ts of the ancient
world. How to account for the miracle of its preservation during the
generations that had passed since the sun of knowledge had disappeared
beneath the sea of mental darkness. What sufficient explanation could
there be for this amazing fact?

From Prosper, the priest, Constans drew the main outlines of the story,
and his studies enabled him to fill in the details. In brief, it may be
set down as follows:

When the convicts and criminals, who were the ancestors of the Doomsmen,
took possession of the old-time city, it is reasonable to suppose that
among them were a certain proportion of technically educated
men--artisans, mechanics, engineers. A power-plant of such imposing
proportions (designed, we may conjecture, for the furnishing of motive
power to one of the great transportation systems) could hardly escape
their notice, and they would certainly know how to utilize it if they
cared to do so. And they did--for a peculiar reason.

It is a matter of record that in the twentieth century the universal
form of capital punishment was execution by electricity. In every
state-prison stood the "death-chair," the visible embodiment of the
moral force which the wrong-doer had defied, and which, in the ensuing
struggle, had proved too strong for him. No wonder that it was both
feared and hated by the citizens of the underworld of crime.

Now that the social fabric lay in ruins, now that the very foundations
of law and order had been razed, what could be more natural than the
impulse to turn this instrument of legal punishment into one of
unlicensed vengeance? Society had dealt, mercilessly, with the breaker
of laws, and now it was to suffer in its turn. So it came to pass that
whenever a House-dweller (as representative of the old law-creating and
law-abiding classes) fell alive into the hands of the Doomsmen, it was
invariably ordained that he must take his seat in the chair of death and
in his own body make satisfaction for the ancient debt.

But the years rolled on, and with the new generations came a slow but
sweeping change in sentiment. The Doomsmen were now the dominant race,
and the Housemen had become their vassals. It was not good policy for a
master to wantonly destroy productive property, and so by degrees these
barbarous reprisals slackened. The time was now ripe for the second
stage of the evolution--the introduction of the religious element and
the final conversion of the execution into the