lver.

All that remained to do now was to sign the Marriage Roll of the
Brotherhood, and when they had done this the entry stood as
follows:--

"Married on the tenth day of the Month Tamuz, in the Year of the
World five thousand six hundred and sixty-four, in the presence
of me, Natas, and those of the Brotherhood now resident in the
Colony of Aeria:--

{ALEXIS MAZANOFF,
{RADNA MICHAELIS MAZANOFF.

Witnesses {RICHARD ARNOLD,
{NATASHA.

As Natasha laid down the pen after signing she looked up quickly, as
though moved by some sudden impulse, her eyes met Arnold's, and an
instant later the happy flush on Radna's cheek was rivalled by that
which rose to her own. Her lips half parted in a smile, and then she
turned suddenly away to be the first to offer her congratulations to
the newly-wedded wife, while Arnold, his heart beating as it had
never done since the model of the _Ariel_ first rose from the floor
of his room in the Southwark tenement-house, grasped Mazanoff by the
hand and said simply--

"God bless you both, old man!"

The whole ceremony had not taken more than fifteen minutes from
beginning to end. After Arnold came Tremayne with his good wishes,
and then Anna Ornovski and the rest of the friends and comrades of
the newly-wedded lovers.

One usually conspicuous feature in similar ceremonies was entirely
wanting. There were no wedding presents. For this there was a very
sufficient reason. All the property of the members of the Inner
Circle, saving only articles of personal necessity, were held in
common. Articles of mere convenience or luxury were looked upon with
indifference, if not with absolute contempt, and so no one had
anything to give.

After all, this was not a very serious matter for a company of men
and women who held in their hands the power of levying indemnities to
any amount upon the wealth-centres of the world under pain of
immediate destruction.

That evening the supper of the colonists took the shape of a sylvan
marriage feast, eaten in the open air under the palms and tree ferns,
as the sun was sinking down behind the western peaks of Aeria, and
the full moon was rising over those to the eastward.

The whole earth might have been searched in vain for a happier
company of men and women than that which sat down to the marriage
feast of Radna Michaelis and Alexis Mazanoff in the virgin groves of
Aeria. For the time being the wor