n appeared on a white
horse. In his hand he carried a bow, and a crown was given unto him.
He was Conquest, according to some, the Plague according to others. He
might be both things at the same time. He wore a crown, and that was
enough for Tchernoff.

"Come forth," shouted the second animal, removing his thousand eyes. And
from the broken seal leaped a flame-colored steed. His rider brandished
over his head an enormous sword. He was War. Peace fled from the world
before his furious gallop; humanity was going to be exterminated.

And when the third seal was broken, another of the winged animals
bellowed like a thunder clap, "Come and see!" And John saw a black
horse. He who mounted it held in his hand a scale in order to weigh the
maintenance of mankind. He was Famine.

The fourth animal saluted the breaking of the fourth seal with a great
roaring--"Come and see!" And there appeared a pale-colored horse. His
rider was called Death, and power was given him to destroy with the
sword and with hunger and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The four horsemen were beginning their mad, desolating course over the
heads of terrified humanity.

Tchernoff was describing the four scourges of the earth exactly as
though he were seeing them. The horseman on the white horse was clad in
a showy and barbarous attire. His Oriental countenance was contracted
with hatred as if smelling out his victims. While his horse continued
galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence
abroad. At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows,
containing the germs of all diseases--those of private life as well as
those which envenom the wounded soldier on the battlefield.

The second horseman on the red steed was waving the enormous, two-edged
sword over his hair bristling with the swiftness of his course. He was
young, but the fierce scowl and the scornful mouth gave him a look of
implacable ferocity. His garments, blown open by the motion of his wild
race, disclosed the form of a muscular athlete.

Bald, old and horribly skinny was the third horseman bouncing up and
down on the rawboned back of his black steed. His shrunken legs clanked
against the thin flanks of the lean beast. In one withered hand he was
holding the scales, symbol of the scarcity of food that was going to
become as valuable as gold.

The knees of the fourth horseman, sharp as spurs, were pricking the
ribs of the pale horse. His pa