urrender," was voiced at the Council meeting by one of the
members. And nobody answered him.

Three days of respite, then, instead of bombs, proclamations
fluttering down from a cloudless sky. Unless the white flag of
surrender was hoisted from the summit of the battered Capitol, the
Invisible Emperor would strike such a blow as should bring America to
her knees!

* * * * *

It was a twelve-hour ultimatum, and before three hours had passed
thousands of citizens had taken possession of the Capitol and filled
all the approaches. Over their heads floated banners--the Stars and
Stripes, and, blazoned across them the words, "No Surrender."

It was a spontaneous uprising of the people of Washington. Hungry,
homeless in the sharpening autumn weather, and nearly all bereft of
members of their families, too often of the breadwinner, now lying
deep beneath the rubble that littered the streets, they had gathered
in their thousands to protest against any attempt to yield.

Dick, flying overhead at the apex of his squadron, felt his heart
swell with elation as he watched the orderly crowds. This was at three
in the afternoon: at six the ultimatum ended, the new frightfulness
was to begin.

At five, Vice-president Tomlinson was to address the crowds. The old
man had risen to the occasion. He had cast off his pompousness and
vanity, and was known to favor war to the bitter end. Dick and his
squadron circled above the broken dome as the car that carried the
Vice-president and the secretaries of State and for War approached
along the Avenue.

Rat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat!

Out of the blue sky streams of lead were poured into the assembled
multitudes. Instantly they had become converted into a panic-stricken
mob, turning this way and that.

Rat-a-tat-tat. Swaths of dead and dying men rolled in the dust, and,
as wheat falls under the reaper's blade, the mob melted away in lines
and by battalions. Within thirty seconds the whole terrain was piled
with dead and dying.

"My God, it's massacre! It's murder!" shouted Dick.

* * * * *

They had not even waited for the twelve hours to expire. To and fro
the invisible airplanes shot through the blue evening sky, till the
last fugitives were streaming away in all directions like hunted deer,
and the dead lay piled in ghastly heaps everywhere.

Out of these heaps wounded and dying men would stagger to their feet
to shake thei