I have done that which I agreed. Two hundred and fifty thousand
fighting men, gathered from the ice cap at the north to the ice cap
at the south, and representing a thousand different communities,
from a hundred wild and warlike hordes, fill the great city of
Thark to-night. They are ready to sail for the Land of the First
Born when I give the word and fight there until I bid them stop.
All they ask is the loot they take and transportation to their own
territories when the fighting and the looting are over. I am done."
"And thou, Hor Vastus," I asked, "what has been thy success?"
"A million veteran fighting-men from Helium's thin waterways man the
battleships, the transports, and the convoys," he replied. "Each
is sworn to loyalty and secrecy, nor were enough recruited from a
single district to cause suspicion."
"Good!" I cried. "Each has done his duty, and now, Kantos Kan, may
we not repair at once to Hastor and get under way before to-morrow's
sun?"
"We should lose no time, Prince," replied Kantos Kan. "Already the
people of Hastor are questioning the purpose of so great a fleet
fully manned with fighting-men. I wonder much that word of it
has not before reached Zat Arras. A cruiser awaits above at your
own dock; let us leave at--" A fusillade of shots from the palace
gardens just without cut short his further words.
Together we rushed to the balcony in time to see a dozen members of
my palace guard disappear in the shadows of some distant shrubbery as
in pursuit of one who fled.
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