I dispatched Poblath on the run to the university, and soon my human sense of hearing was rewarded by a sharp crack-crack-crack from the Mechanics Building. The first plane toppled and fell. The second. And then the third. The others, sensing a power beyond their ability to combat, wheeled and withdrew. Our armies reformed and once more advanced toward Formia. The first of my huge secret machines, an anti-aircraft gun, had spoken. Soon messengers brought word that intense fighting was in progress for the possession of the Third Gate. Of course it would be many days before our forces could reach the western two gates, but the bulk of the populations of both countries lived near the Third Gate, due to the mountainous nature of the country to the west. Then came news that the Formians at the Third Gate had been flanked by some of our men who had surmounted the pale with scaling ladders. The Third Gate fell into the hands of Cupia. Our victorious armies were on enemy soil. It was war to the hilt! And the fact that the Formians had invaded and attacked first, satisfied the sporting sense of all Cupia. A special detachment of Mooni-trained aviators and mechanics had gone at once to the three planes as soon as we had shot them down, and now one of them arose into the air fully repaired. The moment had arrived for the final master stroke in the new Cupian national game—war. For the second huge machine in the courtyard of the Department of Mechanics was a sixteen inch barbette coast artillery rifle, which had been trained upon the Imperial City of the ant queen, by exact elevation and azimuth, carefully computed by Buh Tedn. The huge gun boomed forth. Again and again it boomed, as our spotting plane reported for adjustment of fire. Finally, just at nightfall, the signal came to cease firing. The Imperial City, from which Queen Formis had been directing her troops, had been totally destroyed, and with it presumably the queen and her friend and ally, the renegade Yuri. Our armies still pressed forward into Formia, protected from air attack by the three repaired planes and by the anti-aircraft gun, which had been sent forward by kerkool. I was jubilant. But not so, apparently, King Kew. “What is the matter, sir?” I asked. “Why do you look so sad on this glorious day of deliverance? Are you thinking of our poor boys who have fallen?” “No,” he replied, “I did not dare tell you before, for fear that your well known impetuosity would disrupt our plans. But now you can know. The Princess Lilla has been missing since morning. The fact that all of her clothes are intact, except her sleeping robe, leads me to think that she must have been kidnaped during the night.” “My God!” I ejaculated in English. Then turning the command over to Hah Babbuh, and instructing him to move his headquarters to the Third Gate in the morning, I hastened to the apartments of my sweetheart.