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Still amid an absolute silence, the investiture proceeded. Apleon took the costly and beautiful Ephod of a fourth priest. This vestment was in two pieces, one for the front, the other for the back. They were joined together, at the shoulders, by bands of wide gold braid, and buckled with two of the Anti-christ covenant badges.

"My name," said the smiling visitor, "is Lucien Apleon. As editor of a great journal like the 'Courier, you know who I am when you know my name, even though we have never met before. You were so busy, so absorbed, when I came in that I did not so much as cough to announce my presence." Ralph longed to ask him if he came through the door, or how, since he had heard no sound.

The news of the wondrous enthusiasm of the world's peoples gathered in Babylon and Jerusalem, in their new worship of the golden images of Apleon, had stirred London, New York, Berlin, Paris atheistical Paris; and all other great world-centres, and in each city many images had been set up.

4-30 p. m. 9th Sept., year 1 of Apleon. Appointment of the High Priest elect, by the Emperor. Address by The High Priest. Confirmation of the 7 years Covenant between the Hebrew Nation and the Emperor. Affirmatory Signatures and Seals affixed. Sign of the Sacrament to be distributed and donned by all present. 6-30 p. m.

The three-and-a-half years since the Covenant with Lucien Apleon, on the night before the opening at the Temple in Jerusalem, had been signed, had practically expired. God's judgments had been seen in many ways upon the earth during these forty-two months. The position which Apleon now held, as the "World's Dictator," had not been the work of a day.

Together they conversed in low, serious, guarded tones, until they suddenly discovered themselves close up to a mighty throng gathered about the now well-known witnesses, Enoch and Elijah. The two priests paused to listen to the witnesses' denunciations of Apleon, whom they designated "The Beast." "The Anti-christ."

It was the unanimous feeling, and expressed opinion, that Apleon would send forth other expeditions to destroy them, if he learned that they had escaped the fate of his aerial and land pursuit. "I do not believe," cried Cohen, the chief spokesman among the Jews, "that God Jehovah has permitted one of our pursuers to escape. God's judgments, like His mercies, are full and complete.

Attendant priests stood by, each holding one garment or ornament, as the case might be, ready for the investiture. Apleon rose from his throne, a magnificent, but a sardonic figure for all that. As he rose, soft, weird music came from an angle where a screen of palm-ferns was placed. Though mechanical, the music was of an exquisite character.

Turning to some of the Apleon guards who were massed on two sides of the Broadway, he said: "Strip him! and lash him ." He lifted his eyes to the sun, calculated how it would travel, then, with a fiendish smile, he indicated one of the pillars of the colonnade, "lash him there were the sun will reach him." They tore the clothes from the fine form of the loyal young Jew.

Coming back at this particular moment, Ralph asked himself: "Is Lucien Apleon the Anti-christ?" He paused an instant, then, as a sudden startling sense of assurance of the fact swept into his soul he cried: "He is! I have seen the Anti-christ!"