“No, no!” said the King, almost appealingly. “That is quite right—quite right. Tell me, if you please, what has really happened to bring about this terrible danger which threatens us, and let us see if we cannot yet protect ourselves.”
“You can yet make such preparations as will at least enable you to meet your enemies on equal terms,” replied Alan, following the King’s example, and seating himself again, “and it is to put before you a necessary scheme of defence that I have come here, and when I have described it you will see that we Aerians have not forgotten that our ancestors once led Anglo-Saxondom to the conquest of the world.”
“Pray proceed,” said the King, sitting up on his lounge again. “I can assure you that I am all attention.”
Alan then began, and told in detail all that was necessary for the King to know of what had happened during the last six years, concluding with a graphic narrative of startling vividness of the marvellous and momentous events that had been crowded so thickly into the last twenty-one days.
It would not be saying too much to state that the close of the recital, which he had listened to with the most anxious attention, left King Albert in a state of nervous excitement that bordered closely upon absolute panic. He had heard enough to show him that the splendid fabric of Anglo-Saxon civilisation would, if left in its present defenceless state, totter and fall like a house of cards at the first onslaught of its powerful and disciplined enemies.
He saw that its wealth and splendour, like those of the effete empires of old, were a source of weakness and not of strength, a temptation to its foes and an encumbrance to itself.
Then, as Alan went on to describe the scheme of defence proposed by the Council of Aeria, he seemed to find support and consolation in the quiet, masterful tones of the man who, without a tremor in his voice, could calmly discuss the prospect of a war which would involve the whole of humanity in one colossal struggle, which could have no other result than an indescribably appalling loss of human life and the complete subjection, if not destruction, of those who were vanquished in it.
Yet when he had finished King Albert shook his head sadly and doubtfully, and said—
“Yes, yes, it is a splendid scheme, a scheme worthy of you and your wonderful race, but it can only be accomplished if our Parliaments agree together to sanction it and support it. I hope with all my heart that they will do so, but I sadly fear that not even your influence, and the fearful danger which threatens them, will make them agree one with another.