“There are other plans afoot,” was the retort.  “That is why the soldiers are present.”

“Our plans, I suppose,” Ernest sneered.  “Assassination or something kindred.”

But at the word “assassination” the uproar broke out again.  Ernest could not make himself heard, but he remained on his feet waiting for a lull.  And then it happened.  From my place in the gallery I saw nothing except the flash of the explosion.  The roar of it filled my ears and I saw Ernest reeling and falling in a swirl of smoke, and the soldiers rushing up all the aisles.  His comrades were on their feet, wild with anger, capable of any violence.  But Ernest steadied himself for a moment, and waved his arms for silence.

“It is a plot!” his voice rang out in warning to his comrades.  “Do nothing, or you will be destroyed.”

Then he slowly sank down, and the soldiers reached him.  The next moment soldiers were clearing the galleries and I saw no more.

Though he was my husband, I was not permitted to get to him.  When I announced who I was, I was promptly placed under arrest.  And at the same time were arrested all socialist Congressmen in Washington, including the unfortunate Simpson, who lay ill with typhoid fever in his hotel.

The trial was prompt and brief.  The men were foredoomed.  The wonder was that Ernest was not executed.  This was a blunder on the part of the Oligarchy, and a costly one.  But the Oligarchy was too confident in those days.  It was drunk with success, and little did it dream that that small handful of heroes had within them the power to rock it to its foundations.  To-morrow, when the Great Revolt breaks out and all the world resounds with the tramp, tramp of the millions, the Oligarchy, will realize, and too late, how mightily that band of heroes has grown.*

* Avis Everhard took for granted that her narrative would be read in her own day, and so omits to mention the outcome of the trial for high treason.  Many other similar disconcerting omissions will be noticed in the Manuscript.  Fifty-two socialist Congressmen were tried, and all were found guilty.  Strange to relate, not one received the death sentence.  Everhard and eleven others, among whom were Theodore Donnelson and Matthew Kent, received life imprisonment.  The remaining forty received sentences varying from thirty to forty-five years; while Arthur Simpson, referred to in the Manuscript as being ill of typhoid fever at the time of the explosion, received only fifteen years.  It is the tradition that he died of starvation in solitary confinement, and this harsh treatment is explained as having been caused by his uncompromising stubbornness and his fiery and tactless hatred for all men that served the despotism.  He died in Cabanas in Cuba, where three of his comrades were also confined.  The fifty- two socialist Congressmen were confined in military fortresses scattered all over the United States.  Thus, Du Bois and Woods