spoke the _Ariel_ settled gently down to the earth, and the
gangway steps dropped from her bow.

As he entered the room in which the two generals were awaiting him,
surrounded by their brilliantly-uniformed staffs, he presented a
strange contrast to the men whose lives he held in the hollow of his
hand. He was dressed in a dark tweed suit, with Norfolk jacket and
knickerbockers, met by long shooting boots, just as though he was
fresh from the moors, instead of from the battlefield on which the
fate of the world was being decided. General le Gallifet advanced to
meet him with a puzzled look of half-recognition on his face, which
was at once banished by Tremayne holding out his hand without the
slightest ceremony, and saying--

"Ah, I see you recognise me, General!"

"I do, my Lord Alanmere, and, you will permit me to add, with the
most profound astonishment," replied the General, taking the
proffered hand with a hearty grasp. "May I venture to hope that with
an old acquaintance our negotiations may prove all the easier?"

Tremayne bowed and said--

"Rest assured, General, that they shall be as easy as my instructions
will permit me to make them."

"Your instructions! But I thought"--

"That I was in supreme command. So I am in a sense, but I am the
lieutenant of Natas for all that, and in a case like this his word is
law. But come, what terms do you propose?"

"That truce shall be proclaimed for twenty-four hours; that the
commanders of the forces of the League shall meet this mysterious
Natas, yourself, and the King of England, and arrange terms by which
the armies of France, Russia, and Italy shall be permitted to
evacuate the country with the honours of war."

"Then, General, I may as well tell you at once that those terms are
impossible," replied the Chief of the Federation quietly, but with a
note of inflexible determination in his voice. "In the first place,
'the honours of war' is a phrase which already belongs to the past.
We see no honour in war, and if we can have our way this shall be the
last war that shall ever be waged on earth.

"Indeed, I may tell you that we began this war as one of absolute
extermination. Had it not been for the intercession of Natasha, the
daughter of Natas, you would not even have been given the opportunity
of making terms of peace, or even of unconditional surrender. Our
orders were simply to slay, and spare not, as long as a man remained
in arms on British soil. You are