And when the roll-call was ended, every man, priest or layman, youth or octogenarian, had cast his own die of fate, had staked the safety of himself and family, and hurled back into the teeth of the great Bear from the north the unanimous answer of a desperate and downtrodden people who preferred a future of unknown terror to the voluntary sacrifice of their national dignity and of their recently earned right to work out their own salvation.

Amid tears and applause from the spectators, the crestfallen and frightened cabinet withdrew, while the deputies dispersed to ponder on the course which lay darkly before their people.

By this vote, the cabinet, according to the Persian constitution, ceased to exist as a legal entity.

Great crowds of people thronged the “Lalezar,” one of the principal streets of Teheran, shouting death to the traitors and calling Allah to witness that they would give up their lives for their country.

A few days later, in a secret conference between the deputies of the Medjlis and the members of the deposed cabinet, a similar vote was given to reject the Russian demands.  Meanwhile, thousands of Russian troops, with cossacks and artillery, were pouring into northern Persia, from Tiflis and Julfa by land and from Baku across the Caspian, to the Persian port of Enzeli, whence they took up their 220-mile march over the Elburz mountains toward Kasvin and Teheran.

In the government at Teheran, conference followed conference.  Intrigues against the deputies gave way to threats.  Through it all, with the increasing certainty of personal injury, the members of the Medjlis stood firmly by their vote.

It is impossible to describe within the limits of this article the days and nights of doubt, suspense, and anxiety that followed one another in the capital during this dark month of December.  There was a lurking dread in the very air, and the snow-covered mountains themselves seemed afflicted with the mournful scenes through which the country was passing.

A boycott was proclaimed by the priests against Russian and English goods.  In a day, the old-fashioned tramway of the city was deserted on the mere suspicion that it was owned in Russia, while an excited Belgian Minister rained protests and petitions on the Persian Foreign Office in an endeavor to show that the tramway was owned by his countrymen.  Crowds of youths, students, and women filled the street, dragging absent-minded passengers from the cars, smashing the windows of shops that still displayed Russian goods, seeing that no one drank tea because it came from Russia, although produced in India, and going in processions before the gates of the foreign legations to demand justice of the representatives of the world powers for a people in the extremity of despair.

One day, the rumor would come that the chief “mullahs” or priests at Nadjef had proclaimed the “holy war” (jihad) against the Russians; on another, that the Russian troops had commenced to shoot up Kasvin on their march to Teheran.