A murmur, as of an angry sea, arose from the crowd and smote upon my antennae. The sporting nature of the proposition appealed to them fully as much as any sentiments of patriotism.
The king turned to me. I saluted. And, in front of that huge assemblage, he pinned upon my breast the long-forgotten insignia of field marshal of the armies of a nation. Simultaneously Prince Toron and the three professors displayed the insignia of general. Hah Babbuh stepped to my side as my chief of staff, while the other three donned their selective tuners and descended from the platform to take command of their several corps. The stage was all set for the final denouement.
The king spoke again: “Let all Cupians who are willing to die for king and country raise their hands aloft.”
Up shot every hand on the hill and plain below.
I seized the phones and shouted: “Then forward into ant land, for Cupia, King Kew, and Princess Lilla!”
“For Cupia, King Kew, and Princess Lilla!” shouted my army in reply and the march toward Formia began.
But some Cupian had betrayed us, for at this instant there appeared, at the crest of the hill overlooking the city, a horde of ant-men, who debouched in perfect order on the fields beyond the plain. Thank God that they had not arrived before the king’s speech!
But even as it was, things were bad enough; our advance companies recoiled in terror before the black assault. Five hundred years of servile peace are not well calculated to develop a nation of fighters. I saw Toron frantically trying to rally his troops, but in vain. It had been easy enough to plan to attack the ant-men, but five hundred years of submission had bred a tradition of Formian omnipotence, and this tradition at once revived when the Formians appeared.
I gazed with horror at the scene. Here were thousands upon thousands of presumably intelligent human beings, armed with the most powerful weapons which modern science could produce, and yet retreating in superstitious fear before a handful of unarmed ants. Had the high resolves of a few paraparths ago degenerated to this?
Why didn’t my men use their rifles? Let them fire a few shots, and they would realize their power.