numbers, not for purposes of assassination, but for use in open warfare, especially against cavalry.  Meanwhile an untiring secret propaganda was going on in the army, in the navy, and among the peasantry.  Almost every seaman in the navy, and in many regiments almost all the non-commissioned officers and men, were revolutionaries; while commissioned officers by the score were won over.  It is marvelous that so wide-spread a propaganda was only vaguely known to the Government, and did not beget a crowd of informers.  One man, it is true, who showed a disposition to use his secret knowledge for purposes of blackmail, was found dead in the streets of Cascaes.  On the whole, not only secrecy but discipline was marvelously maintained.

At last the propitious moment arrived.  Three ships of war—­the Dom Carlos, the Adamastor, and the San Raphael—­were in the Tagus to do honor to the President-elect of Brazil, who was visiting King Manuel; but the Government knew that their presence was dangerous, and would certainly order them off again as soon as possible.  The blow must be struck before that occurred.  At a meeting of the committee on October 2, 1910, it was agreed that the signal should be given in the early morning of October 4th.  All the parts were cast, all the duties were assigned:  who should call this and that barrack to arms, who should cut this and that railway line, who should take possession of the central telegraph-office, and so forth.  The whole scheme was laid down in detail in a precious paper, in the keeping of Simoes Raposo.  “You had better give it to me,” said Dr. Bombarda, “for I am less likely than you to be arrested.  Even if they should think of searching at Rilhafolles [the asylum of which he was director], I can easily hide it in one of the books of my library.”  His suggestion was accepted, the paper on which their lives and that of the Republic depended was handed to him, and the meeting broke up.

On the morning of Monday, October 3d, all was as quiet in Lisbon as King Carlos himself could have desired.  At about eleven o’clock Dr. Bombarda sat in his office at the asylum, when a former patient, a young lieutenant who had suffered from the persecution mania, was announced to see him.  Bombarda rose and asked him how he was.  Without a word the visitor produced a Browning pistol and fired point blank at the physician, putting three bullets in his body.  Bombarda had strength enough to seize his assailant by the wrists and hand him over to the attendants who rushed in.  He then walked down-stairs unaided before he realized how serious were his wounds.  It soon appeared, however, that he had not many hours to live; and when this became clear to him, he took a paper from his pocketbook and insisted that it should be burned before his eyes.  What the paper was I need not say.  At about six in the evening he died.

Bombarda was a passionate anticlerical, and his murderer was a fanatical Catholic.  The citizens, with whom he was very popular, jumped at the conclusion that the priests had inspired the deed.  As soon as his death was announced in the transparency outside the office of O Seculo, there were demonstrations of anger among the crowd and some conflicts with the police.