“And now,” said the High President, “all is prepared. The air-ships are ready and their crews drilled to their work. We have in addition a sufficiently large number of men trained to act as an auxiliary land force to follow up at the right moment the devastating work of the air-ships. The officers pin a gold star, the men a white star--the Star of Hope--to their left shoulders and in an instant you have a force sufficiently recognizable for our purposes. Should any body of men be compelled to retreat, they scatter, off with the star from the shoulder, and in an instant are re-converted into ordinary citizens. Conceive a body of men in a number of mobiles, so built as to be protected from ordinary rifle fire, and, hovering in the distance, awaiting the moment, a scattered mass of men on foot. These latter carry only concealed arms, and are apparently noncombatants. Imagine the men in the mobiles opening an attack upon a royal regiment, or other hostile body. The royal troops advance to the attack and the men in the mobiles begin to retreat. Then, from the heavens above, the air-ships, themselves unassailable, open their attack and hurl down high explosives upon the advancing troops. What becomes of the regiment? In a few moments it is decimated--annihilated! All that remains is for the men in the motors and the scattered footmen in the distance to sweep down upon the scene and take charge of the dead, the dying and the prisoners. The same way in attacking a fort, or royal palace. Our air-ships would hover high above and, themselves beyond the reach of rifles, or of cannon, pursue their attack until the work of demolition was complete. As a military man, Captain Mortimer, I ask you how can such an attack be successfully resisted?” “Are your air-ships rifle proof?” asked Mortimer. “Perfectly so from all sides,” answered the High President; “but even if they were not, it would be an easy matter for them to keep beyond range.” “Quite so; and they could, of course, still be able to direct the explosives hurled with sufficient accuracy?” “Absolutely,” replied the High President. “I ask you again how can such a form of attack be resisted?” Mortimer hesitated a moment before replying. “It is obvious,” he said at length, “that if one thousand riflemen are attacked in the manner you describe by one hundred of an enemy whom they cannot by any possibility reach or inflict any punishment whatsoever upon, the one thousand men must necessarily succumb to the one hundred. In the case of artillery, the artillerymen would be no better off, for if their enemy were lodged directly above, heavy guns could not be raised to a sufficient pitch to bring the enemy within range. These propositions are so simple that, I take it, there is no disputing them.” “And as to a fort?” asked the High President. “Substantially the same principles must apply,” answered Mortimer.