iff-raff of all Europe, all of whom were under the control of leaders
who could sway them in any movement, provided it was against law and
order. As a matter of fact, according to Brutus, nearly a thousand
aliens were at work on the road, all of them ready to revolt the instant
the command was given by their advisers.

Something that the Committee of Ten did not know was this: those alien
workmen were no less than so many hired mercenaries in the employ of the
Iron Count, brought together by that leader and his agents for the sole
purpose of overthrowing the Crown in one sudden, unexpected attack,
whereupon Count Marlanx would step in and assume control of the
government. They had been collected from all parts of the world to do
the bidding of this despised nobleman, no matter to what lengths he
might choose to lead them. Brutus, of course, knew all this: his
companions on the Committee were in complete ignorance of the true
motives that brought Marlanx into their operations.

With a cunning that commands admiration, the Iron Count deliberately
sanctioned the assassination of the little Prince by the Reds, knowing
that the condemnation of the world would fall upon them instead of upon
him, and that his own actions following the regicide would at once stamp
him as irrevocably opposed to anarchy and all of its practices!

In the course of his remarks, Peter Brutus touched hastily upon the
subject of the little Prince.

"He's not very big," said he, with a laugh, "and it won't require a very
big bomb to blow him to smithereens. He will--"

"Stop!" cried Olga Platanova, springing to her feet and glaring at him
with dilated eyes. "I cannot listen to you! You shall not speak of it in
that way! Peter Brutus, you are not to speak of--of what I am to do!
Never--never again!"

They looked at her in amazement and no little concern. Madame Drovnask
was the first to speak, her glittering eyes fastened upon the drawn,
white face of the girl across the table.

"Are you going to fail? Are you weakening?" she demanded.

"No! I am not going to fail! But I will not permit any one to jest about
the thing I am to do. It is a sacred duty with me. But, Madame
Drovnask--all of you, listen--it is a cruel, diabolical thing, just the
same. Were it not in behalf of our great humanity, I, myself, should
call it the blackest piece of cruelty the world has ever known. The
slaughter of a little boy! A dear, innocent little boy! I can see the