lerics wove the name of
Illowski into their Sunday preachments. In a week he was popular, two a
mystery, three a necessity. The authorities maintained a dignified
silence--and watched. Politics, Bourbonism, Napoleonism, Boulangerism
ere this had crept in unawares sporting strange disguises. Perhaps
Illowski was a friend of the Vatican, of the Czar; perhaps a
destructive, bomb-throwing Nihilist, for the indomitable revolutionists
still waged war against the law. Might not this music be the signal for
a dangerous uprising of some sort?...

Lenyard was asked to sit in a box with Neshevna that last night. Scheff
refused to join them; he swore that he was tired of music and would
remain in town. The woman smiled as he said this, then she handed him a
letter, made a little motion--"the signal."

It was on the esplanade that Neshevna and Lenyard stood. The young man,
weary with vigils, his face furrowed by curiosity, regarded the city
below them as it lay swimming in the waves of a sinking sun. He saw the
crosses of La Trinite as molten copper, then dusk and dwindle in the
shadows. The twilight seemed to prefigure the fading of the human race.
Neshevna walked with this dreamer to the rear of the theatre--the
theatre of the Tarnhelm, that was to darken all civilization. He asked
for Illowski, but she did not reply; she, too, was steeped in dreams.
And all the streets were thick with men and women tumbling up to the
top.

"We sit in a second-tier box," she presently said. "If you get tired,
or--annoyed, you may go out on the balcony and look down upon the lights
of Paris, though I fear it will be a dark night. There is no moon," she
added, her voice dropping to a mumble....

They sat in a dark box that last night. The auditorium, vast and silent
with the breath-catching silence of thousands, lay below them; but their
eyes were glued upon a rosy light beginning to break over the space
where was the stage. It spread, deepened, until it fairly hummed with
scarlet tones. Gradually emerging from this cruel crimson the image of a
huge sword became visible. Neshevna touched Lenyard's hand.

"The symbol of his power!" she crooned.

Blending with the color of the light a musical tone made itself seen,
heard, felt. Lenyard shuddered. At last, the new dispensation was about
to be revealed, the new gospel preached. It was a single vibratile tone,
and was uttered by a trumpet. Was it a trumpet? It pealed with the peal
of bells shimmer