Part 7

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?”