As he ceased speaking he held out a hand to each of them, and so they rose to their feet again, once more wearing the Golden Wings, once more free and equal amidst their peers of the Royal race of Aeria. As they did so a burst of jubilant melody rolled out, apparently from all parts of the Temple at once. It was the opening chorus of a triumphal march which the greatest living musician of Aeria, and therefore of the world, had composed in honour of the day and the event, and as its splendid harmonies rolled out from the hidden organ through the vast interior, and through the open portals into the square beyond, the great assembly filed out in four streams from the Temple, and all Aeria made ready to give itself up to feasting and merry-making for the rest of the day. For three days Aeria kept high festival in honour of the home-coming of the son of the President and his companion in exile, but for all that there was sterner business in hand than merry-making for those in authority. Save in the almost impossible event of overtures of peace being received from the Sultan, war which, in the nature of the circumstances, could hardly fail to be universal, would actually begin at daybreak on the 16th of May, that is to say in five days after the return of Alan and Alexis. The greater part, therefore, even of the days of rejoicing was really spent in hard work by those upon whom had devolved the tremendous responsibility of counteracting as far as was possible the designs of conquest and oppression to which Olga Romanoff, by means of her fatal beauty and subtle diplomacy, had succeeded in irrevocably committing Khalid the Magnificent. Early on the morning of the day following the reinvestiture of Alan and Alexis with the symbols of Aerian citizenship a council of war was held in the President’s palace, which was attended by all the members of the ruling Council, the chief engineers of the settlement, and the admirals in command of the aerial and sea navies and the squadrons posted at the various stations throughout the world. Before this assembly Alan, who had already entered upon the active discharge of his duties as Commander-in-Chief of all the forces of Aeria and the Federation, laid the details of his plans of attack and defence, and invited criticism upon them. The same day Alan transferred his flag and his crew from the _Ithuriel_ to the _Avenger_, while Alexis took possession of a splendid vessel of the same type, to which the name _Orion_ had been given, after that of the air-ship commanded by Alan Tremayne in the battle of Armageddon. Alexis, however, had very little difficulty in obtaining the consent of the Council to his substituting another name for this, with the consequence that the prize taken from the enemy resumed her Russian name, and remained in Aeria as a trophy of the skill of her captors.