Myles groaned. Then he remembered something which, in fact, had scarcely
been absent from his thoughts for as much as a paraparth ever since he
had found the body of his murdered son in the banquet hall at Luno
Castle. It is remarkable how a fact which you remember in one connection
will often fail to suggest itself in another connection, although
equally pat. This is doubtless for much the same psychological reason as
is set forth in the following proverb of Poblath, the philosopher: “A
face well known to you in Kuana is oft a stranger in Ktuth.”
So, in the present instance, the note which Cabot had found, signed by
the name of Toron and pinned to the baby’s bier by a jeweled dagger, had
suggested so vividly to Cabot that Toron might perhaps be the actual
murderer, that he had failed to grasp the really more obvious
significance of the note, namely, that Toron had come at least as far as
Luno alive and well. This latter significance now dawned on the earth
man for the first time, and hurriedly he imparted the information to his
aged host.
“It is well,” Glamp-glamp replied, “for if Toron got that far, doubtless
he _has_ reached, or _will_ reach, your army. Almost would I think that
he came from your planet Minos, for, as Poblath says: ‘You cannot kill a
Minorian.’”
“But we have strayed far from the story you were telling,” said the
Minorian himself. “You had just related how that accursed yellow Yuri
murdered my little son. What then?”
Glamp-glamp resumed his tale: “The attendants of the princess at once
attacked the forces of Yuri for his duplicity, but were driven into the
lake. Yuri then sped to the southward with his prize, and the surviving
loyalists, led by Poblath and Emsul, retreated north to join your army.
Since then the ant men have consolidated all the territory from Kuana to
a point just north of Lake Luno, but have not been able to penetrate
very far into the mountains. The princess is safe, and is respectfully
treated in Kuana.”
Cabot heaved a sigh of relief. Then a suspicion clouded his mind.
“How do you know all this?” he asked, to which Glamp-glamp replied
enigmatically, “The holy father knows everything.”
“Who is this ‘holy father,’” Cabot interrogated, “and who are all of
you?”
The reply was astounding, for it revealed a bit of the history of Poros
which somehow had never before come to Cabot’s attention:
“We are the lost religion of this planet. Innumerable ages ago, we
sprang from the ground, fully formed and possessed of the only true key
to the mysteries of the universe. From our ranks came the Cupians, who
were destined by the Master Builder to populate this continent. But the
leaders of the faith remained within the Caves of Kar, as you see us
to-day, excepting those of us who went forth to officiate at the temples
of the Cupians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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