comrades--of whom three were women and one an established functionary in
the Royal Household. One should not expect ladies to traverse a sewer if
oilier ways are open to them. The manner of reaching the workshop was
not so simple, however, as you might suppose. The street door was out of
the quest ion, with Dangloss on the watch, day and night. As much as can
be said for the rear door. It was necessary, therefore, that the favored
few should approach the shop by extraordinary paths. For instance, two
of the women came through friendly but unknown doors in the basements of
adjoining houses, reaching the workshop by the narrow stairs leading up
from a cobwebby wine-cellar next door. Spantz and Olga Platanova, of
course, were at home in the place. All of which may go to prove that
while ten persons comprised the committee, at least as many more of the
shopkeepers in that particular neighbourhood were in sympathy with their
secret operations.

So cleverly were all these means of approach concealed and so stealthy
the movements of the Committee, that the existence of this underground
room, far below the street level, was as yet unsuspected by the police.
More than that, the existence of the Committee of Ten as an organisation
was unknown to the department, notwithstanding the fact that it had been
working quietly, seriously for more than a year.

The Committee of Ten represented the brains and the activity of a rabid
coterie in Edelweiss, among themselves styled the Party of Equals. In
plain language, they were "Reds." Less than fifty persons in Graustark
were affiliated with this particular community of anarchists. For more
than a year they had been preparing themselves against the all-important
hour for public declaration. Their ranks had been augmented by
occasional recruits from other lands; their literature was circulated
stealthily; their operations were as secret as the grave, so far as the
outside world was concerned. And so the poison sprung up and thrived
unhindered in the room below the street, growing in virulence and power
under the very noses of the vaunted police of Edelweiss, slowly
developing into a power that would some day assert itself with
diabolical fury.

There were men and women from Axphain and Dawsbergen in this seed circle
that made Edelweiss its spreading ground. They were Reds of the most
dangerous type--silent, voiceless, crafty men and women who built well
without noise, and who gave out no