if they got to the gun-rooms and the ammunition houses."

"Is he here?" with a motion toward the upper window.

"Yes. He came disguised as an old market woman, just after daybreak."

"Well, here's his horse," said the other, "but he'll have to change his
dress. It isn't a side saddle." The young villain laughed silently.

"Go up now to the square, Peter. Your place is there."

If one had taken the time to observe, he might have seen that the young
man wore his hat well forward, and that his face was unnaturally white.
We, who suspect him of being Peter Brutus, have reason to believe that
there was an ugly cut on the top of his head and that it gave him
exceeding pain.

Shortly after half past eleven o'clock certain groups of men usurped
the positions in front of certain buildings on the south side of the
square. A score here, a half score there, others below them. They
favoured the shops operated by the friends of the Committee of Ten; they
were the men who were to take possession of the rifles that lay hidden
behind counters and walls. Here, there, everywhere, all about the city,
other instructed men were waiting for the signal that was to tell them
to hustle deadly firearms from the beds of green-laden market wagons. It
was all arranged with deadly precision. There could be no blunder. The
Iron Count and his deputies had seen to that.

Men were stationed in the proper places to cut all telephone and
telegraph wires leading out of the city. Others were designated to hold
the gates against fugitives who might seek to reach the troops in the
hills.

Marlanx's instructions were plain, unmistakable. Only soldiers and
policemen were to be shot; members of the royal household were already
doomed, including the ministry and the nobles who rode with the royal
carriage.

The Committee of Ten had said that there would not be another ministry,
never another Graustark nobility; only the Party of Equals. The Iron
Count had smiled to himself and let them believe all that they preached
in secret conclave. But he knew that there would be another ministry, a
new nobility and a new ruler, and that there would be _no Committee of
Ten!_

Two thousand crafty mercenaries, skilled rioters and fighters from all
parts of the world stood ready in the glad streets of Edelweiss to leap
as one man to the standard of the Iron Count the instant he appeared in
the square after the throwing of the bomb. A well-organised, carefully
instruct