them with bribes, either of riches or of power,
from the plain course of duty which will lie before them."

As Natas finished speaking, he signed with his hand to Tremayne, who
rose in his place and briefly addressed the assembly--

"I and those who will share it with me accept alike the power and the
responsibility--not of choice, but rather because we are convinced
that the interests of humanity demand that we should do so. Those
interests have too long been the sport of kings and their courtiers,
and of those who have seen in selfish profit and aggrandisement the
only ends of life worth living for.

"Under the pretences of furthering civilisation and progress, and
maintaining what they have been pleased to call law and order, they
have perpetrated countless crimes of oppression, cruelty, and
extortion, and we are determined that this shall have an end.

"Henceforth, so far as we can insure it, the world shall be ruled,
not by the selfishness of individuals, or the ambitions of nations,
but in accordance with the everlasting and immutable principles of
truth and justice, which have hitherto been burlesqued alike by
despots on their thrones and by political partisans in the senates of
so-called democratic countries.

"To-morrow, at mid-day in this place, the chief rulers of Europe will
meet us, and our intentions will be further explained. And now before
we separate to go about the rest of the business of the day let us,
as is fitting, give due thanks to Him who has given us the victory."

He ceased speaking, but remained standing; the same instant the organ
of the Cathedral pealed out the opening notes of the familiar
Normanton Chant, and all those at the table, saving Natas, rose to
their feet. Then Natasha's voice soared up clear and strong above the
organ notes, singing the first line of the old well-known chant--

The strain upraise of joy and praise.

And as she ceased the swell of the organ rolled out, and a mighty
chorus of hallelujahs burst by one consent from the lips of the vast
congregation, filling the huge Cathedral, and flowing out from its
now wide-open doors until it was caught up and echoed by the
thousands who thronged the churchyard and the streets leading into
it.

As this died away Radna sang the second line, and so the Psalm of
Praise was sung through, as it were in strophe and anti-strophe,
interspersed with the jubilant hallelujahs of the multitude who were
celebrating the greatest