“That I cannot say,” was the reply, “or even that he will hear you at all. But, pardon! I did not know that the angels of Paradise accompanied the Aerians on their voyages. Descend in peace, my master will receive you.”
As he was speaking Alma, crowned with her crystal wings, and radiant with a beauty which, to the Moslem’s eyes, seemed something superhuman, had come from the after part of the vessel to Alan’s side. It was the first time that he had ever seen a woman of Aeria; and, with the innate chivalry of his race, he paid his involuntary homage to her as he would have done to an incarnation of one of the poetic dreams of his faith.
Then salutes were exchanged again between the two captains and the Alma sank swiftly downwards until she hovered twenty feet above the terrace on which Alan had first spoken with the Sultan on the night that he captured the Vindaya.
The approach of the Aerian warship had already summoned a party of guards to the roof, and after a brief parley a message was carried to the Sultan from Alan. A few minutes later Khalid stepped out of the doorway leading from the interior of the palace, magnificently attired as though for some great ceremonial.
He looked up and saw Alan standing with Alma by his side on the after-deck of his ship. He saw, too, that the flag of truce was flying from the stern and that the guns were laid alongside instead of being pointed down upon the city. He raised his hand in salute and said—
“I see you come in the guise of peace. If that is so you are welcome.”
“It is peace if your Majesty will have it so,” replied Alan, returning his salute, and at the same time making a sign for the Alma to descend to the roof of the palace. As her keels touched the floor of the terrace, the steps fell from the after doorway, and he came down, leaving Alma standing on deck by the open door.
“Will not your companion honour my palace by touching its roof with her foot?” said Khalid, looking up at Alma as he exchanged greetings with Alan.
“My companion, Sultan, is the wife of the man whom you turned your back upon on this very spot as a liar, a traitor, and a murderer,” said Alan, looking him straight in the eyes. “How, then, could she honour your palace by setting foot on its roof?”
For a moment the Sultan was abashed into silence by the directness of the rebuke, and then his Oriental subtlety and quickness of thought came to his aid, and, bending his head with royal dignity, he said—