“But I, like most of my people, have Anglo-Saxon blood in my veins, and I will not leave my kindred defenceless. I bear an English name, and that name and my descent shall be my title to do what I now tell you I am going to do. In my own person, and with the full authority and sanction of the Council of Aeria and your own lawful monarch, I here and now reassert the supremacy over the realms of Anglo-Saxondom which my father resigned in St. Paul’s Cathedral six years and a half ago! Hold your elections if you choose, and conduct your noisy pretence at government according to your own tastes, but do not expect me to be guided or bound by any enactments that you may choose to make. You may call this a revolution if you will. So it is, but remember that your foolishness has made it necessary! I can make Anglo-Saxondom ready to meet its enemies on equal terms when the day of battle comes, as come it surely will in less than twelve months from now, and, God helping me, I will do it! You either cannot or will not do this, but I will take good care that you do not prevent it being done. “I believe that the old spirit which won the Armageddon of 1904 still survives in Anglo-Saxon breasts, and I believe that it will respond to the call to arms which shall be heard throughout the length and breadth of the Federation before another sun has set. To-morrow I shall take possession of the means of intercommunication, and I warn you that you will oppose me at your peril. “You know that I have a force at command before which you are as helpless as the worms that crawl in the earth, and as there is a heaven above me I will use it without ruth or scruple if I see that the interests of Anglo-Saxondom require me to do so. You have your choice, to act with me or to remain neutral. Oppose me, and I will destroy you as traitors and enemies to your country and your race!” So saying, Alan turned his back upon the committees, and strode out of the room in which he had met them, leaving them speechless with anger and dismay. CHAPTER XXI. THE HOME-COMING. THE eastern mountains were still casting their long shadows over the lawns and fields, the vineyards and the gardens of Aeria on the morning of the eleventh of May in the year 2037 of the Christian Era and the hundred and thirty-third year of the Peace, but the whole population of the lovely valley were already afoot and abroad, for this was the most momentous day that had been in the history of the colony since Richard Arnold had first crossed the Northern Ridge with Natasha beside him in the conning-tower of the little _Ariel_, in those days the only air-ship that existed in the world, to lay the foundations of that throne from which their descendants had ruled the nations of the earth for a century and a quarter.