“Whence it came I know not, but it would seem that these Aerians see everything, and that their hands reach everywhere. In a moment she had dropped upon your ambassador’s vessel, splintering her masts, and yet so softly did she alight that the glass dome was not broken. Then her crew streamed out of the doors of the deck-chamber, and the next I knew was that your ambassador and I were covered by half a score of pistols and rifles and commanded to stand still on pain of death.
“Then Alan Arnold alighted, forced your envoy to surrender, struck one of my guards dead by some mysterious lightning that flashed from his sword, and, after carrying me away into the air over the sea and blasting a rock out of the waters to prove to me the power of his guns, brought me back honourably and in safety to await your coming. Truly these Aerians are more as gods than men!”
Furious as the unexpected tidings made her, Olga yet managed to restrain her anger sufficiently to reply with wonderful coolness—
“Your Majesty gives me sad and bitter news; but it is the fortune of war, and I must not complain. The air-ship that is taken by surprise is lost, and Orloff Lossenski fell a victim to his own carelessness.”
Then her mood changed swiftly, and a soft and musical laugh came from her smiling lips as she went on—
“But it is a poor revenge, after all. That same Alan Arnold, the son of the great President of Aeria, was my would-be lover and slave for over five years. For my sake he turned traitor to his name and race, gave up the Revenge to me and told me all the jealously-guarded secrets of aerial navigation. He killed my brother in a quarrel, but he was useful, so I let him live—a prisoner of war, till I had done with him. Then I set him free, when, perhaps, I ought to have kept him safe, to go and tell his people what a fool I had made of him. I suppose he did not tell your Majesty that?”
“No,” laughed Khalid in reply, wondering what magic she had used to accomplish so marvellous a charm, “he did not. But such a miracle proves that you have been truly named the Syren of the Skies, as he said you are, for no other woman could have worked such a wonder and disputed the empire of the air with the masters of the world.”
“That is true,” replied Olga, lowering her voice to a tone of intense earnestness, “and the fact that I did it single-handed proves, I hope, that with good friends and true allies I can do more than dispute that empire with the Aerians, these despots of peace who have made the world a paradise of the commonplace, and fettered all strongest and most aspiring spirits so that they might be equal with the coward and the fool.
“But those are matters which I would discuss with your Majesty in private, and it is too late in the night to go into them now. You tell me that Alan Arnold has shown you what his air-ships can do. If your Majesty will honour the Revenge by being my guest for to-morrow I will show you that mine are in nowise inferior to them.
“Indeed, as I have told you, the Revenge is an Aerian ship, built in the enchanted land of Aeria, and if you will to-morrow she shall carry you over the whole of your dominions, and after that over those other dominions that shall be yours if you approve the plans that I will lay before you.”