With that he saluted with frigid dignity and turned away towards the palace door. Alan looked after him for a moment with a smile half of contempt and half of pity, then he opened the paper in his hand. As he expected, it was from Olga, and, beginning without any form of address, it ran thus-- I shall obey your orders and leave the city, not because I will, but because I must, in order to save the Sultan and his people from destruction. I will also undertake to refrain from hostilities until the Sultan’s truce expires, provided you do not molest me. If you do, or if the Sultan is subjected to any unreasonable commands or acts of oppression, I will consider the truce at an end, and I will not only recommence my submarine attacks upon the world’s commerce, but I will send out my air-ships and scatter death and destruction far and wide over the earth, without mercy and without discrimination between enemies or neutrals; it is therefore for you to choose whether the issue between us shall be fought out when the time comes, and in fair and honourable warfare, or whether the dogs of war shall be let loose at once. I have still thirty air-ships, and as many submarine cruisers, and I can do what I say. OLGA ROMANOFF. “No doubt,” said Alan to himself. “I’m afraid we shall have to accept your terms. I didn’t think that even you would be capable of such a colossal crime as that; but now I know something like the full capacity of your wickedness, and if you threaten it you will do it. “With those thirty ships, if you have as many as that, and I suppose you must have twenty-four or twenty-five at least, you could wreck half the great cities of the world in six months, and we could do little or nothing to stop you. We have only eleven ships equal in speed to yours, and most of those must be kept in call of Aeria. “I would give my life and my ship willingly for permission to fight it out here and now, and yet, after all, that would be frightful cruelty and injustice to the unoffending thousands who would lose their lives by the destruction of the city, so I suppose it must be peace for a year, and then--ah, what then?” His soliloquy began on the terrace and ended on the deck of the _Ithuriel_. He gave the order to rise into the air, and the aerial cruiser soared slowly upwards, still flying the flag of truce as a signal to her consorts that the mission had been successfully accomplished. As he felt certain that the Sultan would carry out the directions agreed upon to the letter, he left the city without any misgivings, and in a few minutes the _Ithuriel_ was floating alongside her consort the _Isma_, and Alan and Alexis had clasped hands once more. CHAPTER XX. THE CALL TO ARMS.