eet us at the Hall to-night--seven sharp.'

'I will,' cried the Nihilist enthusiastically. 'I must go to one of your
blessed gatherings before my enemies are on my track. Ah, it's true--the
world is vanity. Dynamite is vanity. Torpedoes, nitro-glycerine--they're
dust and ashes, broken cisterns! I renounce them all.'

They had reached an important metropolitan railway station, and the
General's party, entering, began to take tickets for their return
journey. Then, for the first time, the Nihilist noticed that the General
also carried a black bag, in shape and size similar to his own, which he
placed on the floor of the booking-office as he went to take his ticket.
Queen Mab never fully comprehended what happened next. She could only
assert that the expression on the face of the Nihilist was one of
fervent and devoted piety, as, with an ejaculation of 'Hallelujah!' he
absently put down his own bag and took up that of the General. Then he
broke out, as in irrepressible enthusiasm, with a verse of 'Dare to be
a Daniel!' The General, turning round, looked duly edified at this
outburst of ardour, and took up his bag of pamphlets, as he supposed,
without any suspicion of the length to which his friend's devotional
rapture had carried him. The Nihilist then bade a hurried farewell,
observing rather incoherently that the weight of sin was heavy on his
conscience, and he was going to submerge it instantly at St. Paul's
Pier. With this parting statement he rushed from the station, and Queen
Mab, with a sense of misgiving, followed hastily.

A moment after, the city was thrilled by a loud explosion. No one was
killed: above a hundred persons were injured, and the cause of the
disturbance was traced to a bag left by the General on the platform
close to the bookstall. For the next two or three days the station wore
a blackened, distracted, and generally intermingled appearance. The big
drum suffered the most severely, and shreds of parchment were wafted
to a great distance, and gathered up, many of them, by adherents of the
Army, as relics of this unfortunate martyr of Progress and of Nihilism.
Many of the other instruments were shattered, and so great was the force
of the explosion, that a small fragment of a bagpipe was propelled into
St. Paul's Cathedral, where it was discovered next day, on the lectern,
by the Canon who read the lessons. The General, for some time, was
supposed to have disappeared with these instruments; but it