decorations, conversing freely and easily, writing notes, summoning men before them, and giving orders. Here, wearing a cross on his breast, near them, is prosperous-looking old Priest in a silken cassock, with long gray hair flowing on to his cope; before a lectern who wears the golden cross and has a Gospel bound in gold.

They summon Iran Petroff.

A young man comes in, wretchedly, shabbily dressed, and in terror, the muscles of his face working, his eyes bright and restless; and in a broken voice, hardly above a whisper, he says: “I — by Christ's law — as a Christian — I cannot.” “What is he muttering?” asks the president, frowning impatiently and raising his eyes from his book to listen. “Speak louder,” the colonel with shining epaulets shouts to him.