we could
succeed. The blow must catch them unprepared."

"This is the 22d, Saturday is the 26th. They can do nothing in four
days," said one of the women.

"Count Marlanx will be ready on the 26th. He has said so. A new strike
will be declared on the railroad on the 25th and the strikers will be in
the city with their grievances. Saturday's celebration will bring men
from the mountains and the mines to town. A single blow, and we have
won." So spoke Brutus.

"Then why all this fear of Tullis?" demanded Anna Cromer.

"It is not like the Iron Count," added Madame Drovnask with a sneer.

Olga Platanova had not spoken. She was not there to talk. She was only
to act on the 26th of July. She was the means to an end.

"Well, fear or no fear, the Count lies awake trying to think of a way to
entice him from the city before the 26th. It may be silly, madam, but
Count Marlanx is a wiser man than any of us here. He is not afraid of
Dangloss or Braze or Quinnox, but he is afraid of what he calls
'American luck!' He is even superstitious about it."

"We must not--we cannot fail," grated William Spantz, and the cry was
reiterated by half a dozen voices.

"The world demands success of us!" cried Anna Cromer. "We die for
success, we die for failure! It is all one!"

The next morning, after a sleepless night, Truxton King made his first
determined attempt to escape. All night long he had lain there thinking
of the horrid thing that was to happen on the black 26th. He counted the
days, the hours, the minutes. Morning brought the 23d. Only three days
more! Oh, if he could but get one word to John Tullis, the man Marlanx
feared; if he could only break away from these fiends long enough to
utter one cry of warning to the world, even with his dying gasp!

Marlanx feared the Americans! He even feared him, a helpless captive!
The thrill of exultation that ran through his veins was but the genesis
of an impulse that mastered him later on.

He knew that two armed men stood guard in the outer room day and night.
The door to the stairway leading into the armourer's shop was of iron
and heavily barred; the door opening into the sewer was even more
securely bolted; besides, there was a great stone door at the foot of
the passage. The keys to these two doors were never out of the
possession of William Spantz; one of his guards held the key to the
stairway door. His only chance lay in his ability to suddenly overpower
two men and make off