The same orders had been transmitted along the telephonic cables which connected the marine stations of the Mediterranean for all the battleships on service to go into their respective harbours, so that their crews might land and be picked up by air-ships which had already been despatched for them. Before the evening Aerian vessels had begun to come in from all parts of Europe, where they had been stationed, and their crews brought terrible descriptions of the scenes of carnage and destruction they had left to obey the summons. The Federation leaders were in despair at their apparent desertion by their potent allies, while their enemies were already rejoicing at the disappearance of the Aerian warships from all points of the scene of war. By midnight the last Aerian vessel had come in, and, after the command of the Rock, the last station of which the Aerians retained command, had been handed over to the British forces, the flotilla, numbering nearly four hundred warships, rose into the air just as two large Moslem squadrons, one fresh from the destruction of Paris, and the other from Alexandria and the east of Europe, converged upon the Rock, and, without warning, opened a furious fire of shells upon it. The great guns from the batteries replied, and the fleets, under the command of Alan and Alexis, after sending a rapid hail of shells among the Moslem vessels as a parting salute, soared into the upper regions of the air and headed southward for home, leaving a fiery chaos of death and destruction behind them. Two hours after daybreak on the 19th the fleet crossed the Northern Ridge, and sank to earth on the sloping plateau behind the city. Alan at once disembarked, and went to his father’s palace to report himself. The sudden and unexpected return of the fleet, which had left to do battle for the empire of the world but three days and a half before, filled all the inhabitants of the Valley with amazement, for no one outside the Council and the committee appointed to verify the message received from Mars yet knew of the doom that was menacing the world. Alan was received at the door of his palace by his father, who, after their greetings had been exchanged, took him at once to the room in which the Council were already assembled, and there in the presence of his colleagues made him acquainted with the reason for his recall. Inured as he was to the unsparing warfare in which human life had to be counted as almost a negligible quantity, a warfare in which there was no middle course between life and death, Alan, after the first shock of surprise and horror had passed, faced the tremendous crisis with a calmness and resignation worthy of the traditions of his family and his race.