This was at the moment that the procession, after passing half round the square along the broad path left for it by the cheering throng, halted in front of the main entrance to the Temple of Aeria, which faced towards the south, in the middle of the magnificent façade fronting a marble-paved avenue of double rows of palms and tree-ferns which ran in a straight line for three miles down to the shores of the lake. The Aerians had progressed far beyond the stage of semi-barbaric pomp and display, and so the ceremony of restoring to Alan and Alexis the rights of citizenship, of which the Golden Wings were the symbol, solemn as it was, was also simple in the extreme. As the vast curtains which hung over the main doors of the Temple swung aside to admit them, they fell out of the procession and doffed their sable head-gear. The President and his fellow Councillors went on and took up their position in front of the three pillars under the centre of the dome. Then a guard of honour, composed of a hundred of their shipmates and companions-in-arms from Kerguelen, marched up to the door and formed into two files, between which Alan and Alexis walked down the aisle through the space left by the orderly throng that filled the vast building from the floor to the topmost tier of the rows of seats which rose half-way up the lofty walls, and so came in front of the President and the Council. Here their guard halted and formed a semicircle, leaving them in the open space within it. A breathless silence fell upon the assembled thousands as they dropped on one knee before the President. Then, in a voice whose every accent rang distinctly to the farthest corners of the huge building, he said-- “Alan Arnold and Alexis Masarov, the year of your probation ended with the rising of this morning’s sun. You have been tried and you have not been found wanting, and that of which the arch-enemy of our race robbed you for a time you have regained by manly valour and patient devotion. “Therefore, by command of the Supreme Council, and with the consent of all the citizens of Aeria, I restore to you the symbols of those rights which you lost and have regained. “In the presence of God and this assembly, and on the holy ground that is sanctified by the ashes of those mighty ancestors of ours who bequeathed to us the empire of the world, I replace the Golden Wings upon your brows, in the full belief that from the higher and happier sphere they now inhabit they are looking down with approval upon the act. “Rise now, recrowned Princes of the Air, and in the near approaching day of battle go forth with fearless hearts and stainless honour to do that which the voice of duty and the needs of humanity shall bid you do!”