Throughout the inhabited portion of the planet the same state of things prevailed. There were no small weapons other than the tridents, save swords, spears, and the like. Nor were there any large weapons like our cannon and big guns. Owing to their great weight, all such contrivances had long ago been abandoned as too heavy to be carried in the air, and as being no longer of any use on the ground. An airship depended for its means of offence either upon ramming an adversary, or being able to get above it, and drop upon it bombs, which, upon bursting, produced a similar effect upon living beings around it to that of the tridents--that is to say, they rendered them for the time being unconscious. Thus, warfare in the air resolved itself chiefly into a manoeuvring contest, the one which could soar uppermost, and get exactly over its adversary, usually--other things being equal--gaining the advantage.
Having no machinery for the production of electricity, and consequently no flying apparatus save the clumsy, slow wings without motors, Fumenta and the bands of which he was chief were for the most part restricted in their operations to nocturnal expeditions. They seldom ventured abroad in the daytime, but remained hidden in their underground retreats.
Fortunately for their purpose, their leader had discovered, amid the arid wilderness of rocky mountains into which he had been driven, an extinct volcano with an ancient crater open to the sky. Within was the immense cavity which they had made their chief hiding-place, and running into it from all points of the compass were endless galleries and passages--a veritable labyrinth which extended for miles in every direction. These led to numerous underground grottos, large and lofty caverns, which they had turned into dwelling-places. The whole formed a sort of subterranean town.
Not the least remarkable thing about this retreat was the ingenious ruse by which Fumenta had kept its existence unknown to his enemies. He had discovered, in some of the lower galleries, considerable accumulations of sulphur, and whenever, during the daytime, the approach of airships was signalled by his scouts, he had sulphur fires lighted in the crater just beneath the funnel-like opening, sending up columns of smoke and sulphur fumes.