tening
noises which reinforced the command. No sooner had we reluctantly
complied than they proceeded methodically to puncture the tires and
smash the propellers.

My horror at this marooning among the degenerates was not lessened by
their ugly and illdisposed looks and I feared they would not be content
with smashing the plane, but would take out their animus against those
who had not sunk into their own bestial state by destroying us as well.
Since I do not speak much French, I could only say to the man nearest
me, a sinister fellow in a blue smock with a brown stockingcap on his
head, "C'est un disgrace, ca; je demandez le pourquoi."

He looked at me for a baffled moment before calling, "Jean, Jean!"

Jean was even more illfavored, having a scar across his mouth which gave
him an artificial harelip. However, he spoke English of a kind. "Your
airship has been confiscated, citizen."

"What the devil do you mean? That plane is my personal property."

"There is no personal property in the Republic One and Indivisible,"
replied Jean. "Be thankful your life is spared, Citizen Englishman, and
go without further argumentations."

I suppose it was reasonable to take this advice, but I could not resist
informing him, "I am not an Englishman, but an American. We also had a
Republic one and indivisible."

He shook his head. "On your ways, citizen. The Republic does not make
distinctions between one bourgeois and another."

I looked around for the pilot, but he had vanished. Alone, furious at
the act of robbery and not a little apprehensive, I began walking toward
the coast; but I was not steeled against isolation among the barbarians
of the Continent, nor dressed for such an excursion. Between anxiety
lest I run into a less pompous and more bloodthirsty group of
representatives of the Republic One and Indivisible--when it had come
into being, how far its authority extended or how long it lasted I never
learned--and the burning and blistering of my feet in their thinsoled
shoes, I doubt if I was more than a few miles from the airfield and
therefore many from the coast when darkness fell. I kept on, tired,
anxious, hungry, in no better plight than thousands of other wretches
who at the same moment were heading the same way under identical
conditions.

The only advantage of traveling by night was the removal of my fear of
the intentions of men, but nature made up for this by putting her own
obstacles in my way. The hedge