Then, wheeling
outwards, disclosing as they wheeled the insignia that each
bore, the eagles of Germany, the lilies of France and the rest,
the guard of thirty giants fell once more into line, half a
mile apart, as those that followed came on, and waited; beating
the air with the shimmer of their netted wings.

Then ship after ship came up, each wheeling in its turn and
waiting, building now up with the speed of thought a vast
semicircle, expanding ever more and more swiftly, as the
watcher looked--himself halted now, with the royal barge on his
right and his train of boats behind. There each in its turn
passed the air-navies of the Great Powers, come to bring their
Lord with honour on his progress through the world--vast
armaments of inconceivable war, enrolled at last in the service
of the Prince of Peace.

Then when the movement was complete, and there lay there across
the burning blue of the sky, five hundred feet in air, this vast
curve of glittering splendour, ten miles from horn to horn, on
came the great fleet that they had escorted.

There, then, the watcher saw two by two, first the barges of the
Papal Orders, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre with its five-fold
cross, and the Golden Spur, leading--huge medieval galleons,
carved at prow and stem, each bearing its insignia; then came
couple after couple bearing the Papal Court, followed closely by
great barges, each with its canopy and throne, and the coat of
the Cardinal whom each bore flying overhead.

And then a glorious sight.

For, moving alone in a solid phalanx, each vessel separated only
by the space necessary for close manoeuvring, came the royal
barges of Europe, ranked on either side by a line of
guard-boats--France, Austria, and Germany, then Belgium and
Holland, then the Scandinavian kingdoms, then a crowd of lesser
States from the Balkan, Greece, and the Black Sea; then the
black-eagled barge of Russia, and finally the great galleons of
Spain and Italy: and on each sat a royal figure beneath a canopy
of state. And last of all moved a huge vessel, in scarlet and
white, with a banner of white and gold and cross-keys at the
prow; scarcely seen at first through the crowding craft, with a
squadron of guard-ships coming after.

There, then, the man who had lost his memory sat motionless, and
watched it all--this astounding display of inner grace
transformed into glory at last, that Royalty which since first
the Fisherman took his seat in Holy Ro