“There they come at last!” cried Isma, who was standing with Alma in the bow of the Avenger, eagerly scanning the northern heavens through a pair of field-glasses. “I can see the flashes of the shells quite distinctly.”
As she spoke she handed the glasses to Alma, and noticed, not without a little smile of satisfaction, that her hands trembled slightly as she raised them to her eyes.
“Yes, they are coming,” said Alma, in a tone that might have been a good deal steadier than it was. “I can see the sun shining upon the hulls of the ships. They are coming up very fast, evidently.”
“Of course they are!” laughed Isma. “After the poor fellows have been shut out all this time from the delights of Aeria, it is only natural that they should hasten their home-coming. Look, look! you can see them without the glasses now. What a swarm of them there seems to be!”
As she spoke an immense fleet, numbering nearly five hundred vessels spread out in the form of a vast crescent, the arc of which was turned towards Aeria, swept up out of the blue distance, their polished hulls glittering in the bright sunlight. In the centre of the arc and slightly elevated above the rest, shone the blue hull and the white glistening wings of the Ithuriel, and close in her wake followed the Isma.
When the advancing fleet was within five miles of the mountains it slowed down from four hundred to about fifty miles an hour. At the same instant the other fleet ran up the Aerian and Federation flags and the simply eloquent signal, “Welcome Home!” flew from the lofty foremast of the Avenger. It was instantly acknowledged by the Ithuriel, and then on all the five hundred vessels the Aerian and Federation flags were run to the mastheads and dipped three times in greeting.
Then the two points of the vast crescent that they formed swung slowly and regularly forward until the arc was inverted and the Ithuriel and the Isma came along side by side midway between the two horns.
When the two fleets were within half a mile of each other the Avenger, with twenty-five of her consorts on each side, swung round into line with their prows pointing towards the mountains, and in this order, at fifty miles an hour and an elevation of a thousand feet above the Ridge, the combined squadrons swept across the mountain barrier, and Alan and Alexis, each steering his own vessel in the conning-tower, saw for the first time, after nearly seven years of exile, the incomparable beauties of the Aerian landscape opening out before their eyes.
