from the reservoir, luckily on the ocean side. It
caused a storm and water-spouts, and destroyed a few vessels. The
coruscating gas creates a vacuum into which the air rushes with
incredible velocity. So promise me that while we are flying you will
stay with the police at the gas machines and keep off the crowd.
Promise!"

"But I shan't permit you to go up with this renegade to the
revolutionary cause--" he began impetuously. She put warning fingers to
her lips. In the white flowing robes of an antique priest, Karospina
came out to them and took Gerald by the hand. He was abstracted and
haggard, and his eyes glared about him. He chanted in a monotone:--

"The time is at hand. Soon you will see the Angels of the Seals. I shall
show the multitude Death on the Pale Horse and the vision of Ezekiel.
And you shall behold the star called Wormwood, the great star of the
third angel, which shall fall like a burning lamp upon the waters and
turn them bitter. And at the last you will see the chariot of Elijah
caught up to heaven in a fiery whirlwind. In it will be seated the
Princess Mila--we, the conquerors of the wicked world."

"Yes, but only as an image, an illusion," ejaculated the unhappy lover,
"not in reality."

"As she is," imperiously answered Karospina, and seizing Mila by the
arm, said, "Come!" She threw a kiss to Gerald and in her eyes were
tears. He saw them and could have wept himself. He followed the
sacrificial pair as far as the reservoir, muttering warnings in which
were mixed the fates of Phaethon and Simon Magus--that heretic who
mimicked the miracles of the apostles.

* * * * *

It was now dark; the order to extinguish all lights on the moor had been
obeyed. Only a panting sound as if from a wilderness of frightened
animals betrayed the presence of thousands. As long as the sun shone
there had been a babel of sound; at the disappearance of our parent
planet, a hushed awe had fallen with the night. Gone the rude joking and
wrangling, the crying of children, and the shrill laughter of the women.
A bitter breeze swept across from the waters, and the stars were mere
twinkling points.

Then from the vault of heaven darted a ribbon of emerald fire. It became
a luminous spiral when it touched the sea of glass, which was like unto
a floor of crystal. This was the sign of Karospina's undertaking, his
symbol of the road to moral perfection. Gerald recalled Whistler's
pyrotechnica