At midnight, on the 14th, Alan and Alexis were to set out for their respective fields of operation, and that evening there was a farewell banquet given by the Council in the President’s palace in honour of them and the commanders of their ships. Many a hearty toast was given and drunk in the sparkling golden wine of Aeria, and many a hearty God-speed and loving farewell passed between those who remained at home and those who were going forth to do battle for them and for the peace of the world in distant skies, and to pass through the fiery storm of such warfare as had never been waged in the world before.
Just before twelve, when the fleets were ready to take the air, and the last farewells were being said, the Avenger and the Isma were lying on the roof of the President’s palace, and their commanders were standing by the gangway steps which hung down from the deck-chambers, the centres of two little groups of grave, silent men and sorrowing women, their nearest and dearest in a land where all were friends.
The last blessings of fathers and mothers had been given and taken, and then came the hardest farewells of all. Isma and Alexis parted as declared lovers will part as long as the Fates are cruel, but when Alan took Alma’s hands in his for the last time, and looked down upon the pale loveliness of her perfect face and into the clear calm depths of her eyes, the word that he had been longing to say ever since his return died upon his lips.
The contrast between her stainless purity and the darkness of the blot that Olga’s unholy passion had placed upon his life rose up in all its horror for the hundredth time before him, and once more the impassable gulf opened between them. All that he could say was—
“Good-bye, Alma! You, too, will wish me God-speed, won’t you?”
“With all my heart, yes, Alan,” she replied in low, sweet, steady tones. “God guard you in your good work and send you back in safety to us. You will come back rich in honours and followed by the blessings of the world you are going to rescue from the oppressors”—
“Or I shall never come! Good-bye, Alma, good-bye, all!” he said, breaking upon her speech, for he could bear to hear no more, and as he spoke he stooped and kissed her forehead as he had kissed Isma’s a few moments before. Then he turned and ran up the steps just as Alexis took his last kiss and did the same.
As they gained the decks of their ships the great bell in the dome of the Temple boomed out the first stroke of twelve. At the sixth stroke the electric suns on the summits of the mountains blazed out simultaneously at a hundred points, a long, deep roar of thunder rolled round the bulwarks of Aeria, and with search-lights flashing out ahead and astern, the four hundred battleships of the two squadrons rose into the air and swept up towards the Ridge.
The four hundred Battleships of the two Squadrons rose into the Air. [Page 252].