“What is the idea of defying your king, professor?”
“The idea,” Oya replied, “is that we have come to restore Kew XIII to the throne and the Cupians to their proper dominion over the bees. The guardhouse, as you see, is manned by sharpshooters, fully armed. A vast force, unarmed but determined, awaits outside the walls. If you surrender, we shall spare your lives. If not, we shall rush the gates while our sharpshooters pick off any one who opposes, and shall kill all whom we find within. What say you?”
The pootah shrugged his shoulders. “What is there to say?” he replied. “We surrender, provided we are given safe conduct.”
“Safe conduct without arms?”
“Agreed.”
So the guard, about a hundred in number, in their black togas, filed out of the arsenal, through the guardhouse, onto the wall, along it, and down the rope ladder. The ladder was then hauled up again. The pootah looked around him.
“Where is your vast army?” he asked.
“On the other side of the wall,” Oya Buh replied, with a smile. “Now run along away from here, like a good little boy.”
But the officer and his followers started circling the wall to investigate. Before he gained the main gate, however, it had been opened and, for all he could tell, the “vast army” had passed inside. A guard stationed there advised him to get out of rifle range as speedily as possible, and twelve sentinels, who by now had manned the wall, bore out this menace; so, grumbling somewhat the pootah led his men off toward the city.
Thus did Myles Cabot and forty-seven practically unarmed followers capture the Kuana arsenal from its hundred defenders.