And then Cabot saw what filled his heart with intense joy and security. Several kerkools, manned by Cupian soldiers, drove in from the north and halted beside the palace. And each kerkool bore the familiar electrical machinery designed by Cabot and Prince Toron, the machinery which propagated that peculiar ray which was capable of silencing the ignition of any airplane motor—except, of course, the trophil engines with which the Cupian planes were equipped.
“Let them come!” Cabot exulted. “For, look, there is the means to bring every black flyer to the dust.”
But Nan-nan, the priest, shook his head sadly.
“That device has passed its usefulness,” he declared, “for every Formian plane now has a trophil engine the same as ours. If your fleet relies on any assistance from these machines they are lost.”
“How do you know this?” Cabot asked him.
To which the priest replied, as was his wont: “The holy father knows everything.”
“Then we are indeed lost,” added Lilla, who had just joined them, “for look—the force from the south outnumbers that from the north, and the Formians are the more experienced flyers, as we well know.”
“How does it happen,” Myles asked, “that the ant men do outnumber us? When I was captured, we were rapidly gaining the ascendancy.”
“That is true,” Nan-nan replied, “but your troops, in their rocky fastnesses, did not possess the facilities for the construction and repair of airships which Prince Yuri had at Wautoosa and at Mooni and at Kuana.
“So that, in spite of the greater fatalities among his forces, his fleet steadily grew until it outnumbered yours. And when he learned the secret of the ray, his ascendancy became complete. Even before your capture he had complete control of the sky, if he but chose to exercise it. Last night’s air battle, which your fleet won by the aid of the black light, was the first to its credit in two sangths. And I am afraid that this morning the tables will be turned.”