ted into the earth, and every
human being within the radius of the explosion was blown to pieces,
or hurled stunned to the ground. But more mysterious and terrible
than all were the effects of the assault delivered by the air-ships,
which divided into squadrons and swept hither and thither in wide
curves, with the sunlight shining on their silvery hulls and their
long slender guns, smokeless and flameless, hurling the most awful
missiles of all far and wide, over a scene of butchery and horror
that beggared all description.

In vain the gallant Moslems looked for enemies in the flesh to
confront them. None appeared save a few sentinels across the
Bosphorus. And still the work of slaughter went on, pitiless and
passionless as the earthquake or the thunderstorm. Millions of shots
were fired into the air without result, and by the time the rain of
death had been falling without intermission for two hours, an
irresistible panic fell upon the Moslem soldiery. They had never met
enemies like these before, and, brave as lions and yet simple as
children, they looked upon them as something more than human, and
with one accord they flung away their weapons and raised their hands
in supplication to the sky. Instantly the aerial bombardment ceased,
and within an hour East and West had shaken hands, Sultan Mohammed
had accepted the terms of the Federation, and the long warfare of
Cross and Crescent had ceased, as men hoped, for ever.

Then the proclamation was issued disbanding the armies of Britain and
the Federation and the forces of the Sultan. The warships steamed
away westward on their last voyage to the South Atlantic, beneath
whose waves they were soon to sink with all their guns and armaments
for ever. The war-balloons were to be kept for purposes of
transportation of heavy articles to Aeria, while the fleet of
air-ships was to remain the sole effective fighting force in the
world.

While these events were taking place in Europe, those who had been
banished as outcasts from the society of civilised men by the
terrible justice of Natas had been plodding their weary way, in the
tracks of the thousands they had themselves sent to a living grave,
along the Great Siberian Road to the hideous wilderness, in the midst
of which lie the mines of Kara. From the Pillar of Farewells to
Tiumen, from thence to Tomsk,--where they met the first of the
released political exiles returning in a joyous band to their beloved
Russia,--and th