Truxton King

Count Marlanx was a soldier. He knew how to take defeat and to bide his time; he knew how to behave in the hour of victory and in the moment of rout. The miscarriage of a detail here and there in this vast, comprehensive plan of action did not in the least sense discourage him. It was no light blow to his calculations, of course, when the designs of an organisation separate and distinct from his own failed in their purpose. It was part of his plan to hold the misguided Reds responsible for the lamentable death of Prince Robin. The people were to be given swift, uncontrovertible proof that he had no hand in the unforeseen transactions of the anarchists, who, he would make it appear, had by curious coincidence elected to kill the Prince almost at the very hour when he planned to seize the city as a conqueror.

His own connection with the operations of the mysterious Committee of Ten was never to be known to the world. He would see to that.

At nine o'clock on Sunday morning a small group of people gathered in the square: a meeting was soon in progress. A goods-box stood over against the very spot on which Olga Platanova died. An old man began haranguing the constantly growing crowd, made up largely of those whose curiosity surpassed discreetness. In the group might have been seen every member of the Committee of Ten, besides a full representation of those who up to now had secretly affiliated with the Party of Equals. A red flag waved above the little, excited group of fanatics, close to the goods-box rostrum. One member of the Committee was absent from this, their first public espousal of the cause. Later on we are to discover who this man was. Two women in bright red waists were crying encouragement to the old man on the box, whose opening sentences were no less than an unchanted requiem for the dead martyr, Olga Platanova.

In the midst of his harangue, the hand of William Spantz was arrested in one of its most emphatic gestures. A look of wonder and uncertainty came into his face as he gazed, transfixed, over the heads of his hearers in the direction of the Tower.

Peter Brutus was approaching, at the head of a group of aliens, all armed and marching in ominously good order. Something in the face of Peter Brutus sent a chill of apprehension into the very soul of the old armourer.

And well it may have done so.

"One moment!" called out Peter Brutus, lifting his hand imperatively. The speaker ceased his mouthings. "Count Marlanx desires the immediate presence of the following citizens at his office in the Tower. I shall call off the names." He began with William Spantz. The name of each of his associates in the Committee of Ten followed. After them came a score of names, all of them known to be supporters of the anarchist cause.