that lifted the
roofs and threw the walls in dusty masses upon the ground. So slow it
seemed!--and I had not even seen the shell that the white meteor-ship
had fired. Yet there was the beautiful building, expanding,
disintegrating. It was a cloud of dust when the concussion reached me
to dash me breathless to the earth....

* * * * *

The white meteor was the vehicle of "Paul," the dictator. From it had
come the radio message whose source had moved so swiftly. I saw this
all plainly.

There was a conference of high officials at the War Department
Building, and the Secretary summed up all that was said:

"A new form of air-flight, and a new weapon more destructive than any
we have known! That charge of explosive that was fired at the Capitol
was so small as to be unseen. We can't meet it; we can only fight.
Fight on till the end."

A message came in as we sat there, a message to the Commander-in-Chief
who had come over from the White House under military guard.

"Surrender!" it demanded; "I have shown you my power; it is
inexhaustible, unconquerable. Surrender or be destroyed; it is the
dawn of a new day, the day of the Brotherhood of Man. Let bloodshed
cease. Surrender! I command it! Paul."

The President of the United States held the flimsy paper in his hand.
He rose slowly to his feet, and he read it aloud to all of us
assembled there; read it to the last hateful word. Then:

"Surrender?" he asked. He turned steady, quiet eyes upon the big flag
whose red and white and blue made splendid the wall behind him--and
I'll swear that I saw him smile.

* * * * *

We have had many presidents since '76; big men, some of them; tall,
handsome men; men who looked as if nature had moulded them for a high
place. This man was small of stature; the shortest man in all that
room if he had stood, but he was big--big! Only one who is great can
look deep through the whirling turmoil of the moment to find the
eternal verities that are always underneath--and smile!

"Men must die,"--he spoke meditatively; in seeming communing with
himself, as one who tries to face a problem squarely and
honestly--"and nations must pass; time overwhelms us all. Yet there is
that which never dies and never surrenders."

He looked about the room now, as if he saw us for the first time.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "we have here an ultimatum. It is backed
by power which our Secret