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.”