Then he thought of Lilla and the Baby Kew. Here he was, presumably in Cupia, perhaps within a few stads of them; and yet what good did it do him?
It seemed to him as though the nearer he got to his loved ones, the more effectually he was separated from them. On the Farley farm, in Edgartown, Massachusetts, when he had received the S O S message from the skies, it had appeared but a simple matter to step within the coordinate axes of his matter-transmitting apparatus, and throw a lever, in order to materialize on Poros.
In Vairkingi there had been the more difficult task of securing an ant plane, before essaying to cross the boiling seas. In the land of the Whoomangs, he had been confronted with the almost insuperable lack of swathing materials for such a flight. And now, in Cupia at last, he was hemmed in by an impenetrable wall of trees.
Yet, he reflected, he had surmounted in turn each of these successively more difficult difficulties; so why not this? With renewed determination he arose, and resumed his grubbing operations. Another hour passed and another yard of path had been completed. This was encouraging, and yet he had no means of knowing how much farther there still remained for him to go.
As he paused for breath, he heard a crashing noise almost directly across the pit. Concealing himself as well as he could in the recess which he had formed in the bushes, he watched expectantly. Presently the thick growth on the other side parted neatly, and the sharp edge of a wedge appeared. This wedge continued to divide the bushes until finally it came completely through. All curiosity to see what was pushing the wedge, Myles craned forward, but there wasnothingbehind it; it had been pushing itself.
As the bushes slowly closed together again, the wedge stood up on six sturdy legs and trotted around the top of the pit, until it came to a stop directly opposite the hiding place of the earth-man. This gave him a good opportunity to observe it.
Apparently it was some sort of insect. Its head came to a sharp cutting edge in the front about five feet high; and lateral projections extended diagonally backward from the edge, like the wings on a snow-plow, to a point well beyond the rear end of the animal.
These two sides were covered with stiff backward-pointing bristles, which evidently served to catch on the bushes through which the creature passed, and thus to hold whatever gains it made. Its eyes, like those of a crab, were located on long jointed arms, which it could raise whenever it wanted to look around. The lower edge of the sides of the wedge were serrated, and Myles soon learned what this was for. After wiggling its eyes about for a while, the creature walked to the edge of the bank, thus giving the watcher a good view of the body and legs within the projecting wedge, and slid off into the pit, where a splashing sound indicated that it was probably drinking.
Soon it reappeared over the top of the pit. Evidently the saw teeth on its sides were to hold its progress up the face of the sand bank in much the same way as its spines held its progress through the bushes.
The wedge insect, upon topping the bank, made a beeline for the edge of the clearing, thrust its nose between two saplings, furled its eyes, braced it feet against the ground, and started forcing its way through. Quick as a flash, Myles Cabot darted from his hiding place and followed.
The creature, rolling its eyes to the rear, saw him and tried to back out; for what purpose he could not tell, but probably either to attack him or at least to prevent him from attacking its vulnerable body. But it was already in too far, and its spines held it securely.
It tried to kick at him, whereat he followed not quite so close. Then it stubbornly stopped moving, pulled in its eyes and its legs and lay down within its projecting head-piece, whereat he gave it a prick in the tail with his Vairking sword. The effect was immediate and sudden. The creature leaped to its feet and tore its way through the trees like a cyclone, plunging high in air like a frantic horse. This left such an erratic and only partially spread path that the earth-man had difficulty in following, and soon fell far behind.
But just as he was about to despair, the branches which he parted ahead of him revealed a meadow of silver-green sward. He had reached the end of the wood.
Beyond the field was a grove of gray-branched lichen trees, through which he could see the steep red-tiled roofs of a village. Just short of the grove there grazed a herd of those pale-green aphids, the size of sheep, which the Cupians call “anks,” and which Myles was wont to call “green cows.” Close by his right hand was a large shrub with heart-shaped leaves, unmistakably a tartan bush.
Steep red roofs, gray lichen trees, anks and tartans! This must be Cupia! He was home!
Myles quoted aloud:
“Breathes there a man with soul so deadWho never to himself has said‘This is my own, my native land’?”
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said
‘This is my own, my native land’?”
Cupia might not be hisnativeland, but it was hisown, the land of his wife and child, the land of which his son was rightful king, the land whose armies he had twice led to victory. And now he had returned to lead them yet again.
Drawing a deep breath of Cupian air into his lungs, Myles raced across the meadow to the shelter of the grove of trees. From that point of vantage he inspected the village. The architecture was undoubtedly Cupian. In fact, its character was so clear he was even able to judge by it just what part of Cupia he was in, for this architecture was typical of the southeastern foothills of the Okarze Mountains, a thousand stads or so north of Kuana, the capital city.
These foothills held, among other spots of interest, Lake Luno, on an island of which he and Lilla had built their country home. And the inhabitants of these mountains had always been intensely loyal to the earth-man, his golden-haired wife, and royal son.
On the outskirts of the village Cabot could see figures moving—figures in white togas with colored edges, figures with tiny vestigial wings projecting from their backs, figures with butterflylike antennae rising from their foreheads. These were Cupians, his own adopted countrymen.
Yet they never would recognize him in his present condition, with shaggy hair, massive beard, and leather tunic, and without the artificial wings and antennae which he had been accustomed to wear among them. Therefore he could not yet reveal himself. He must first restore his appearance to normal and also find and put on one of the small portable radio sets which he had contrived years ago in his laboratories of Mooni, in order to talk with these folk who have neither ears nor voice.
So, turning his back on the alluring village, he made a meal of the green milk of the grazing anks, and then set out to circle the settlement and find a road.
When he did reach the road he recognized it. And now he knew exactly what village that was. For the moment he could not recall its name; but he knew it to be a little town which he and Lilla had often visited, scarcely twenty stads from Luno Castle.
As he strode on toward Luno Castle, his thoughts raced ahead of him, sometimes picturing a happy homecoming with Lilla and Baby Kew standing in the great arched doorway to greet him, and sometimes desolation and destruction with Prince Yuri, the murderer of the baby king, and the kidnaper of Princess Lilla.
What would Myles Cabot find on the beautiful island in Lake Luno?
With no weapons except a steel knife and wooden rapier, the unkempt and bearded earth-man set out resolutely along the twenty-stad road which led to Lake Luno. All the rest of the afternoon he tramped along, avoiding the towns, and taking cover whenever a kerkool approached.
Night fell—the velvet, fragrant, tropic-scented night of Poros; yet, still he kept on, for he knew the road.
As he trudged along he tried to picture to himself the state of affairs in Cupia. Back in Vairkingi, when at last he had succeeded in getting the Princess Lilla on the air, she had mentioned the whistling bees, just before Prince Yuri had cut her off.
These bees were called “whistling” because of the heterodyne squeal with which they appeared to converse; but Myles had discovered, by means of the greater range and selectivity of his own artificial radio speech-organs, that this whistle was due to the bees sending simultaneously on two interfering wave lengths, for signal purposes. When simply talking they used a wave length beyond the range of Cupian speech!
Cabot had been able to adjust his portable set to this wave length, and had talked with the bees. As a result of this conversation an alliance had been formed between Cupia and the Hymernians—as the bee-people called themselves—which had driven Yuri and his ants from the continent. Thereafter the bees had lived at peace with the Cupians, a special ration of green cows being bred for their benefit.
What, wondered Cabot, had the returned Yuri done to disturb this state of affairs? If Portheris, the king of the bees, still lived, Cabot could not imagine him siding with Yuri.
But, whatever had happened, it was clear that the bees were at the bottom of it. Time would tell very speedily.
Traveling on foot at night on the planet Poros is necessarily slow and tedious, for the blackness of the Porovian night is dense beyond anything conceivable on earth. On earth even the light of a few stars would enable a man to distinguish between a concrete road and the adjoining fields and woods and bushes, but on Poros no stars are visible. Accordingly Myles had to feel his way with his feet, and fell off the road many times before he reached his destination. Due to the mountainous character of the country, most of these falls were extremely painful, and some were positively dangerous.
Yet on he kept, and before long the lights of Luno village loomed ahead. Even here it would not do to reveal himself in his present state of appearance, so he skirted the town and made his way down the steep path which led to the shore of the lake.
If his island dwelling had been disturbed, he half expected to find that his boats were gone from this landing place; but upon groping about in the dark he came across several of them, tied up just where they ought to be. This cheered him immensely.
But when he stared across toward the island and saw no sign of any light there, his spirits fell again. It was not the custom at Luno Castle to go through the night totally unillumined.
He would soon find out what the trouble was. So stepping into one of the boats he cast off, and paddled vigorously toward the middle of the lake. Keeping his bearings was difficult in the jet-black darkness, but he was guided somewhat by the faint illumination sent skyward by the little village.
Finally he bumped against the rocky and precipitous sides of the island, but misjudging his location he had to paddle nearly clear around the island before he came to the landing beach. This gained, he pulled his craft ashore, and groped his way up the narrow path to the summit, thence across the lawns, which sloped gently down toward the center of the island, where lay a little pond with Luno Castle standing beside it.
Myles ran into several shrubs, got completely mixed up as to his directions, and finally fell into the pond. This gave him a new starting point from which to orient himself. Walking around its edge, with one foot in the water, he would diverge outward from time to time, until at last his groping hand touched a wall of masonry. It was his castle! He was home! But what did that home hold? His heart beat tumultuously with anticipation.
Feeling his way along the wall, he came to the steps, and crawled up them to the great arched doorway. The door was closed, but not locked. Myles flung it open softly, and entered, closing it behind him. Then closing his eyes, he turned an electric switch, flooding the hall with the light of many vapor-lamps.
Gradually opening his eyelids, he glanced around him. Everywhere was the musty odor of unoccupancy. He had expected either his family or a sacked and ruined castle; he had found neither.
It would not do for the surrounding populace to discover his return until he was ready; so he hastily found a flashlight, and then switched off the vapor-lamps again.
Flash-light in hand, he made a tour of the castle. Everything was in perfect order. Lilla was a good housekeeper, and had evidently been given plenty of time by Yuri to prepare for her departure. This spoke volumes for her safety and that of the baby king.
Myles even found his own rooms undisturbed. This surprised him greatly. He had not expected this much consideration from Yuri. But then he reflected that Yuri must have been pretty sure that he would not return from the earth, and had wanted to do nothing to antagonize Lilla any more than absolutely necessary. This time Yuri had been playing the game of love-and-empire with a little more finesse than usual.
Myles, in his own dressing room, switched on the light; this was safe, as its windows opened only onto the courtyard. Then he bathed, shaved, trimmed his hair, and donned a blue-bordered toga, in place of his leather Vairking tunic. On his head he placed a radio headset of the sort which he had devised shortly after his first advent on Poros, to enable him to talk with the earless and voiceless Cupians and Formians.
Artificial antennae projected from his forehead. His earphones and ears were concealed by locks of hair, his tiny microphone—between his collar-bones—by a fold of his toga. Artificial wings strapped to his back protruded through slits in his garment. Around his waist, beneath his gown, was the belt which carried his batteries, tubes, and the sending and receiving apparatus itself.
Thus equipped, he surveyed himself complacently in the glass. Barring the absence of a sixth finger on each hand and a sixth toe on each foot, he looked a Cupian of the Cupians.
Then he proceeded to the radio room. The long distance radio-set was in perfect condition, but there was nothing on the air. One of the three-dialed Porovian clocks showed the time to be 1025; that is, a half hour after midnight, earth time. There was nothing further he could do before morning; so he lay down for a few hours of much needed rest.
When he awoke it was broad daylight, 310 o’clock. The pink flush of sunrise was just fading from the eastern sky. Less than three parths—six hours—of sleep! And then he realized that he must have slept the clock around, and more. A day’s growth of beard confirmed this. It was now the beginning of histhirdday in Cupia. He had been dead to Poros for fifteen parths.
So he shaved, bathed, and breakfasted on some dried twig knobs—which was all he could find in the house. The courtyard garden was full of weeds. The lawns which surrounded the castle and the pond were uncut. Everything bespoke an abandonment many sangths ago.
After a complete tour of the premises Myles hastened to the radio room, and tuned-in the palace at Kuana. The result was the voice of the usurper Yuri, testily calling the ant-station in New Formia, far across the boiling seas. From time to time there would be silence, during which the prince was evidently waiting for a reply; but none came. Otto the Bold had done his work of destruction too well.
Myles chuckled. Yuri’s frantic voice, coming in over the air, was a radio program much to Cabot’s liking. Even the best earth-station of Columbia, National or Mutual could not surpass it. The only thing he would rather hear would be his own sweet Lilla.
His recollection of Otto the Bold led him to wonder how the battle for Vairkingi had progressed. Roies and Vairkings on one side against Roies and ants on the other. It was a toss-up.
It seemed years since he had left the land of the furry ones—Otto, Grod, Att, Jud, Theoph, Crota, Arkilu. They all resembled mere shadows of a dream. The only real feature that stood out in his memory was the radio set which he had fabricated.
Then his thoughts flew to Yat, the city of the Whoomangs, with its strange assortment of creatures, including Boomalayla, the winged dragon, and Queekle Mukki, the serpent. Cabot shed a tear for Doggo and little golden furred Quivven, and then came down to the present with a jerk.
He was back in Cupia, clean, clothed, shaved, equipped, fed, and rested. It was now up to him to rescue the Princess Lilla from her traitor cousin. First he must find firearms. But of these the castle had been looted; for not a trace of a rifle, an automatic, or even a single cartridge could he find, though he searched high and low. So reluctantly he strapped on merely his Vairking sword and knife, and ran down the path to the beach.
In the boat once more, he paddled rapidly toward the shore. At the landing place, sitting on one of the boats was a Cupian, but as this man seemed to be unarmed, Cabot approached him without fear. As he came within antennae-shot the man sang out: “Welcome back to Cupia, Myles Cabot, defender of the faith!”
Myles shaded his eyes from the silver glare of the sky. “Nan-nan!” he exclaimed; for the Cupian before him was none other than the young cleric of the lost religion who had helped rebuild his radio head-set in the Caves of Kar during the Second War of Liberation.
As the boat grated on the beach the earth-man leaped out, and the two friends were soon warmly patting each other’s cheek.
These greetings over, Cabot asked: “What good fortune brings you here?”
He found it easy to slip back again into the language of this continent.
“The Holy Leader detailed two of us,” Nan-nan replied, “to watch Luno Castle, for you know he must be kept informed of everything, as he waits within his caves for the promised day. Night before last my colleague saw lights for a night, so this morning I decided to reconnoiter.”
“Is Owva still Holy Leader?” Myles asked politely.
“Yes,” the cleric replied. “The grand old man still lives.”
“The Builder be praised! But,” changing the subject, “how are my family?”
“Both well,” Nan-nan answered, “though for the past six or nine days the princess has not been permitted to communicate with anyone.”
Myles smiled. “Why?” he innocently asked.
“I know not,” the young cleric admitted.
Myles laughed. “I thought that the Holy Leader knew everything,” he said. “Well, as it happens,Ican tellyou. It is because I communicated with her a few days ago and informed her that I was about to return. Has no news of this got out from the palace?”
“No,” Nan-nan replied, “but it explains why Yuri has kept a large squadron of whistling bees patrolling the eastern coast all day long every day. How did you get by them?”
“Came over at night,” the earth-man answered. “But what about the bees?”
“I’ll tell you,” Nan-nan said. “Shortly after you left on your visit to your own planet Minos, Prince Yuri flew back alone from his exile with the Formians beyond the boiling seas. This was the first that we of Cupia had known that any of them survived.
“Yuri kept his return a secret for some time, but got in touch with some old supporters of his. First he contrived to cut off the allowance of anks which are doled out to the bees for food. Then he stirred up trouble among the bees because of this.
“The bees imprisoned Portheris, their king, and, under promise of an increased allowance of food, seized the arsenal at Kuana, the air base at Wautoosa, and Luno Castle. As you know, the air navy has been practically disbanded, because there was nothing for it to fight. The rifles of the marching clubs had fallen into disuse because other newer games had superseded archery. Most of the rifles were stored at various central places, which the bees succeeded in seizing.
“Some of the hill towns still had arms, but they surrendered these under threat of Yuri to kill the Princess Lilla and the little king.
“All the arms are now stored in the arsenal at the capital under guard of Yuri’s most trusted henchmen. A new treaty was made with the bees, giving them an increase in food. But even so they are restive and are held in check merely by fear of the anti-aircraft guns at Kuana.
“The general belief of the populace is that you are dead. Yuri is ruling strictly, and has dissolved the Popular Assembly. The pinquis everywhere are his personal appointees. These facts and the burden of supplying anks to the Hymernians irk the people; but they are impotent. ‘Can a mathlab struggle in the jaws of a woofus?”
“Lilla he treated well. If he had not done so, the populace would rise against him, bees or no bees. And he has promised the succession to little Kew, if Lilla will marry him. But your dot-dash message many sangths ago stopped that, for it showed that you still lived and had returned to Poros, although not to this continent.
“That is all. Now tell me of your adventures.”
But before complying with this request, the earth-man asked: “What has become of the loyal Prince Toron and my chief of staff, Hah Babbuh, and Poblath the Philosopher, and all my other friends and supporters?”
“Every one of them, so far as I know, is safe,” the young cleric replied. “Most of than are hiding in the hill towns. Yuri has not risked the wrath of the populace by molesting them, and in fact has given notice that so long as they behave they will be let alone.”
Then Cabot related all that had occurred to him from the time he transmitted himself earthward through Poros down to the present date.
When he concluded he remarked: “That will be an antenna-full for the Holy Leader. But now to get to work. On whom can I best depend in this vicinity?”
“On Emsul, the veterinary,” Nan-nan replied. “He lives in the village now. Return to the island, and I will bring him to you.”
Myles did so, and in a short time the three were in conference in the castle. It seemed to Myles that the first thing to do was to recover his airplane, rifle, and ammunition from the waters of the pit, but Emsul demurred.
Said he: “Huge dark-green water-insects inhabit the pool. They are very like the red parasites which cling to the sides of the anks, and which we roast for food, but they are much larger and the bite of their claws means death.”
The parasites to which the veterinary alluded had always tasted to Cabot exactly like earth-born lobsters. The description of these new beasts were further suggestive of lobsters. He asked Emsul for a more detailed description, and found that this tallied still further with the earthly prototype.
This reminded Myles of an interesting experiment which he had seen tried in the Harvard zoological laboratory, and which he now hoped to put to a practical use.
So he asked: “Have these creatures a gravitational sense organ?”
“Yes,” the Cupian veterinary replied, “although it is unlike ours. We Cupians, and I suppose you Minorians, have inside the skull on each side of the head, a group of three tubes like the spirit levels of a carpenter.
“The corresponding organ of the scissor-clawed beast is different, although serving the same end. On each side of the thorax of these creatures there is a spherical cavity, with a small opening to the outside. This opening is just large enough to admit a grain of sand at a time.
“The membrane which lines the cavity, exudes a liquid cement which unites into a little ball the grains of sand which enter. The cavity is lined with nerve ends; and, as the ball always rolls to the bottom side of the cavity, the beast is able to tell which direction is up, and which is down.”
Cabot clapped his hands in glee. This was exactly as in the case of earth-born lobsters.
“They won’t know which is up and which is down when I get through with them,” he exclaimed cryptically.
It was quickly arranged that Nan-nan should go at once to the village near the lobster pool, and engage a gang of Cupian men to cut a swath through the thick woods which hem in the pool. When this was completed, he was to send a messenger to Luno Castle to summon Cabot, who, meanwhile, would be engaged in preparing certain mysterious electrical apparatus. For the present, the earth-man’s return was a secret.
The plan worked to perfection. Only one day was consumed in chopping the path through the woods. On the second day after his meeting with Nan-nan and Emsul, Myles proceeded to the lobster pool by the kerkool, with his electrical equipment and several boats.
Myles could not help comparing his present ease of passage down the swath cut by the Cupians with his difficult grubbing through the shrubs a few feet an hour, or even with forcing his way behind the wedge-faced insect.
Upon his arrival at the brink of the abyss, his first act was to test the black sand with an electric coil. As he had expected, it was magnetite, the only iron ore which will respond to a magnet. It was the same ore as he had used in his crucibles while making his radio set in Vairkingi.
This preliminary disposed of, cables were quickly stretched back and forth across the pit, and from these cables large electro-magnets were hung close to the surface of the water. Wires were run from the lighting system of the near-by town to a master controller at the top of the cliff.
When all was in readiness, the earth-man threw the current into all the circuits. The result was immediate. To the surface of the water there floated bottom side up, a score or more of lobsterlike creatures, each the size of a freight car. Poor beasts!
The pellets of sand and cement, in the cavities of their gravity-sense organs, were composed of magnetite; and this being attracted upwardly by the suspended electro-magnets, gave the poor creatures the impression that up was down, and down was up. Consequently, reversing their position and floating to the surface, they imagined—with what little imagination their primitive brains were capable of—that they were resting peacefully at the bottom of the lake.
Next there were turned on, in place of the suspended magnets, a number of magnets lying against the steep side of the pit near the surface of the water; and instantly all the lobsteroids rolled over, with their bellies toward that side of the pit. The experiment was a complete success.
Grappling hooks and blocks and tackle were then brought, and dragging was begun for the airplane, the ant-rifle, and the bandoleer of cartridges which Myles had lost on the night of his landing in Cupia.
The radio man himself, stationed at his switchboard, manipulated the instruments. Presumably all three of the sought articles were near the bank where Cabot had landed, so fishing was begun at that point, while energized magnets, across the pond, drew the huge crustaceans away. Even so, several of them swam back and snapped at the grappling hooks.
This gave Myles an opportunity to practice his controls. Whenever one of the monsters of the deep would approach any of the dredging apparatus, the radio man would close the switch which controlled some near-by magnet, whereat the bewildered beast would be thrown completely off his balance, and would require several paraparths before he could orient himself to the new lines of force. By the time that this had been accomplished, Cabot would have switched on some other magnet, thus again upsetting the beast’s equilibrium.
It was truly a weird and novel tune which this electrical genius of two worlds played upon his keyboard, while huge green shapes moved at his command.
Finally Myles got so expert at this strange game, that it became safe for his workmen to descend into the pit without fear of the denizens of the deep. At last the ropes were securely fastened to the ant-plane, and it was drawn up the bank to safety. The fire-arm and ammunition followed shortly thereafter.
The forces of the true king—Baby Kew—were now armed with one small airship, one rifle, and one bandoleer of cartridges.
“You must attack at once!” Nan-nan asserted.
The earth-man looked at the Cupian in surprise.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because,” the young cleric explained, “if you don’t some one of this village is going to get word to Prince Yuri of your return. Although no announcement has yet been made of your identity, this feat of yours of overcoming the scissor-beasts is as good as a verbal introduction. Runners will soon be notifying the usurper.”
“Why runners?” Myles asked. “Why not radio?”
“Because,” Nan-nan replied. “I took the precaution to throw an adjusting-tool into the local motor-generator set early this morning. One of the solenoids is hopelessly jammed, and it will take several days and nights of steady work to restore it.”
“Great are the ramifications of the lost religion,” Cabot murmured approvingly.
But the young cleric pouted, in spite of the tone of approval. Said he: “There were no ramifications tothisaccomplishment. I did it all myself.”
“Have it your own way,” Myles returned conciliatorily. “But to get back to what we were discussing, how am I to attack the usurper with no troops, and only one plane, and one rifle?”
“But youmustattack!” Nan-nan objected. “As for planes, every plane in the kingdom, save only yours, is under lock and key at Wautoosa, the old naval air base, which now is the headquarters of the whistling bees. Every firearm, save two, your rifle and Prince Yuri’s automatic, is under heavy guard at the Kuana arsenal. Only the pretender himself and the arsenal guards—who are trusted henchmen of his—are permitted to be armed.”
“And I suppose,” the earth-man interjected, with a shrug, “that you expect me, alone and single-handed, to seize the Kuana arsenal, and distribute arms to my people.”
“Not exactly,” the priest replied. “You see—”
At which point the conversation was interrupted by a body of troops, four abreast, which came marching toward them down the aisle which had been cut through the trees.
Cabot stepped back aghast. Trapped! The soldiers swung along in the perfect cadence which had been taught them by generations spent in the marching clubs—or “hundreds”—of Cupia. True, they were unarmed, but what could one armed human do against such numbers? Cabot glanced down the path, and saw hundred after hundred turn into it at the farther end.
There was only one possibility of escape, his plane. But the plane was still dripping from its submergence in the pond. Would its trophil-engine start while wet? Had enough water leaked into the alcohol tanks to damage the fuel? He would see.
Shouting to Nan-nan and Emsul to follow, he started toward his craft; but the young cleric blocked his way. Treachery.
No. For the young priest cried: “Fear not, defender of the faith. These be friends! They are the armies which you are to lead against Yuri. They are marching clubs of the loyal hill towns, which have been called together here, ostensibly for an athletic tournament.”
Cabot stopped his mad scramble of retreat, and smiled. With such men he would reconquer Cupia, Yuri or no Yuri, bees or no bees!
The foremost hundred debouched and formed in company-front. Then from the ranks there stepped a Cupian, who snatched off his blond wig, revealing ruddy locks beneath. Onto his own right breast he pinned a red circle, the insignia of Field Marshal. It was Hah Babbuh, Chief of Staff of the Armies of Cupia, who had been Cabot’s right-hand man in the two wars of liberation.
Facing the troops he gave a crisp command. Up shot every left hand. Then, wheeling about, he held his own hand aloft and shouted: “Yahoo, Myles Cabot! We are ready to follow where you lead!”
“Yahoo!” the troops echoed in unison.
Then, giving his men the order “at ease,” Hah strode up to the earth-man. Warmly, the two friends patted each other on the cheek. It was many sangths since they had seen each other, and much had happened in the meantime.
A council of war was immediately held between Myles, Hah, Nan-nan, and Emsul, at the plane.
“Won’t this gathering come to the attention of Yuri?” Myles asked. “And won’t he at once suspect its cause, in view of its nearness to Luno Castle, and in view of my recent radio announcements from Vairkingi?”
“I doubt it,” the Babbuh replied, “for we have wrecked every radio set in the vicinity.”
But, this did not reassure the earth-man as much as it might.
“It would seem to me,” he asserted, “that this very fact would put Prince Yuri on his guard.”
“Possibly so,” Nan-nan ruefully admitted, “but it will take four days for investigators to cover the thousand stads from Kuana to here by kerkool, two days by bee.”
“And in the meantime,” Myles countered, “it will take our plane two days to reach Kuana, and our kerkools four.”
“Then,” Emsul suggested, “had we not better march openly and at once?”
This suggestion was accepted, with the reservation, however, that the return of Cabot and the existence of their plane were to be kept as secret as possible.
Accordingly the main body of the troops were put on the march toward Kuana, under Emsul, with instructions to requisition every available kerkool, wreck every radio set, and place every settlement under martial law. The kerkools, as fast as seized, were to be manned by the best sharpshooters, and sent ahead.
The local village and the lobster pond were placed under heavy guard, and the earth-man with his plane and rifle remained under cover.
That night, just at sunset, he started forth. The airship had been stripped to its lightest, and in it were crowded Myles Cabot, Hah Babbuh, Nan-nan, and half a dozen sharpshooters. Long before morning, they came up with the lights of the foremost kerkools, and so were forced to cease their advance, whereupon they landed, and encamped for the rest of the night and the following day.
All day long, kerkools passed them on the road, stopping to report as they passed. Apparently a surprising number of these swift two-wheeled Porovian autos had been captured.
The following night the plane again took wing, and continued until it caught up once more with the advance guard of the “taxi-cab army.” These men reported that, at the last radio station seized, they had learned that Prince Yuri had put censorship on the air, thus showing conclusively that the usurper had learned something of what was going on. Then the kerkools swept ahead, and Cabot encamped as before. He was now halfway to Kuana, his loved ones, and Prince Yuri.
Toward the end of the day which followed, the advancing kerkools met a bombing squadron of whistling bees, and were forced to halt and take cover as best they could. Most of the men escaped, but many of the machines had to be left on the road, where they were demolished by the bombs of the enemy.
During all this confusion, a kerkool from the capital, bearing crossed sticks as a flag of truce, drew up at the vanguard, with the following message: “King Yuri cannot but regard the steady procession of kerkools toward Kuana as a menace directed against him. If it is not so intended, then let a delegation in one kerkool proceed under crossed sticks to convince him of your sincerity. From now on, if more than one kerkool advances, it will be taken as a hostile act, and Prince Kew, the heir to the throne, will be sacrificed as a hostage.”
Upon receiving this message, Emsul at once directed his followers to stay where they were until Myles Cabot should catch up with them. Then, with a picked body of men, in one kerkool, under crossed sticks, he took up the road toward Kuana, preceded by the delegation which had brought the message from Yuri.
Not a word would he give them as to the purpose of the advance.
“Your message was from Prince Yuri,” he said, “and therefore to Prince Yuri shall be the reply. But it does seem a bit thoughtless of the Hymernians to drop bombs on our men, before even attempting to ascertain whether or not our advance was intended to be peaceful.”
To this, they in turn made no answer.
About midnight, Myles Cabot, in his airplane, reached the point where the kerkools had halted. He found the Cupians confused and more or less leaderless. He, as they, was horrified at the threat which the usurper Yuri held over the head of the little king.
But while he and Nan-nan and Hah Babbuh were conferring on the situation, word was brought in, by a party who had just demolished a near-by radio set, that they had picked the following unaddressed and unsigned message out of the air:
Fear not. Baby Kew has been kidnaped from the palace, and is safe.
Fear not. Baby Kew has been kidnaped from the palace, and is safe.
Somehow this news carried conviction. The longer they considered it, the more authentic it appeared. Certainly, it could not have emanated from Yuri, for he could have no possible object in deceiving them into thinking that the little king was safe, and thus encouraging them to proceed with whatever they might have afoot.
But they could not imagine who was their informant. It might be any one of a number of the leaders in Cabot’s two wars of liberation, Poblath the Philosopher, mango of the Kuana jail; Ja Babbuh, Oya Buh, and Buh Tedn, professors at the Royal University; Count Kamel of Ktuh, the ex-radical; or even the loyal Prince Toron, Yuri’s younger brother, whom Cabot had left in charge as regent, upon embarking on his ill-fated visit to the earth.
All these loyal Cupians had been driven into hiding, when the renegade Yuri had returned across the boiling seas and had usurped the throne with the aid of the Hymernians. Where they now were, no one knew. This message might be from any one of them—or it might not.
Anyhow, it served to hearten Cabot and his two companions.
Said Myles: “Undoubtedly there were some of Yuri’s Cupian henchmen on the backs of the bees which bombed our kerkools. These have probably reported by wireless that our advance has stopped. I do not believe that Yuri yet knows that we have a plane; accordingly, he will not expect immediate trouble, so long as our vanguard remains here, four hundred stads from Kuana.
“You, Hah Babbuh, remain here in charge of our troops. I seriously doubt if the usurper will attack you, for he does not dare trust enough Cupians with rifles for that purpose. Nan-nan and I and our sharpshooters will proceed as rapidly as possible in the plane, until daybreak, when we will encamp as usual.
“To-morrow afternoon, send scouts ahead to destroy the wireless and start your whole kerkool army on the move at sunset. Bend every effort to join me as soon as possible at the capital, where I expect to arrive some time to-morrow night. Beyond that, I have no definite plans. May the Great Builder speed our cause.”
Then he said good-night, and took off once more in his plane. As he soared aloft with his noisy trophil-motor, earth-men would have heard it for stads in every direction, but these Cupians were earless and hence possessed no sense of hearing as we know it. The noisy plane could make no impression upon their antenna-sense, for its engines being of the trophil variety—or Diesel, as we call a somewhat similar device on earth—had no electrical ignition.
Throughout the remainder of the night the plane sped southward, deviating from its course only when whistling sounds warned them of the presence of bees. With the first faint tinge of pink in the east, they landed and hid their airship at the edge of a wood, two hundred and sixty stads from Kuana.
A small town lay near by. To it went several of the crew in search of food and information, while the rest took turns guarding the plane and sleeping.
During Cabot’s turn at watch, he noted a figure slinking across a neighboring field. There was something strangely familiar about this figure, so Myles hid himself in a tartan bush and awaited its approach.
It walked with a peculiar limp, very much like that which had characterized Buh Tedn, ever since he recovered from the shell wound which he had received in the Second War of Liberation. But the face and the hair of the approaching Cupian bore no resemblance to that of Professor Tedn. Nevertheless, Cabot took a chance.
Stepping suddenly from his place of concealment, he shouted: “Buh Tedn!”
Thereat, the Cupian emitted a shriek of terror from his antennae, and started running away across the fields.
“Stop!” the earth-man called. “I am Myles Cabot.”
The fleeing man halted abruptly and peered at Myles inquisitively; then he smiled and snatched off his wig, and straightened out his expression. It was none other than Buh Tedn!
“So you are the cause of all the rumpus,” he ejaculated, returning and patting his friend warmly on the cheek.
“What rumpus?” Miles inquired with interest.
“Wireless won’t work,” the other replied, “and no messages on the air anyhow. Nothing but bees; the air is full ofthemanyhow—also full of vague rumors of all sorts. As Poblath would say: ‘Where there’s wind, there’s a storm’.”
“Speaking of Poblath,” Myles said, “whereisthe philosopher?”
“Kuana, the last I heard,” Buh Tedn replied. “Ja Babbuh and Oya Buh are somewhere in the west. Prince Toron has disappeared completely. Hah Babbuh and Emsul are supposed to be in the northern part of the Okarze Mountains. Kamel Bar-Sarkar has gone over to Yuri. I am here. That about completes the list of our former leaders.”