As she spoke an immense fleet, numbering nearly five hundred vessels spread out in the form of a vast crescent, the arc of which was turned towards Aeria, swept up out of the blue distance, their polished hulls glittering in the bright sunlight. In the centre of the arc and slightly elevated above the rest, shone the blue hull and the white glistening wings of the _Ithuriel_, and close in her wake followed the _Isma_. When the advancing fleet was within five miles of the mountains it slowed down from four hundred to about fifty miles an hour. At the same instant the other fleet ran up the Aerian and Federation flags and the simply eloquent signal, “Welcome Home!” flew from the lofty foremast of the _Avenger_. It was instantly acknowledged by the _Ithuriel_, and then on all the five hundred vessels the Aerian and Federation flags were run to the mastheads and dipped three times in greeting. Then the two points of the vast crescent that they formed swung slowly and regularly forward until the arc was inverted and the _Ithuriel_ and the _Isma_ came along side by side midway between the two horns. When the two fleets were within half a mile of each other the _Avenger_, with twenty-five of her consorts on each side, swung round into line with their prows pointing towards the mountains, and in this order, at fifty miles an hour and an elevation of a thousand feet above the Ridge, the combined squadrons swept across the mountain barrier, and Alan and Alexis, each steering his own vessel in the conning-tower, saw for the first time, after nearly seven years of exile, the incomparable beauties of the Aerian landscape opening out before their eyes. [Illustration: THE COMBINED SQUADRONS SWEPT ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN BARRIER. _Page 237._] Following the movements of the leading squadron, they dipped as soon as they had passed over the Ridge, and were met on their downward flight by the hundreds of pleasure-craft which were waiting for them in mid-air. Thousands of gaily-coloured handkerchiefs were waved in welcome to them, and many a greeting in the sign-language passed from the crews of the warships to the occupants of the pleasure-craft and back again, for some of the former had been on foreign service for nearly a year, and there were many pleasant relationships to be renewed which had been interrupted by the calls of duty. Far below the home-comers could see the spacious streets of the great city, brilliant with the gaily attired throngs who had come to welcome them, and heard the greeting chorus of thousands of bells chiming in gladsome peals from hundreds of towers and minarets scattered over the city and its environs.