“So I see! You would not have got here if patrols had been sent out as I advised.”
“Or else your patrols would not have come back,” said Alan, turning on his heel and walking forward.
Half an hour later the white flag on the minaret was dipped three times as an invitation for the Ithuriel to descend, and Alan, determined to guard against any possible treachery on the part of the Russian scout-ship, signalled to it to precede him, and so the two vessels sank down and alighted almost together on the roof of the palace.
The Sultan surrounded by his ministers was awaiting them, and as soon as salutes had been exchanged Alan handed him the ultimatum of the Council. As Khalid read the brief but pregnant message his brows contracted, and an angry flush showed through the bronze of his skin.
He read it twice over, stroking his beard slowly and deliberately as he did so. Then he looked up and said to Alan in a tone from which he made no effort to banish the accents of anger—
“Was not my word enough? Have I not promised that I would make no war for a year? By what right do you order me to compel my friend and ally to leave my city within two hours?”
At the word “ally” Alan’s face assumed an expression of wrathful sternness, and he replied—
“By the right which has always governed the issues of war—the power to compel obedience.”
“To compel!” cried the Sultan, in a still angrier tone. “What! with one air-ship against twenty? Not even a Prince of the Air could do that.”
“No Prince of the Air would be mad enough to make the attempt,” replied Alan coldly. “Ask the captain of your scout-ship, and he will tell you that your city is surrounded; and I can tell you that four hundred guns are trained upon it at this moment, and that the firing of a shot, or the rising of any air-ship but my own from the ground, will be the signal for them all to be discharged. I need not tell your Majesty what the result of that would be.”