“My magic cart which swims through the air as a reptile swims through the waters of a lake.”
“True,” the Roy mused, “there be such aerial wagons, for I have seen them near the city of the beasts of the south.”
“Mark well!” Myles interjected to the assembled Vairkings, then to the prisoner again: “I captured you because you possessed the magic sling-shot, and presumed to use it on one of my own men. This effrontery could not be permitted to go unpunished; hence your capture. The offending weapon is now mine, and you are my prisoner.”
“What do you propose to do with me?” the captive asked. “I propose to ask you some questions,” Myles evaded. “First where did you get the magic sling-shot?”
“The great magician knows everything,” the Roy replied, with a sneer. “Why, then, should I presume to tell him anything?”
But the earth-man remained unruffled. “You are correct,” he countered. “I ask, not because I do not already know, but because I wish to test whether it is possible for one of your degraded race to tell the truth.”
“Why test that?” came back the brazen Roy, “for doubtless you, who know everything, know that, too.”
Myles could not help admiring the insulting calm with which this furry man of inferior race confronted his relentless captors.
“Who are you, rash one?” he asked.
The prisoner drew himself up proudly, with folded arms, and answered: “I am Otto the Bold, son of Grod the Silent.”