Chapter 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.