Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 155: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE RADIO MAN. A murmur, as of an angry sea, arose from the crowd and smote upon my antenna. I believe that the sporting nature of the prop- osition appealed to them fully as much as any sentiments of patriotism. The king turned to me. I saluted. And, before 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 dénouement. 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 hun- dred years of servile peace are not well calculated to develop a nation of fighters. - 1 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 presum- ably intelligent human beings, armed with mest. ‘powerful weapons ceed modern science could produce, afd yet retreating in superstitious fear before a handful of un- 789 armed 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. So seizing the phones again I tuned them to Toron’s wave-length, and radiated: “‘ For God’s sake stop! Never mind your whole army. Just hold two or three. Get them to use their rifles on the enemy. Use your own pistol, too.” Toron did not know who God was, but he sensed the agony of my appeal, and he gathered the idea. Seizing the nearest Cu- pian by the shoulder, he swung him around, at the same time discharging his own re- volver. An ant man exploded. The Cupian, fascinated, fired his own rifle with equal success. Then, at Toron’s peremptory command, a few more of our men halted Jong enough to try their rifles on the enemy, At each shot, one Formian exploded. The effect was splendid. Our men stopped, formed ranks again, opened fire, and ad- vanced once more toward Formia. The tra- dition of Formian invincibility was de- stroyed forever. Messengers now came with word that hundreds of kerkools were bringing up ant reénforcements over all the roads leading from the border. But what could jaws avail them against dum-dum bullets? I learned later that the ants had attacked certain outlying towns of our country earlier in the day, expecting to make easy work of them, and to wreak a vengeance on the unprotected inhabitants. But our casuali- ties there had been surprisingly light. In the village of Beem, in the Okarze Moun- tains, rocks were used on the attackers, and the chance remark, “ Fine target practice!” had suggested to some bright local mind the use of rifles, with which the ant men had been repulsed with ease. At Bartlap, one of the enemy had indiscreetly men- tioned that rifles were the cause of the war, and immediately rifles were effectively pro- duced. In most of the other instances the Formians had been recalled to reénforce the attack on Kuana. Now a new development occurred, for a fleet of airships appeared on the horizon, CORNICLOOKS.CO) ) a 14, ws : uN af aAT ey ty ‘ mw sy VAL