y bringing into the field a force
with which no army or fleet could contend without the certainty of
destruction. By these means we should ultimately compel peace and
enforce a general disarmament on land and sea.

"The vast majority of those who make the wealth of the world are sick
of seeing that wealth wasted in the destruction of human life, and
the ruin of peaceful industries. As soon, therefore, as we are in a
position to dictate terms under such tremendous penalties, all the
innumerable organisations with which we are in touch all over the
world will rise in arms and enforce them at all costs.

"Of course, it goes without saying that the powers that are now
enthroned in the high places of the world will fight bitterly and
desperately to retain the rule that they have held for so long, but
in the end we shall be victorious, and then on the ruins of this
civilisation a new and a better shall arise.

"That is a rough, brief outline of the policy of the Brotherhood,
which we are going to ask you to-night to join. Of course, in the
eyes of the world we are only a set of fiends, whose sole object is
the destruction of Society, and the inauguration of a state of
universal anarchy. That, however, has no concern for us. What is
called popular opinion is merely manufactured by the Press according
to order, and does not count in serious concerns. What I have
described to you are the true objects of the Brotherhood; and now it
remains for you to say, yes or no, whether you will devote yourself
and your invention to carrying them out or not."

For two or three minutes after the masked spokesman of the Inner
Circle had ceased speaking, there was absolute silence in the room.
The calmly spoken words which deliberately sketched out the ruin of a
civilisation and the establishment of a new order of things made a
deep impression on Arnold's mind. He saw clearly that he was standing
at the parting of the ways, and facing the most tremendous crisis
that could occur in the life of a human being.

It was only natural that he should look back, as he did, to the life
from which a single step would now part him for ever, without the
possibility of going back. He knew that if he once put his hands to
the plough, and looked back, death, swift and inevitable, would be
the penalty of his wavering. This, however, he had already weighed
and decided.

Most of what he had heard had found an echo in his own convictions.
Moreover, the life