“We know not,” the Formian wrote in reply. “Six days ago he left us in his airship and flew westward. When he failed to return, we sent out scout planes to search for him, and we have been hunting ever since. When we sighted you on the beach this morning we thought that you might be our lost leader, and that is why we landed and approached you.”
At about this point the conversation was interrupted by a worker ant who brought food: roast alta and green aphid milk. With what relish did the earth-man plunge into the feast, his first taste of Porovian delicacies in many months.
During the meal conversation lagged, owing to the difficulty of writing and eating at the same time. But now Myles Cabot seized his pad and stylus and wrote:
“Have you ever known me to fail in any undertaking on the planet Poros?”
“Have you ever known me to be untrue to a principle, a cause, or a friend?”
“Then,” Myles wrote, “let us make your daughter queen in fact as well as in name.”
“It is treason,” Doggo wrote in reply, but this time he did not tear up the correspondence.
“Treason?” Myles asked. If he had spoken the word, he would have spoken it with scorn and derision. “Treason? Is it treason to support your own queen? What has become of the national pride of the once great Formians? Look! I pledge myself to the cause of Formis, rightful Queen of Formia. Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?”
This time, as he tore up the correspondence, Doggo signified an affirmative. And thus there resulted further correspondence.
“Doggo,” Myles wrote, “can you get to the antenna of the queen?”
“If she has inherited any of your character,” Myles continued, “she will assert herself, if given half a chance.”
So the Pitmanesque conversation continued. Long since had the pink light of Porovian evening faded from the western sky. The ceiling vapor-lamps were lit. The night showed velvet-black through the slit-like windows. And still the two old friends wrote on, Myles Standish Cabot, the Bostonian, and Doggo, No. 334-2-18, the only really humanlike ant-man whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant race of Poros.
Finally, as the dials indicated midnight, the two conspirators ceased their labors. All was arranged for the _coup d’ etat_.