About ten o'clock Max returned and told us all to come up to the roof. The house stood, as I have already said, upon a corner; it was in the older part of the city, and not far from where the first great battle would be fought. Max whispered to me that the blow would be struck at six o'clock in Europe and at twelve o'clock at night in America. The fighting therefore had already begun in the Old World. He further explained to me something of the plan of battle. The Brotherhood at twelve would barricade a group of streets in which were the Sub-Treasury of the United States, and all the principal banks, to wit: Cedar, Pine, Wall, Nassau, William, Pearl and Water Streets. Two hundred thousand men would be assembled to guard these barricades. They would then burst open the great moneyed institutions and blow up the safes with giant powder and Hecla powder. At daybreak one of Quincy's air-ships would come and receive fifty millions of the spoils in gold, as their share of the plunder, and the price of their support. As soon as this was delivered, and carried to their armory, the whole fleet of air-vessels would come up and attack the troops of the Oligarchy. If, however, General Quincy should violate his agreement, and betray them, they had provided a large number of great cannon, mounted on high wheels, so that they could be fired vertically, and these were to be loaded with bombs of the most powerful explosives known to science, and so constructed with fulminating caps that, if they struck the air-ship at any point, they would explode and either destroy it or so disarrange its machinery as to render it useless. Thus they were provided, he thought, for every emergency. At eleven he came to me and whispered that if anything happened to him he depended on me to take his wife and mother and his father, if possible, with me to Africa. I grasped his hand and assured him of my devotion. He then embraced Christina and his mother and left them, weeping bitterly, in each other's arms. There was a parapet around the roof. I went to the corner of it, and, leaning over, looked down into the street. Estella came and stood beside me. She was very calm and quiet. The magnetic lights yet burned, and the streets below me were almost as bright as day. There were comparatively few persons moving about. Here and there a carriage, or a man on horseback, dashed furiously past, at full speed; and I thought to myself, "The Oligarchy have heard of the tremendous outbreak in Europe, and are making preparations for another here." It was a still, clear night; and the great solemn stars moved over the face of heaven unconscious or indifferent as to what was going forward on this clouded little orb.