Myles sprang aboard and was just about to start the trophil engine, when a familiar sound, smiting upon his earthborn ears, caused him to delay for a moment. From the southward came the purr of many motors.
Was the wish the father to the thought? His longing for an air fleet, with which to vanquish the bees, had been so intense; had it affected his mind and caused him to hear things which did not exist? Impossible, for the purr of the motors was unmistakable.
He strained his eyes toward the southern horizon, so that they might see what his ears heard; but there was nothing there. The radiant silver sky was untouched save by an occasional small cloud.
The bees still kept up their bombing of the city. He could see them flying low over the housetops, and up and down the principal thoroughfares, ferreting out any groups of Cupians who dared to gather in Cabot’s cause, dropping bombs on any houses which presumed to fly the blue pennant of the Kew dynasty in place of the yellow of Yuri.
The bees did not heed the approaching planes from the south. Of course not! For the whistling bees of Poros had no ears. They heard with their antennae, and heard only radio waves at that, in fact only short-length radio waves.
The noise of a large fleet of airships swept on out of the south. Nearer and nearer it came, until it was right over the city, and still not a single plane appeared in sight. Meanwhile the bees continued their depredations, and the earth-man sat in his own plane and watched and waited.
As he watched, he saw one of the bees who happened to be flying higher than the rest, suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke. And then another and another.
The Hymernians, too, saw this and rose to investigate, whereat there came the shut-off whir of descending planes.
Fascinated, Myles stared into the sky, whence came these sounds, and saw occasionally, against gathering clouds, a glint of silver light.
Several more of the ascending bees exploded. And now Myles was able to see from time to time, silhouetted on a background of cloud, the ghostly form of an airship. The bees, too, saw, and flew to the attack. What was this shadow fleet? Had the spirits of the brave Cupian aviators of the past returned to free their beloved country from Hymernian domination?