“Ah!” the Raja said idly. “Bombs!”
“Precisely,” Cardew confirmed him, as cool as he.
“I fancied,” Rukh remarked, “your Government affected some scruple as to the slaughter of innocent civilians.”
“There has been no slaughter—as yet,” the Flight-Lieutenant returned. “That bomb fell in the ravine, where it could do no harm. So will the next one—”
The slithering, ripping sound again! It brayed nearer, heavier this time. And the explosion felt to have shattered the Kingdom of Rukh to tatters. The great hall rocked. Its horrid, heavy tapestries bellied and sagged like the wind-driven sails of a storm-buffeted ship.
The two Englishmen and the white-faced Englishwoman neither started nor stirred, nor did the Raja of Rukh. But the priests huddled together like frightened sheep, and the poor simple people out in the courtyard wailed like cattle in torment.
“—but the third”—the young airman went easily on, when he could expect to be heard—“well, if you’re wise, you’ll throw up the sponge, and there won’t be a third.”
But the Raja of Rukh was game. “Throw up the sponge, Lieutenant—?” he drawled indolently. “I didn’t quite catch your name?”
“Cardew.” The boy was brief.
“Ah, yes. Lieutenant Cardew. Why on earth should I throw up the sponge, Mr. Cardew? Your comrades up yonder can no doubt massacre quite a number of my subjects—a brave exploit!—but when they’ve spent their thunderbolts, they’ll have just to fly away again—if they can. A bomb may drop on this temple, you say? In that case, you and your friends”—he inclined his head towards them graciously—“will escort me—in fragments—to my last abode. (Or should we say, next abode—interesting question.) Does that prospect allure you? I call your bluff, Lieutenant Cardew.”