But none of my men were so handicapped.  Each man’s chariot was running as though naught had happened; they thundered forward, discharging their balls and shells as freely as they had across the sea.  Their charge was a murderous one; not a man of Klow’s was able to resist, save with what force he could put into his bare hands.

Klow saw all this from the middle of his group of officers.  None were able to more than place his body ’twixt us and their chief.  In a very few moments they saw that the unknown magic had made them as children in our hands; they were utterly lost; and Klow turned away from the sight with a black face.  Again he faced me.

“What means this, ye huge bundle of lies?  What mean ye by tricking us with yon badge of surrender, only to tie our hands with thy magic of Hofe?  Is this the way to fight like a man?”

I had stood at ease in my door since rolling the iron.  Now, I looked about me still more easily; my men were running down the louts, who had jumped from their useless chariots and taken to their heels.  ’Twere but a matter of time before the army of Klow would be no more, at that rate.

“Klow,” I answered him mildly; “ye are right; this is not the way to fight like a man.  Neither,” I pointed out one of the fallen air-cars; “neither is that the way, flitting over our heads like shadows, and destroying us with filthy smoke!  Shame on ye, Klow, for stooping to such!  And upon thy own head be the blame for the trick I have played upon ye!”

“You attacked us without provocation,” he muttered, sourly.

“Aye, and for a very good reason,” I replied.  “Yet I see thy viewpoint, and shalt give thee the benefit of the doubt.”  I turned to my whistlers and gave an order; so that presently the great slaughter had stopped.  My men and Klow’s alike struggled back to see what were amiss.

I handed Klow an ax.  “Throw away thine own, scabbard and all,” I told him.  “It is useless, for ’tis made of iron.  Ours, and all our tools of war, are formed of an alloy which is immune from the magic.”

He took the ax in wonderment.  “What means it, Strokor?” asked he again, meanwhile stripping himself in a businesslike fashion that it were good to see.

“It means,” said I, throwing off my robe, “that I have unchained the magnetism of this world.  Know you, Klow, that all of the children of the sun are full of his power; it is like unto that of the tiny magnet which ye give children for to play; but it is mighty, even as our world is mighty.”

“Good Jon!” he gasped; for his was not a daring mind.  “What have ye done, ye trifler?”

“I have transformed this empire into one vast magnet,” I answered coolly.  Then I showed him a boulder on the summit of a distant hill; through the tube, Klow could see some of my men standing beside it.

“Place one of thy own men on the roof of the palace,” I told Klow, “and give him orders to lower my banner should ye give him the word.