gs.

But it was in Babylon the Great, that the woman of Zechariah v.
1--Commerce--had found all she had been insisting for, through all the
past years,--and it all emanated from, and was centred in Apleon. And
it was all connected with worship. "_Covetousness, which is idolatry_."

With the utter destruction of "Mystic Babylon," the vast religious
system, (whose destruction we have seen,) there came a mighty impulse
of commerce, and of consequent wealth to "Babylon the Great" the City.

Apleon had made it his head-quarters. "_The kings of the earth lived
wantonly with her_." Her wharves and warehouses--built on that
wondrous Euphrates--were packed with "_merchandise of gold, silver,
precious stones, of pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, and all
rare woods, and all manner of vessels of ivory, brass, iron, marble,
cinnamon, odours, ointments, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour,
wheat, beasts, sheep, horses, chariots, slaves--and souls of men_."

Her vessels traded with the whole world. Her liners, travelling at 100
miles per hour, were in easy touch of every land. Her pride in her
Maritime and commercial power, was overwhelming: "How much she hath
glorified herself, and lived deliciously. . . . For she saith in her
heart, I sit a queen!" Her aerial merchandise fleets, too, were
amazing!

* * * * * *

The three months had brought great changes to the trio in whom we are
specially interested--Ralph Bastin, George Bullen, and Rose, his young
wife.

Ralph, in quitting the editor's chair of the Courier, had received a
handsome _doucier_, from Sir Archibald Carlyon, and this, at his
special request, had been paid to him in the new paper currency of the
time--there was a world-common currency, under the Apleon regime, as
there was also a world-common code, weights and measures, etc.

He had also contrived to turn his savings into the paper currency.
George Bullen had done the same, though in the case of each of them it
had not been easy work, for both were marked men.

They knew themselves to be hated--and watched. Again and again they
had narrowly escaped death, and each day they realized that it might be
the last.

The news of the wondrous enthusiasm of the world's peoples gathered in
Babylon and Jerusalem, in their new worship of the golden images of
Apleon, had stirred London, New York, Berlin, Paris--_atheistical_
Paris; and all other great world-centres, and in e