Vainly I strove to command my followers, to order them to my rescue. But, automatons that they were, they failed at the crisis; something had gone wrong with the operation of the drug, and they seemed powerless to obey.
As the guards started to drag me off, I saw how excitedly the Dictator's twenty attendants were laboring to restore him to life.
"One minute!" I shouted to the guards. "I must have another word with his Abysmal Excellency!"
The guards stood hesitating. One of them pulled rudely at my shoulders, while I repeated the request; but the others seemed doubtful, and by virtue of loud appeals I was able to restrain them until Thuno Flâtum had recovered.
"Take him away! Away! At once!" reiterated the ruler angrily through his megaphone. "I'll sign the death warrant! We'll kill him by inches with sulphur fumes—"
While the guards started to drag me away once more, and my mind conjured up visions of suffocation by sulphur, I cried out in a last desperate plea.
"One minute, Your Excellency! Remember, if I die, you all die too! Without me, the air will remain off forever!"
"Without you, the air will remain off forever?" echoed Thuno Flâtum. "Then let it stay off! What do I care? Have I not my oxygen tanks?"
And derisively he pointed to the steel tanks connecting with his breathing tubes.
Quick as a flash, I saw my opportunity. "So you would breathe while your people smother?" I demanded. And then, turning to the guards, "Do your duty, men! Take me away! Thuno Flâtum, your master, will still breathe oxygen, while you will all smother!"