s,
seemed to be precipitating itself with a realistic sweep, crushing
panic-stricken humanity.

Suddenly something happened which startled the three men from their
contemplative admiration--something unusual, indefinable, a dreadful
sound which seemed to enter directly into their brains without passing
through their ears--a clutch at the heart. Instinctively they knew that
something very grave had just happened.

They stared at each other silently for a few interminable seconds.

Through the open door, a cry of alarm came up from the patio.

With a common impulse, the three ran to the interior window, but before
reaching them, the Russian had a presentiment.

"My neighbor! . . . It must be my neighbor. Perhaps she has killed
herself!"

Looking down, they could see lights below, people moving around a form
stretched out on the tiled floor. The alarm had instantly filled all
the court windows, for it was a sleepless night--a night of nervous
apprehension when everyone was keeping a sad vigil.

"She has killed herself," said a voice which seemed to come up from a
well. "The German woman has committed suicide."

The explanation of the concierge leaped from window to window up to the
top floor.

The Russian was shaking his head with a fatalistic expression. The
unhappy woman had not taken the death-leap of her own accord. Someone
had intensified her desperation, someone had pushed her. . . . The
horsemen! The four horsemen of the Apocalypse! . . . Already they were
in the saddle! Already they were beginning their merciless gallop of
destruction!

The blind forces of evil were about to be let loose throughout the
world.

The agony of humanity, under the brutal sweep of the four horsemen, was
already begun!

PART II

CHAPTER I

WHAT DON MARCELO ENVIED

Upon being convinced that war really was inevitable, the elder Desnoyers
was filled with amazement. Humanity had gone crazy. Was it possible that
war could happen in these days of so many railroads, so many merchant
marines, so many inventions, so much activity developed above and below
the earth? . . . The nations would ruin themselves forever. They were
now accustomed to luxuries and necessities unknown a century ago.
Capital was master of the world, and war was going to wipe it out. In
its turn, war would be wiped out in a few months' time through lack
of funds to sustain it. His soul of a business man revolted before the
hundreds of thousand