“She has given me the lie with equal skill and audacity. I can only give her the lie in return, if not as skilfully, at least as boldly, and with a knowledge that I am telling the truth. Your Majesty can believe her story or mine, as you choose. If you believe hers, I am willing to do you the justice of confessing that you will be judging according to the weight of testimony, such as it is, for that is certainly against me.”
“And so I must judge,” replied the Sultan coldly. “I cannot believe your story, for it seems to be impossible, while the Tsarina’s has every appearance of truth. Into your motives I have neither the right nor the wish to inquire, and all that is left for me to say is that what I have heard has finally decided me to espouse the cause of the Tsarina and her friends against those who have wronged and slandered her, be the cost to me and my people what it may.
“We shall keep the truce if you do, and in the day of strife let the God of Battles decide between us. My answer to your Council’s message shall be ready for you in half an hour. Farewell!”
So saying, Khalid the Magnificent turned his back upon Alan, and walked, followed by his Vizier and his ministers, to the doorway leading to the interior of the palace. Olga, pausing for a moment to cast one glance of triumphant hatred at her discredited foe, beckoned to Lossenski, and followed the Sultan without a word.
Alan, amazed and enraged beyond measure by the unexpected turn that affairs had taken, and yet confident in his own knowledge of the truth, turned on his heel, and went back on board the Ithuriel, where he went into his own cabin and sat down to write his directions for enforcing the order of the Council with regard to the evacuation of the city by the Russian squadron.
He bitterly regretted that the orders of the Council did not permit him to destroy the Russian air-ships there and then while they lay at his mercy. But the orders were explicit, and forbade him even to pursue them after they had left Alexandria, unless they committed an act of hostility against him.
If he could have done so, he would have fought them at all hazards, and then, if he had conquered, he would have been able to enforce the general prohibition of the Council against building air-ships upon the Sultan; but as disobedience was not to be thought of, he could only carry out his orders, and hope that the judgment of the Council might prove in the end superior to his own.
At the end of the half-hour he was summoned to meet the Grand Vizier, who brought the reply of his master. This ran as follows:—
In the Name of the Most Merciful God!
Khalid, Commander of the Faithful, to Alan Arnold, President of Aeria.
I have received your message from the hands of your son. I shall faithfully observe the terms of the truce I promised to him, and of which he has told you.
As my city lies for the time being at the mercy of your fleet, I can only save my people and my guests from destruction by agreeing to your demands. The Russian air-ships shall leave Alexandria within an hour of the delivery of this to your son. But this is to tell you that I have made alliance with Olga Romanoff, rightful Tsarina of the Russias, and that when the year of truce has expired, I will no longer be a king merely in name and hold my power and dignity at your pleasure.
At the end of the year of truce there shall be war between you and me and your people and mine unless before then you shall recognise my independence in due form and my right to create such armaments as I think fit for the protection of my dominions against yourself or any other Power, and unless you consent to restore Olga Romanoff to the throne and dignity which is hers by right, and of which your ancestors robbed her in the days of the Terror.
If you do this there shall be peace between us, but if not, there shall be war, and we will fight until the God of Battles has decided between us, and given to you or to me the dominion of the world.
Alan’s brows contracted slightly as he read this defiant missive, but there was a half-pitying smile on his lips when he said to the Vizier as he handed him the instructions he had just written—