Chapter 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?