“You have me in your power, yes,” Cabot countered, “but you have had me in your power before. You induced that ant man, whom I called Satan, to try and kill me at Wautoosa, but Doggo interfered. Because of your scheming, the Formians condemned me to the Valley of the Howling Rocks, from whose frightful din no person had ever escaped; but nevertheless I got away. You overcame me in the strap-duel in the mangool of Kuana, and your knife was about to enter my heart, when I thumbed your ulnar nerve and made you drop your weapon. You arrested me in the stadium the day you killed your uncle, King Kew; you had Trisp, the bar-mango, destroy my antennae; yet I escaped and rejoined my army. You fed me to the woofuses, but one of them turned on you instead. In just what way do you plan to fail this time?” “This time there will be no slip-up,” Yuri replied grimly. Then, his curiosity getting the better of him, he asked: “But you haven’t yet told me why you are sorry for me.” “I am sorry for you,” the earthman explained, “because you have missed your opportunities. You had the ability and the following to have led your country to victory over the ants. You would have been a hero and could have had anything that you wanted in the whole kingdom.” “Not Lilla,” the prince interjected with a sneer. “Yes, even Lilla,” Cabot soberly replied. “Well, I shall have her now,” the other asserted. “And ‘what ends well, ends well,’ as Poblath would say.” “You are incorrigible!” Cabot exclaimed. “And to quote another of Poblath’s proverbs, ‘The saddest thing about a fool is that he doesn’t realize he is one.’” This irritated Prince Yuri, so he curtly ordered: “Swing to the left at the next crossroad.” “But what is to prevent my stopping the car and turning you over to the pinqui if there is one stationed there?” Cabot asked. “This revolver,” the other replied. “Not enough,” said Cabot. “I could wreck the controls before the bullet could do its work. The pinqui would arrest you. And then where would you be? Yuri, the traitor, in the toils at last! It would be the Valley of the Howling Rocks for you, my friend.” “I am not so sure of that,” said the prince. “With you out of the way, methinks I could reconquer Cupia, even from a prison cell. In the past, whenever you have been out of the way, I have always won, and I could do so again.” “Maybe you could,” the earthman mused aloud. “So I think I had better remain alive for the present.” Accordingly he turned to the left at the next crossroad as he had been directed. As they approached the battlefront, they were often halted by Cupian sentinels. To each of these Cabot revealed his identity, and was permitted to pass. And each time he was sorely tempted to turn Yuri over, even though this would probably mean his own instant annihilation.