ged!

"Alexis Mazanoff, you will hold yourself responsible for the lives of
the prisoners, and the execution of their sentence. You will see them
in safe keeping for the present, and on the thirtieth day from now
you will set out for Siberia."

The sentence of Natas, the most terrible one which human lips could
have uttered under the circumstances, was received with a breathless
silence of awe and horror. Then Mazanoff rose from his seat, drew his
sword, and saluted. As he passed round the end of the table the
guards closed up round the prisoners, who were staring about them in
stupefied bewilderment at the incredible horror of the fate which in
a moment had hurled them from the highest pinnacle of earthly power
and splendour down to the degradation and misery of the most wretched
of their own Siberian convicts. No time was given for protest or
appeal, for Mazanoff instantly gave the word "Forward!" and,
surrounded by a hedge of bayonets, the doomed men were marched
rapidly down between the two grey lines.

As they reached the bottom of the nave the great central doors swung
open, and through them came a mighty roar of execration from the
multitude outside as they appeared on the top of the Cathedral steps.

From St. Paul's Churchyard, down through Ludgate Hill and up the Old
Bailey to the black frowning walls of Newgate, they were led through
triple lines of Federation soldiers amidst a storm of angry cries
from the crowd on either side,--cries which changed to a wild
outburst of savage, pitiless exultation as the news of their dreadful
sentence spread rapidly from lip to lip. They had shed blood like
water, and had known no pity in the hour of their brief triumph, and
so none was shown for them in the hour of their fall and retribution.

The hour following their disappearance from the Cathedral was spent
in a brief and simple service of thanksgiving for the victory which
had wiped the stain of foreign invasion from the soil of Britain in
the blood of the invader, and given the control of the destinies of
the Western world finally into the hands of the dominant race of
earth.

The service began with a short but eloquent address from Natas, in
which he pointed out the consequences of the victory and the
tremendous responsibilities to the generations of men in the present
and the future which it entailed upon the victors. He concluded with
the following words--

"My own part in this world-revolution is played ou