Olga Romanoff | Page 4

peace which the men of the generation now passing away have won
through strife and toil in the fiery days of the Terror, may be yours and
endure unbroken unto the end.

CHAPTER I.
THE SURRENDER OF THE WORLD-THRONE.

A HUNDRED years had passed since Natas, the Master of the Terror,
had given into the hands of Richard Arnold his charge to the future
generations of the Aerians -- as the descendants of the Terrorists who
had colonised the mountain-walled valley of Aeria, in Central Africa,
were now called; since the man, who had planned and accomplished
the greatest revolution in the history of the world, had given his last
blessing to his companions-in-arms and their children, and had "turned
his face to the wall and died."
It was midday, on the 8th of December 2030, and the rulers of all the
civilised States of the world were gathered together in St. Paul's
Cathedral to receive, from the hands of a descendant of Natas in the
fourth generation, the restoration of the right of independent national
rule which, on the same spot a hundred and twenty-five years before,
had been taken from the sovereigns of Europe and vested in the
Supreme Council of the Anglo-Saxon Federation.
The period of tutelage had passed. Under the wise and firm rule of the
Council and the domination of the Anglo-Saxon race, the Golden Age
had seemed to return to the world. For a hundred and twenty-five years
there had been peace on earth, broken only by the outbreak and speedy
suppression of a few tribal wars among the more savage races of Africa
and Malaysia. Now the descendants of those who had been victors and
vanquished in the world-war of 1904, had met to give back and assume
the freedom and the responsibility of national independence.
The vast cathedral was thronged, as it had been on the momentous day
when Natas had pronounced his judgment on the last of the Tyrants of
Russia, and ended the old order of things in Europe. But it was filled by
a very different assembly to that which had stood within its walls on
the morrow of Armageddon.
Then the stress and horror of a mighty conflict had set its stamp on
every face. Hate had looked out of eyes in which the tears were
scarcely dry, and hungered fiercely for the blood of the oppressor. The
clash of arms, the stern command and the pitiless words of doom had
sounded then in ears which but a few hours before had listened to the
roar of artillery and the thunder of battle. That had been the dawn of the

morrow of strife; this was the zenith of the noon of peace.
Now, in all the vast assembly, no hand held a weapon, no face was
there which showed a sign of sorrow, fear, or anger and in no heart,
save only two among the thousands, was there a thought of hate or
bitterness.
For three days past the Festival of Deliverance had been celebrated all
over the civilised world, and now, in the centre of the city which had
come to be the capital, not only of the vast domains of
Anglo-Saxondom, but of the whole world, a solemn act of renunciation
was to be performed, upon the issues of which the fate of all humanity
would hang; for the members of the Supreme Council had come
through the skies from their seat of empire in Aeria to abdicate the
world-throne in obedience to the command of the dead Master, from
whom their ancestors had derived it.
At a table, drawn across the front of the chancel, sat the President and
the twelve men who with him had up to this hour shared the empire of
the human race. Below the steps on the floor of the cathedral, sat, in a
wide semicircle, the rulers of the kingdoms and republics of the earth
assembled to hear the last word of their over-lords, and to receive from
them the power and responsibility of maintaining or forfeiting, as the
event should prove, the blessings which had multiplied under the
sovereignty of the Aerians.
The President of the Council was the direct descendant not only of
Alan Tremayne, its first President, but also of Richard Arnold and
Natasha; for their eldest son, born in the first year of the Peace, had
married the only daughter of Tremayne, and their first-born son had
been his father's father.
Although the average physique of civilised man had immensely
improved under the new order of things, the Aerians, descendants of
the pick of the nations of Europe, were as far superior to the rest of the
assembly as the latter would have been to the men and women of the
nineteenth century; but even amongst