The letter concluded with the significant sentence--“When you come back in triumph, as I know you will, there will not be one heart in Aeria that will not beat more gladly for your sakes, not one hand that will not be stretched out to greet you either in friendship or in love. Remember this against the day of battle, and in the day of peace you shall see how true my words are.” Although the letter made no mention of Alma, save as one of the intimate friends who sent their “loving greetings” to the two men who were going to lead the navy of Aeria to what might be the first battle of a war that would be the most colossal and unsparing struggle ever waged on earth, Alan was able to read enough between the lines to give him hope. He knew enough of Alma’s proud and sensitive nature to fully understand why no word had come directly from her to him, and also to recognise that the task of winning her back from her estrangement would be no light one. Indeed, of the two tasks which lay before him, the conquest of the world and the reconquest of Alma’s heart, he looked with less misgiving upon the former than he did upon the latter. Still he by no means despaired, and what he had said to Alexis was justified in his mind by the belief that in Isma he had the most eloquent of advocates always at Alma’s side, pleading his cause even better than he could do it himself, at anyrate for the present. As for Alexis, his lover’s eyes and more sanguine temperament found in the letter ample justification for the re-naming of the _Vindaya_, and if he forgot to return the precious sheet of paper to Alan after he had read its contents, it was because he honestly felt that he had the better right to it, and his companion in love and war apparently recognised this, for he carefully refrained from asking him for it. Thus well comforted with new-born hope, and impatiently longing to begin the momentous work in hand, whether it was to be war or diplomacy, they awaited the arrival of the promised fleet from Aeria, which was expected to alight on the surface of Kerguelen about noon on the day after the arrival of the _Vega_. A few minutes before twelve o’clock on the 19th of May one of the look-out vessels floating five thousand feet above the clouds which overhung Desolation Land telephoned, “Fleet from Aeria in sight,” and half an hour after the receipt of the anxiously-expected news at headquarters the fifty air-ships were grouped round the power-station at the head of Christmas Harbour, renewing the motive power which had been expended on the voyage from Aeria. When this operation was completed the fleet was equipped for a voyage of thirty thousand miles if necessary. As every vessel was completely furnished with all stores and munitions of war, no further preparations had been made, and Alan was able to give the signal for the flotilla to take the air in little more than an hour after its arrival at Kerguelen.