”

A laugh went up from all those present.

“No quarter is all very well,” the Princess Lilla interjected from the
other end of the table, “but what about the prisoners in the stadium?
You can’t shoot them down in cold blood, can you?”

“We might invoke the _ley fuego_,” replied her husband.

“What is that?”

“That is an old Spanish custom in vogue on my own planet,” he explained.
“Political prisoners, whose continued existence might prove
embarrassing, are let loose, and then are pursued and shot for
‘attempting to escape.’”

“A dirty trick!” Toron objected.

“Much like that which Satan, the Formian, played on you in Wautoosa
years ago,” Lilla added.

Cabot grimaced.

“And,” Hah Babbuh added, with a smile at his chief’s discomfiture, “the
situation is complicated by the fact that our old ant friend, Doggo, is
one of the prisoners in the stadium.”

Cabot grimaced again.

“I seem to be cornered,” he observed.

“And yet,” said Nan-nan, the priest, “the death of all these black pests
is the price of peace on Poros.”

Just then a messenger entered the room and saluted.

“Sire,” said he, addressing Hah Babbuh, “the prisoners in the stadium
have obtained arms and are holding it against our troops.”

“Thank the Great Builder,” Nan-nan reverently exclaimed, “for He has
solved our problem for us!”

“How did they get the arms?” Cabot asked.

“Airplanes from the south,” the messenger answered, “which took
advantage of the fact that our fleet is busy attacking Wautoosa.”

“We must bomb them out,” Toron suggested.

Hah Babbuh gave orders accordingly, and the messenger withdrew.

The conference resumed its session.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Myles Cabot continued: “As I was saying, there is not room on any given
planet for more than one race of intelligent beings.”

A boom in the distance, then—

Bang! A crash shook the palace. A veritable shower of bits of stone and
mortar spattered among the diners. The entire company sprang to their
feet, overturning the chairs in their haste. The scene instantly became
one of wild confusion, every one trying to demonstrate his calmness by
taking command and giving orders to every one else. Another boom in the
distance.

Bang! A shell broke within the banquet hall itself. Buh Tedn and two of
the attendants writhed upon the floor. Several others sustained minor
wounds.

Cabot leaped upon the table.

“Ten-shun!” he snapped out.

Every one halted.

“Poblath,” he directed, “take the princess and Bthuh to the cellars!
Here, you orderlies, carry the wounded below. Dr. Emsul, accompany them!
Hah and the rest of you, to the plaza to take command of your forces! I
go to reconnoiter.”

Boom! Bang! Another shell burst somewhere else near by in the palace.
But order had been brought out of chaos. Cabot, the radio man, vaulted
onto the back of Portheris, the whistling bee, adjusted his radio-set to
the latter’s wave-length, and sailed out into the air through one of the
broad windows of the banquet hall: Straight up shot the Hymernian, as
his rider scanned the surrounding landscape.

A puff of smoke to the south. Boom! The smoke and the sound came
unmistakably from the stadium. Bang! A shell exploded on the upper
terraces of the palace behind them.

Cupian fliers now appeared from the southward, headed for the stadium,
and soon the thud of bursting bombs mingled with the booming of the
stadium gun and the detonations of its projectiles.

Cabot had seen enough. He signaled to his mount and they settled down
upon the plaza, where the earthman joined Hah Babbuh and his staff.

“Where is the artillery fire coming from?” the Babbuh anxiously
inquired.

“From the besieged Formians in the stadium,” his chief replied, “the
airships which brought them their rifles, undoubtedly also brought them
a field gun.”

“Then we must radio to Wautoosa for more bombing planes,” said Hah, and
dispatched one of his attendants with orders to that effect.

Bang! A shell burst upon the plaza itself.

“They have changed target,” Myles remarked. “We were none too early. If
Poblath were here, he would undoubtedly say something about ‘Out of the
frying pan, into the fire.’”

But no more shells fell, and soon one of the fliers returned with the
news that a well-placed bomb had put the Formian gun out of commission.

“I hate to wreck our beautiful stadium with any more bombs,” said Cabot.
“Can’t we take the place by assault, or land an attacking force within
the arena?”

“I doubt it,” Hah replied, “for the ant men have probably taken cover
beneath the stands, whence they could repel an attack from either
direction.”

Just then an orderly arrived with a message. One of the jailers, who had
been in charge of the prisoners, had escaped when they overthrew the
guard and seized the stadium. He reported that before his own escape
Prince Yuri had sneaked into the stadium from wherever he had been in
hiding in the city, and had taken command of the insurgent Formians.

“We must capture him alive!” Cabot shouted. “The bombing must stop!”

Here at last was an excuse to save his beloved stadium. Hah gave orders
to recall the planes, and soon they could be seen proceeding to their
base. A special force was then organized for the assault.

But, as they were assembling, three Formian air ships arose from within
the stadium and headed due south at full speed. The meaning was only too
evident; with the withdrawal of the Cupian bombers there had been
nothing to prevent the renegade prince and the survivors of his black
allies from making their escape in the planes which had originally
brought them their arms, and which must have been kept under cover
during the bombing of the stadium. Hurried orders were given for
pursuit; but, as the Cupian fliers returned from their base and
disappeared over the southern horizon, the silver sky began to darken in
the east and to turn red in the west. Another day was at an end. Prince
Yuri was still at large.

As the evening fell, the assaulting column was launched against the
stadium. But they met with no resistance. As Poblath would say, the
pterodactyl had flown. The stadium was empty of all save the corpses of
the slain and the remains of what once had been a
one-hundredth-of-a-parastad field gun, i.e., just about a seventy-five.

So the council of war resumed its sessions in the palace, where the
débris had been removed by the attendants. The ladies were safe. One of
the wounded had died, but Buh Tedn and the other were reported to be
resting comfortably.

The conference proceeded with its plans for the war. When all the
military dispositions had been completed, Toron suggested that baby Kew
ought to be crowned at once, in order to consolidate the popular support
behind the throne.

So early next morning Lilla was dispatched to the north by plane, amply
convoyed, to bring back the little monarch. Not without qualms did Cabot
let her go, but something had to be risked in times like these, and it
hardly seemed possible that one who had been through so many
tribulations could be subjected to any further danger.

Then for several days every one marked time, while Kuana was cleared of
skulking Formians, and the army was provisioned and equipped. Brief
furloughs were given all who wished to visit their families and to
reestablish their homes. Kamel, as predicted, was overwhelmed by his
sarkarship, and made stirring patriotic addresses throughout the city.
The Popular Assembly, which Yuri had dissolved, was reassembled; and,
under the leadership of Kamel and Toron, both parties joined in
unanimously voting for war to the hilt.

The Cupian air fleet finally captured Wautoosa, thus giving them an
oasis in the midst of the enemy, who still stubbornly continued to hold
the line of the old pale.

Then Lilla returned with baby Kew. Such a reunion as there was, when
Myles Cabot clasped to his breast his wife and his infant son!

                 *        *        *        *        *

The little boy, whom Cabot had never seen, was all that the proud father
could have hoped. He had not dared to ask whether the little one had
inherited any of his own earth-born peculiarities. He had feared that
such might be the case and might disincline the Cupians to accept the
baby as their king; for, much as the country admired and respected, yea,
even loved, Myles Cabot, they still regarded him as not one of them; a
hero, even a demi-god perhaps, yet still not quite human.

But Cabot’s fears proved groundless. Baby Kew was earless, and had
antennae, vestigial wings, twelve fingers, and twelve toes.

“I shall have to invent another line for ‘This little pig went to
market,’” Myles remarked, and then explained to Lilla that rite of Anglo
Saxon babyhood.

The infant king surveyed his newly-produced father solemnly out of the
big blue eyes beneath his long yellow lashes; then shook his curly
golden head, and smiled, and holding out one tiny hand, encircled Myles’
forefinger with all six fingers.

It was the thrill of a lifetime, never before experienced, and never to
be repeated; the first response of one’s baby son!

On the day after the arrival, Kew XIII, in his mother’s arms, was
crowned King of all Poros. He behaved very badly at the ceremony,
screaming with rage and dashing to the ground a toy ant man which had
been given him to pacify him. But, as this was taken as a good omen by
the populace, no harm was done.

Among the guests of honor at the coronation were Portheris the Hymernian
king of the bees, Prince Toron, Poblath the mango, Hah Babbuh, Nan-nan,
and Glamp-glamp.

Owva, the holy father sent his blessing from the Caves of Kar, but
declined to attend.

“The prophecy is not yet fulfilled,” he declared, “for ant men still
live.”

In honor of the occasion, Poblath composed a new proverb: “Thrones have
no upholstery,” which caught the popular fancy.

Everywhere throughout Kuana fluttered the red pennant of the restored
Kew dynasty. Myles Cabot, as regent, delivered the speech from the
throne. It was a carefully prepared oration, which quoted from the
memorable address of the late Kew XII, and reiterated Cabot’s own
determined idea that there could be no peace on Poros until the last
Formian was exterminated.

Thus Kew the Thirteenth became the king of a whole planet, and took up
his residence at the Palace of Kuana.

And once again the armies of Myles Cabot swept southward against their
black enemies. But this time there was no quarter.

Of course the ant men contested every step of the way, and thus many
sangths dragged on. Once more, as in the previous war, Myles Cabot had
given orders that Doggo, the ant man, and Yuri, the renegade prince,
should be captured alive if possible. Once more the serial numbers of
all Formian dead were tabulated at headquarters. But Doggo’s number was
not among the slain, and no trace was found of Yuri.

For the most part, Cabot directed the war from the palace at Kuana. He
had braved much and suffered much, and once more he had saved Cupia from
the accursed Formians, so no one begrudged him his well-earned rest. Buh
Tedn, who was convalescing from his wounds, remained as a guest and
adviser at the palace. Princess Lilla also was a source of constant help
and counsel to her husband.

Slowly the Formians were driven southward, and this time there was no
demand from the rank and file of the Cupians that the fighting be given
up, for all realized that this present war and its hardships were due to
the fact that the previous war had not been fought to a finish. There
were now no pacifists in Cupia, for that unfortunate country had reaped
to the full the fruits of pacifism. Also the fact that the former leader
of the pacifists, Kamel, had been promoted to a full sarkarship may have
had something to do with it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

So the war progressed without event until word was brought to G. H. Q.
that a Formian plane, bearing Prince Yuri himself, had been shot down
within the Cupian lines, but that the prince had escaped.

Myles Cabot had experienced once before how Yuri had been able to pass
safely among even hostile bodies of his own countrymen, due to their
respect for the sacredness of his royal person. Therefore, if Yuri were
now within the lines, there was no limit to the trouble which he might
cause. Accordingly it behooved Cabot to proceed at once to the front and
take personal charge of the man-hunt.

It pleased him much to have an excuse to put an end to his inaction. So
he radioed to Hah Babbuh to expect him, and early the next morning set
out by kerkool for the front, accompanied by Poblath as aide.

Lilla and Bthuh did not want them to go.

Said Lilla, “I can see disaster ahead. Every time you ever go anywhere,
you get into trouble.”

“And always get out of it again,” the earth man added, “for, as Poblath
here says, ‘You cannot kill a Minorian.’”

Lilla and Bthuh were a bit reassured as their husbands kissed them an
affectionate farewell and departed. The two men were in high spirits at
the prospect of fighting.

The day was a perfect one. Silver sky o’erhead, silver woods and fields
on each side, and a straight road before them.

Another noon—six hundred o’clock—they reached the air naval base at
Wautoosa, and stopped for lunch. It seemed almost like a homecoming to
Myles to be once more in the old ant-city where he had been held a
captive so long during the early part of his stay on his planet, and
where he had first met and loved the Princess Lilla. To Poblath,
however, the stop was not so pleasant, for an orderly at once brought
him a radiogram from the capitol to the effect that Bthuh had been taken
ill.

“I must return at once,” he announced.

And Cabot, who realized that that is what he himself would have done in
the same situation, readily assented. So Poblath requisitioned one of
the army planes and hurriedly departed.

But this left Cabot without an escort. The commandant of the air base
insisted on detailing a bar-pootah to accompany the regent; but the war
was on, Wautoosa was short-handed, and every man was needed; so Myles
tactfully declined.

Before continuing on his journey, he unbuckled his various
accoutrements; and, for relaxation, revisited some of his old haunts;
such as the room where he had been confined when the ants had captured
him at the time of his arrival on the planet; the garden where he had
first seen the lovely Cupian who had later become his bride; the room
where he had so often visited her, after his triumphant return from
Mooni with the artificial radio speech-organs which he had constructed;
and so on. Every spot was crowded with memories.

But finally he tore himself away, and resumed his journey. It would be
late at night before he could reach Saltona, his next stopping place.

As he sped along over the smooth concrete road in his silent two-wheeled
vehicle, he reflected on a plan of action for the capture of Yuri, the
arch trouble-maker of the continent. Poros could not be sure of peace
until not only the ant men were exterminated, but also Yuri along with
them.

Cabot had chosen for this trip a kerkool, rather than a plane or a
whistling bee, because he wished to stop at every town and army post, in
order to keep in touch with the development of the man-hunt.

And so, in the course of the afternoon, he received a message which
caused him to turn sharp to the right, and give up his plan of spending
the night at Saltona. For Yuri had been reported as seen only a few
stads west of the point where Cabot had received the message.

As the earthman sped along in this new direction, the sky began to turn
black. Not nightfall, but rather the approach of one of those tropical
thunderstorms which are so common on Poros. Darker and darker grew the
sky. And then the storm burst.

Myles had to run his machine at a mere crawling speed now, not only to
prevent skidding, but also because the rain made it difficult to see
where he was going. And as he crept along, a figure loomed ahead,
holding up its left hand as a signal for him to stop. Cabot slowed down
even more, and approached the figure.

It turned out to be a Cupian in an army toga, wearing the insignia of a
low-ranking officer, and with a revolver slung at his side. This officer
was holding over his head one of those umbrellas which all inhabitants
of Poros carry whenever outdoors, not so much for protection against
storms like these, as to ward off the blasting heat of the sun if it
should happen to shine for a moment through a rift in the silver clouds.
For Poros is very close to the center of the solar system, and only the
circumambient cloud-envelop keeps it from being shriveled by the sun’s
heat.

The umbrella had evidently not protected this particular Cupian very
much from the swirling rain, for his toga was dripping wet. Myles
brought the car to a full stop and offered the officer a ride; so the
latter clambered aboard through the rear door, as Myles sat impatiently
at the levers, anxious to be on his way again.

As the other walked forward to a seat just behind the driver, Cabot
started up the kerkool.

“Glad to give you a lift,” he said. “Pretty wet out, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” his guest replied. “Very wet.”

The voice sounded familiar. Maybe this Cupian was one whom he had met
before.

“I am Myles Cabot,” the regent announced. “Can you tell me anything
about the progress of the hunt for Prince Yuri?”

“Perhaps I can,” the other replied, sticking the muzzle of a revolver
into Cabot’s ribs, “for I am Prince Yuri.”




                                 XXII

                            AT YURI’S MERCY


As Prince Yuri thrust the muzzle of his revolver between Cabot’s ribs,
and at the same time revealed his identity, Cabot instinctively slowed
down the kerkool.

“None of that!” the prince shouted in his antennae. “Speed her up!”

The earth-man obeyed.

“What is the idea?” he asked calmly. “Now that you have got me, what do
you mean to do with me?”

“I intend to use you as my chauffeur,” the other answered, “to drive me
through your lines in safety to Formia. Once there, we will leave your
fate to Queen Formis.”

“That is a lie,” Myles calmly asserted, “for the Formis, who is now
queen, has no individuality when you are around.”

“You flatter me,” was all that Yuri deigned to reply.

They drove along for some distance without further conversation. The
rain stopped. The weather cleared. Finally Cabot broke the silence with,
“Seriously speaking, Yuri, I am sorry for you.”

“Sorry for _me_!” the prince exclaimed with a laugh. “Well, well, that
certainly _is_ a good one! Here I go and get you into my clutches; you,
the only person on this whole planet who has ever thwarted my ambitions;
and instead of grovelling before me, you merely sympathize with me. How
so, you cursed spot of sunshine?”

“You have me in your power, yes,” Cabot countered, “but you have had me
in your power before. You induced that ant man, whom I called Satan, to
try and kill me at Wautoosa, but Doggo interfered. Because of your
scheming, the Formians condemned me to the Valley of the Howling Rocks,
from whose frightful din no person had ever escaped; but nevertheless I
got away. You overcame me in the strap-duel in the mangool of Kuana, and
your knife was about to enter my heart, when I thumbed your ulnar nerve
and made you drop your weapon. You arrested me in the stadium the day
you killed your uncle, King Kew; you had Trisp, the bar-mango, destroy
my antennae; yet I escaped and rejoined my army. You fed me to the
woofuses, but one of them turned on you instead. In just what way do you
plan to fail this time?”

“This time there will be no slip-up,” Yuri replied grimly. Then, his
curiosity getting the better of him, he asked: “But you haven’t yet told
me why you are sorry for me.”

“I am sorry for you,” the earthman explained, “because you have missed
your opportunities. You had the ability and the following to have led
your country to victory over the ants. You would have been a hero and
could have had anything that you wanted in the whole kingdom.”

“Not Lilla,” the prince interjected with a sneer.

“Yes, even Lilla,” Cabot soberly replied.

“Well, I shall have her now,” the other asserted. “And ‘what ends well,
ends well,’ as Poblath would say.”

“You are incorrigible!” Cabot exclaimed. “And to quote another of
Poblath’s proverbs, ‘The saddest thing about a fool is that he doesn’t
realize he is one.’”

This irritated Prince Yuri, so he curtly ordered: “Swing to the left at
the next crossroad.”

“But what is to prevent my stopping the car and turning you over to the
pinqui if there is one stationed there?” Cabot asked.

“This revolver,” the other replied.

“Not enough,” said Cabot. “I could wreck the controls before the bullet
could do its work. The pinqui would arrest you. And then where would you
be? Yuri, the traitor, in the toils at last! It would be the Valley of
the Howling Rocks for you, my friend.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said the prince. “With you out of the way,
methinks I could reconquer Cupia, even from a prison cell. In the past,
whenever you have been out of the way, I have always won, and I could do
so again.”

“Maybe you could,” the earthman mused aloud. “So I think I had better
remain alive for the present.”

Accordingly he turned to the left at the next crossroad as he had been
directed.

As they approached the battlefront, they were often halted by Cupian
sentinels. To each of these Cabot revealed his identity, and was
permitted to pass. And each time he was sorely tempted to turn Yuri
over, even though this would probably mean his own instant annihilation.

What deterred him? Not fear of death, for he had faced death so often on
the silver planet that he and the dark angel were well acquainted.
Perhaps it was caution, due to uncertainty as to the outcome. If he
could but be sure that Yuri would not get the better of the sentinel,
that the sentinel would not yield to the temptations which Yuri would
undoubtedly offer, that Yuri would not be able to work his way back into
power even from the cell of a mangool, that the courts would condemn
Yuri to the Valley and then enforce the sentence—if Myles could have
been sure of all this, he would have willingly given his life for his
adopted country.

Yet would he? For his fatalism assured him that he could risk his own
life, and yet come out on top, as he had done before.

Finally there occurred Cabot’s last opportunity. They were in a little
ravine, almost at the front. The sentinel who halted him refused to let
him pass on to no-man’s land without permission of the officer in charge
of that sector; so the sentinel called another soldier to guard the
kerkool and went to summon the officer, who proved to be a young
bar-pootah, a stranger to Cabot.

“Excellency,” said he, “it must be important business which leads you to
risk your life out there, for yonder lie the forces of Formis. The
moment that you emerge from this ravine you will be under fire. May I
ask what takes our regent into such danger?”

The revolver muzzle of the man crouching hidden beside Cabot, ground
into his ribs as a reminder.

“No, you may not,” Myles replied.

Then he had an idea.

“Give me two sticks,” he said.

So the sentinel cut two branches and affixed them to the front of the
kerkool in the form of an X. Crossed sticks—these were the Porovian
equivalent of a flag of truce! Then the young bar-pootah let them
through.

“You improve,” Prince Yuri remarked, as they threaded the ravine and
emerged onto the plain beyond.

                 *        *        *        *        *

It was a gruesome scene. Dead bodies of both Cupians and Formians lay
strewn about, covered with swarms of little hopping brinks, while among
the corpses ambled large orange-colored beetles about three feet in
length. Some of these beetles were busily engaged in digging holes,
while here and there others of them in large numbers were pulling a body
toward a hole which they had dug. These were the burying beetles of
Poros.

Cabot carefully steered the kerkool in and out among all these
obstructions. His last chance to turn his captor over to the authorities
had come and gone. Soon Yuri would be able to take the seat beside him
and ride in triumph among his friends.

And then the car began to wobble a bit.

“Hold her steady!” ordered the prince peremptorily. “No fooling! No
pretended gyroscope trouble!”

“Don’t you realize,” Myles replied mildly, “that this is a pretty poor
place for me to _pretend_ to have gyro troubles? If I were going to
fake, I would have done so back there in the ravine.”

“That’s true,” Yuri admitted. “Well, stop her and we’ll get out and
walk.”

Cabot accordingly brought the kerkool to a standstill. Yuri cautiously
backed to the rear of the car and dismounted, keeping his prisoner
covered with the revolver.

“Come along now,” he called. “Get out and unhitch the cross, so that we
can carry it as a protection.”

For reply the earthman suddenly threw the control into full speed
reverse. Down went the astonished prince, his revolver flying from his
hand as the kerkool backed onto him. Cabot saw the weapon as it sailed
by him; and instantly he stopped the car and reached for his own
revolver. But it was not at his side. Quite evidently he had left it at
Wautoosa when he had gathered up his accouterments after his sightseeing
tour there.

So he jumped from the car and ran over to where the prince’s weapon lay.
With it in his hand, he turned and faced his late captor, who was just
picking himself up out of the dust and staggering to his feet.

“Halt,” the earthman commanded, “or I fire!”

Yuri halted. Then, to Cabot’s surprise, he grinned.

“What was it that you quoted from Poblath a while ago?” he said, with
seeming irrelevance. “Oh, I know. ‘The saddest thing about a fool, is
that he doesn’t realize he is one.’ That revolver which you now hold,
and which terrorized you into bearing me in safety through your lines,
is empty, wholly empty! Better throw it away, you poor fool.”

And he gave a mocking laugh. Myles flushed with shame and humiliation.
Bluffed again by the arch-trickster of Poros! So he started to throw the
weapon to one side. Then suddenly he realized what a fool he would be to
accept any statement from this liar. Perhaps the prince was bluffing
_now_, rather than before. Perhaps the revolver was loaded, after all.

So Myles fired square in that sneering face. But the sneer continued. No
explosion followed the pull on the trigger. Merely a little click.

Cabot pulled the trigger five more times, so as to be certain; then
flung the revolver square at the still sneering face.

Whereupon Prince Yuri ducked and charged him, and down went the two in a
strangle-hold embrace. Ordinarily they would have been a very even
match, but the Cupian had recently been drenched in a rainstorm and had
just been knocked down and run over by a kerkool; so the earthman easily
triumphed. The proud pretender to the throne of Cupia was soon flat on
his back, with Cabot’s hands about his throat.

But he uttered no appeal. He gamely succumbed. Fiery hate glowed in his
eyes, as his adversary slowly cut off his wind; but that was all.

Finally his body became limp and his eyes glazed. This was no kind of a
way to kill a man! So Myles withdrew his strangle grasp and listened at
his victim’s right breast. The heart was still beating.

Cabot arose, seized Prince Yuri’s body and started dragging it to the
Cupian lines. The prince should be revived and given a fair trial for
treason.

But the two never reached the northern edge of no-man’s-land, for a
Formian bullet brought Myles Cabot to the ground.

A terrible crashing noise in his ears, and then all was over!

                 *        *        *        *        *

After a seemingly interminable time the earthman became vaguely
conscious again. It was twilight. Shadowy forms were dragging him along
the ground.

Then he rolled over and over down a steep decline, and shovelfuls of
dirt began to land on him from above. One of the shadowy forms descended
and pressed upon his abdomen with a blunt instrument of some sort.

Was he dead? Was this hell? Or where was it?

A sharp pain in his abdomen brought him to his senses. He sprang to his
feet, throwing off his tormentor, who thereupon let forth a vile smell.
Then Cabot realized his situation.

He was standing in a shallow pit in the midst of the battlefield,
surrounded by beetles, one of which had just sought to impale him with
its ovipositor. These beasts now scattered and left him alone. A live
man was no concern of theirs.

Myles felt of his head. His left earphone was smashed and there was a
welt on his left temple. He had been merely stunned, rather than killed,
or even seriously wounded.

By the aid of the rapidly fading pink glow in the western sky, the weary
man picked his way across the battlefield to the little ravine through
which he had entered it. There the Cupian bar-pootah took him in charge
and dispatched him by kerkool to the nearest army hospital. In a few
days he was himself again.

Then Myles Cabot took the field in person, with Poblath as his aide.
Bthuh’s illness had merely been a bluff, and both men were thoroughly
disgusted. They had remained behind the lines too long. Now they
intended to press the war to a successful conclusion.

Nothing further was seen or heard of the renegade prince, although the
ground was dug up all around the wrecked kerkool, in the hope of finding
his body.

So, through many weary sangths, the Formians were driven to the southern
tip of the continent and totally exterminated. Even their numerous
pets—some fifteen hundred varieties—were killed off, too. For, with
all the sport loving proclivities of the Cupians, they do not waste very
much time and affection on pets.

The only ants spared were the royal husbands. They, poor stupid drones,
were not to blame for the tyranny and treachery of their race. So they
were shut up in cages in the gr-ool—i.e. zoo—of Kuana, for the
edification of the children of Cupia.

The serial numbers of all slain Formians were recorded, even those
buried by the beetles being exhumed for this purpose.

The battle for the extreme southern tip of the continent was the
fiercest of the entire war; and when finally the last ramparts of the
enemy were stormed, there arose from this fortress a considerable fleet
of planes. It had not been known that the Formians still had any of
these left; but nevertheless the Cupian fliers and their bee allies were
ready for them, and instantly rose into the air to meet them. And at the
head of the Cupian fleet rode Myles Cabot on the back of Portheris, king
of the bees.

But to his surprise and horror, the enemy flew southeast, instead of
north, bent on escape rather than on battle. And there was no possible
escape in that direction, for the way was barred by the steam clouds
which overhung the boiling seas. Probably, therefore, this squadron was
due soon to execute some feint. But no, they kept straight on; and
before the forces of the earthman could catch up with them, they
disappeared within the clouds. Cabot’s fleet wheeled and returned,
driven back by the intense heat.

Thus perished—presumably—the last of the ant men, for when the Cupian
army stormed the fortress from which these had flown, it was devoid of
defenders.

No trace of Doggo or of Prince Yuri was ever found. As to Doggo, perhaps
he had been slain and his serial number had been incorrectly reported by
those who had found his body. Or perhaps he had been among those who had
braved the steam in a heroic attempt to cheat Cabot of his final
victory, by a flight to unknown lands beyond the boiling seas.

It was just as well, for Cabot’s hands were not drenched with the blood
of a friend. His conscience was clear, and yet he was relieved of the
embarrassing alternative of having to choose between putting to death
one who had saved his life, or permitting to live a member of the
proscribed race.

As for Yuri, undoubtedly he, too, had been among these fliers; for never
could one of his spirit brook to remain, even in hiding, in a land
completely dominated by his enemy and rival, Myles Cabot.

Thus passed from the continent the race of black insects which had long
exercised dominion over it. Poros was safe at last.

The stadium was repaired, and an appropriate celebration was held
therein. The lands and other property of the Formians were distributed
among the war widows and the leading heroes of the Cupian soldiery.

Under the regency of Myles Cabot, Cupia prospered. Luno Castle was
rebuilt. Myles and his fellow scientists perfected many devices for the
welfare of the people.

Among these devices was a new source of power, namely, a compound engine
devised by Cabot himself. Mercury was boiled and its vapor used as
steam. The exhaust vapor was condensed, in a water-tube boiler, at such
a high temperature that the water turned to steam, which was used to
drive a second set of pistons. Thus very little energy was lost. These
novel steam engines were located at the coal mines in the northern
mountains, thus obviating the transportation of fuel. Huge generators
converted the energy into electricity which was conveyed to the
southward over wireless power lines, made up of the Toron ray. Thus
Kuana and the other large cities were supplied with power.

But in the course of his experiments, Cabot found many gaps which he
could not fill by his meager recollection of earth devices. And so he
finally persuaded the Princess Lilla to permit him to return to the
earth for a brief visit. A perfecting of his instrument for the wireless
transmission of matter, and several trips between Luno and Kuana, showed
that this was entirely feasible.

And so one day he turned the reins of government over to Prince Toron,
kissed his wife and baby good-by and stepped between the co-ordinate
axes of the huge radio set at Luno Castle, with Toron and Oya Buh at the
levers. The next thing that he knew, he was lying on the floor of the
laboratory of the General Electric Company in Lynn, Massachusetts, as
already recounted.

How he was there attacked by the night operator, how he reached Boston,
and how the newspapers thought that he was an escaped inmate of an
insane asylum, has been told in the first chapter of this story.

He put up for the night in a cheap Boston lodging house, and early the
next morning took the elevated out to Dudley Street, where he had kept a
small bank account during college days, under an assumed name, as a
provision for possible escapades, which somehow he had never found time
to commit. In after years he had maintained this account, largely as a
matter of sentiment, and had even, with strange foresight, transferred
quite a block of his securities to their safe deposit vault.

It all certainly came in handy that morning. In spite of his absence of
five years and his workman clothes, the bank clerk instantly recognized
him as the “Mr. M. S. Camp,” who had kept an account there, and so
cashed a check for him and obligingly arranged for the sale of some of
his securities.

Then he returned to town, bought a complete outfit, took a hotel room,
and bathed, shaved and changed. Once more he was Myles Standish Cabot,
the Bostonian.

His next need was to buy newspapers and magazines, to learn what had
happened in the world since he left it. And it was in the course of
making these purchases that he ran across an installment of “The Radio
Man,” edited by me, and thus was led to make the trip down to my farm.




                                 XXIII

                            TOO MUCH STATIC


Thus ends the second story of Myles Cabot, the radio man.

The first was written by his own hand, and was shot from Venus to the
earth, swathed in the fur of the fire-worm, and concealed in the heart
of a streamline projectile. The second he told to me in person from time
to time during his stay on my Massachusetts farm on his return from
Venus.

The tale was a long time in telling, for Myles, in his assumed name of
course, at once matriculated at Harvard to study electricity under
Kennelly and Hammond. Although he spent nearly every week-end at my
farm, he devoted most of his spare time even here to reading assorted
books on nearly every form of practical science, and to the installation
of a radio set for the purpose of communicating with his friends and
family on Venus, and so as to be prepared to transmit himself back
eventually. Hence the two huge steel towers on Cow Hill, which have
recently excited the wonder and curiosity of my fellow-townsmen.

Of course, there were many questions which we asked him, when his story
was completed. My little daughter Jacqueline was particularly
resourceful in this connection.

Almost the moment he finished, she inquired: “And what became of your
beautiful pet woofus? Did he die?”

Cabot smiled. Like most Bostonians, he was always very adept with
children.

“You never could guess,” he replied, “so I will tell you. After the
flight of the ants from the stadium, my woofus was found, still alive,
in one of the passageways beneath the seats, where he had evidently
dragged his poor mangled body and hidden himself. His life was spared by
some one who recognized him as the beast who had rescued me on the day
of the games. Word was brought me, and I at once went to him with Emsul.
At my command, the woofus submitted to treatment, and soon recovered. He
became a great pet of Lilla and little Kew. Always he lies on guard by
the crib while the baby sleeps. And the baby’s favorite game when awake
is to play horsey astride of his back.”

“How cunning!” Jacqueline murmured. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a pet
woofus to take care of Stuart?” Stuart being my own youngest.

But Mrs. Farley was a bit incredulous.

“Mr. Cabot,” she asked, “how could Baby Kew know anything about playing
horse, seeing as there are no horses on Poros?”

Myles laughed good-naturedly.

“I said ‘horse’,” he explained, “merely to give an earthly allusion.
What the little king thinks he is riding on is a whistling bee.”

This suggested another question.

“What of Portheris and his swarm?” I inquired. “Has it never occurred to
you that these Hymernians, as you call them, are a race of intelligent
beings almost on a par with the Cupians and the Formians, and that,
therefore, there are still _two_ races of intelligent beings on the
Planet Poros? How about your assertion, made in the council hall of the
palace at Kuana, that ‘there is no room on any given planet for more
than one race of intelligent beings’?”

Cabot tried to laugh it off, but I could see that the suggestion worried
him.

“The Hymernians are not exactly human,” he objected.

“Neither were the ants,” I countered.

After which he remained for some time in abstracted silence, evidently
turning over the possibilities in his mind.

Finally he came out with: “Portheris I can trust. And his followers will
be all right, so long as my people keep them supplied with plenty of
green cows to eat. Toron, the regent, and Kamel, our leader in the
Assembly, realize the need of that.”

                 *        *        *        *        *

At this point little Jacqueline had a suggestion:

“Suppose Prince Yuri didn’t die in his flight across the boiling seas.
Suppose he comes back and organizes the bees against your people. What
then?”

“That is the least of my worries,” Myles answered, smiling. “No one
could live in that heat. No, I am confident that Yuri is dead, or I
never would have dared to make this trip back to earth.”

But, I fear, all the same, that we sowed the seeds of some serious
worries in the mind of our guest.

Myles Cabot’s story was finished, except for his answers to various
questions which we asked him from time to time. For instance, how it was
possible for my friend to have worn a set of such short wave length on
his person, without body capacity playing hob with his adjustment. I had
not been able to give them a satisfactory answer. So now I put that
question up to Cabot.

“Very simple,” said he, laughing, “for, as my apparatus was fixed firmly
upon me, my body capacity was invariable, and so could be reckoned with
like any other constant. But some radio fan is likely to refuse to
accept that statement, and to come back with the suggestion that when I
moved my hand to adjust the controls, I would bring into play a
wonderfully efficient variable capacity, consisting of my hand and my
abdomen as two connected plates.”

“Well, wouldn’t he be right?” I asked. “Doesn’t that completely floor
you? It sounds reasonable enough, with what little I know of radio.”

Cabot laughed again, and replied: “If that could floor me, it would mean
that I never could have talked to Cupians, to ant men, and to whistling
bees on Poros. But it is true that I did experience considerable
difficulty from that quarter. Nevertheless I eliminated all the trouble
by enclosing, in a copper sheath, my belt, and the batteries, bulbs and
tuning means which it carried; and by running my lead wires through a
copper tube. This had the bad feature of slightly increasing the
capacity of my apparatus, but it eliminated entirely all outside
interference. Only when I put my hands near my antennae was my
receptivity disturbed.”

As they would say on Poros, that was an antennaeful!

Of course, Mrs. Farley, womanlike, had to ask him if his radio set,
which he always wore on Poros, was not awfully uncomfortable.

“Not at all!” he replied. “I see that you wear glasses. Do they not
bother you?”

“No,” she said. “At first they did, but now I really never notice I have
them on.”

“And I’ll venture to state,” he asserted, “that they are as natural to
you as a part of your own body; that you never bother about them, except
to adjust them or to clean them occasionally; and that, even then, you
do it unconsciously and instinctively?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Well, that is just the way my artificial speech organs are to me.”

Shortly after, or perhaps it was during, his narration of his
adventures, it occurred to me to ask him about the device which had shot
him from Poros back to earth.

“How were you able to transmit yourself through space?” I inquired.

“That is a secret known only to Prince Toron, Oya Buh and myself. I
doubt if the world is ready for it. And yet, it is very simple.
Invention merely consists in realizing a need, and then in devising
means to fulfill that need.”

“Humph! Absurdly simple, isn’t it?” I interjected sarcastically, for I
was peeved at his superior tone.

“It really is,” he replied, a bit hurt, “and furthermore, the biggest
part of invention consists in merely realizing the need. Once this is
done, the means of filling the need can usually be found, staring one in
the face, just waiting to be used.”

“And what simple means stared you in the face when you realized the need
of projecting yourself back to earth?” asked Mrs. Farley, doubtless
hoping to steer him gently around to a description of his device.

This was exactly the result of her question. The answer was full of
intense scientific interest. For the next ten or twelve minutes, Myles
Cabot regaled us with a detailed technical explanation of his apparatus,
finally ending up with: “I hope you understand this somewhat sketchy and
involved exposition.”

We didn’t, but we said we did. In those days I knew little of radio. But
in the months which followed the reappearance of Myles Cabot, I learned
many things of which the world as yet little dreams, but which I have
not his permission to disclose.

The details of his apparatus for transmitting objects through space were
not, however, again imparted, and so I am unable to describe it here.

Between the various members of the family, we asked him many questions
about the present status of the principal characters of his story.

Poblath, the philosopher, had become mangool of Kuana again, and was
thinking of publishing his proverbs in book form. His dark and beautiful
wife, Bthuh, was still lady-in-waiting to the Princess Lilla. Emsul, the
veterinary, and Mitchfix, the trophil engine expert, were given
associate professorships in their respective subjects at the Royal
University of Kuana. Colonel Wotsn was made chief of the palace guards,
in recognition of his assuming command of the palace the day it was
seized, and of his subsequent rescue of Myles Cabot. Buh Tedn recovered
from his wounds and resumed his duties at the University. Hah Babbuh was
admitted to the nobility as a Sarkar, and was made field marshal, the
rank which he had virtually occupied all during the war. Kamel, now a
Sarkar, too, and no longer a pacifist and radical, became the leader of
the court party in the Assembly. And, as already stated, the loyal
Prince Toron assumed the regency during Myles Cabot’s visit to the
earth.

One more point. I asked Myles why he had not brought his wonderful
portable radio set down with him, to show to us.

“You forget,” was his reply, “that, for some unexplained reason, my
apparatus will not transmit metals through space. Do you not remember
all the steel buttons, gartersnaps and other metallic objects which were
left behind in my Beacon Street laboratory that day when I disappeared
from the earth?”

True! Now, that he mentioned it, I did remember. It would never be
possible to bring any such Porovian souvenirs down to our own planet.

And that will be about all of Poros for the present. Let us now turn our
attention to Myles Cabot on earth.

His life with us was very regular. From Monday until Friday of every
week he attended Harvard. His week-ends he devoted to study and, with
some slight assistance from myself and family and farmhands, to erecting
the two huge steel towers on Cow Hill, and to installing his apparatus
in a shack which we built at their base. This apparatus comprised a
long-range long-wave-length sending and receiving set, and a
matter-transmitting set.

Finally both were completed. One Sunday night in October, at the end of
an unusually sultry day for that time of year, Cabot came down to supper
full of suppressed excitement.

“I have nearly gotten Luno Castle on the air,” he announced, “but there
is too much static to-night. Poor dear Lilla, she must be worried about
me, for not a word have I sent her to let her know of my safe arrival.
But I will get her tonight, if the static will only let up for a few
minutes.”

“Why haven’t you used the G. E. set in Lynn?” I asked.

“I had thought of that,” Myles replied. “In fact I planned to do so,
before I left Poros. But unfortunately they have recently dismantled
their set, for the purpose of rebuilding it, and I could not very well
ask them to hurry, without revealing my identity, which would never do,
for that would get me so much publicity that my dear cousins would
undoubtedly have me locked up in the asylum on the strength of my absurd
belief that I have been on Venus. If they did that, then how could I
ever get back to that planet again? My cousins would just as leave get
hold of my property through a conservatorship, as by inheriting it. That
lets Lynn out! But my set here is now complete, and is the equal of the
G. E. installation; so I’ll talk to my princess tonight, if the static
will only let up.”

He seemed very happy.

                 *        *        *        *        *

After the evening meal was over, he lit a lantern and started back to
his laboratory. As we accompanied him to the door, he pointed to the
evening sky.

“Late tonight, long after midnight,” said he, “there will appear above
that horizon the star which holds all that is dear to me in this
universe. My wife, my child, my people, and my home. Good night. Do not
sit up for me. I may be very late.”

It was a sultry night. Not a breath was stirring. Storm clouds hung dark
in the west with heat-lightning playing intermittently across their
face. An occasional October asteroid flitted fireflylike through the
sky. The weather was too oppressive to think of going to bed, so we sat
up and waited for Myles Cabot. It got very late. But still he did not
come.

Finally, along toward morning, the storm broke. I was for going up to
Cow Hill to see how Myles was getting along, but Mrs. Farley restrained
me.

“He has oilskins in the laboratory, if he wishes to come down,” she
said. “In the meantime, leave him alone. He is phoning to his
sweetheart, and ought not to be disturbed. When you were courting me,
you never used to phone to me in public.”

“Nor in a thunderstorm either,” was my reply.

The rain fell in torrents, and the lightning was very vivid, though I
suppose that the storm was a mere trifle compared with those which Cabot
describes as occurring on Poros. Finally the weather began to clear; but
not without a Parthian shot, which fell so close that the lightning and
the thunder-clap seemed simultaneous. When the next flash came, the
momentary light revealed the fact that only one of the two towers
remained standing on Cow Hill.

Myles might be in trouble! Seizing my sou’wester and a lantern, I
hurried out into the night. The rain had now stopped. The sky had begun
to clear. As I neared the wireless station, I could see that the
stricken tower had fallen across one end of the laboratory, caving it
in. This was the end which held most of the apparatus, so I quickened my
pace and flung open the door.

But Myles Cabot was not there. One glance satisfied me on that score.
Probably he had passed me, without my noticing him, my gaze having been
fixed intently on the hill.

Next I explored the room to ascertain the extent of the damage. The
matter-transmitting apparatus was hopelessly wrecked; the radio set
partially so. The head phones were lying on his desk, and by their side
a pencil and pad. The pad was all scribbled over with letters, as though
Myles had been trying to take down a message.

These letters made no sense at all, until the end of the sheet, where
suddenly they stood forth with unexpected vividness and distinctness
“S.O.S. Lilla.”

Only that, and nothing more.

This led me to hunt for further clues, and I found just what I expected.
For, amid the ruins of the matter-transmitting apparatus, there lay a
pile of metallic objects; a pocket knife, suspender buttons, garter
clasps and such, as on that first day five years and a half ago, when
Myles Cabot had disappeared from his laboratory in Boston.

We never saw or heard from him again.

But we have often wondered, Mrs. Farley, Jacqueline and I, just what was
the dire trouble that led the Princess Lilla to send through space that
frantic call for help, and whether Myles got back to Venus in time to
save her.




                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES


Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 64303 ***