"Great events focus and transpire within six months. What I tell you is true. The hostile standards of England, Russia, Germany, France, Japan, and your own Republic, which has departed from its wise traditions, flout the Yellow Dragon in the precincts of his own citadel and temple. Is not this true, Maros?" turning to one who looked the prophet and seer. "Aye, indeed, and the best loved of this man's kindred fell in the assault. He will know if I am permitted to name him." "Shall he be permitted?" "Freely." "Albert Marshall, a sergeant of Marines, your playmate and foster brother, the next beloved of your mother, the son of her deceased sister; your mother reared him as her own son, and she knows, as yet, nothing of the disaster which has befallen you nor the loss of her foster son. He was of your own age, and like you tall, athletic and vigorous, with fair hair and complexion and blue eyes, the very counterpart of yourself--a man fit for a higher destiny than butchery." "O Albert! O unhappy, stricken mother!" I cried in agony. "Revered sir, I believe your words. They are absolutely convincing. Tell me how you came into possession of this strange information." "In time; but be patient. Lament not for the dead; sorrow not for the living. We must presently debark. Come to my garden tomorrow. It lies within the shadow of the Temple of Thought, Memory and Hope. My home is unpretentious, but you will be welcome. There is need that you should come. Tomorrow your mother will be apprised of the death of your kinsman; almost simultaneously will come rumors of your shipwreck. She must be assured of your safety within twenty-four hours, if you hope to meet her again." "But how can I com----" "Peace, patience; sufficient unto tomorrow is the labor and issue thereof." The Merocar gently ran into its slip, and we debarked, Xamas carrying me to his home in a vehicle of strange design and mysterious power of propulsion. II. XAMAS, THE FIRST CITIZEN, EXPLAINS THE POLITY AND PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROMOTING THE INTERESTS OF ALL THE PEOPLE OF INTERMERE. II. THE FIRST CITIZEN. I shall so far anticipate as to say that the city in which I found myself was known as the Greater City, in contradistinction of the Lesser City, lying at the opposite end of the inland sea or mere. This body of water extends in an oval shape or form north and south, its length being approximately four hundred miles, and its greatest width at the latitudinal center two hundred miles, gradually narrowing toward the opposite extremes, where it gently expands into rounded bays, forming the extended water fronts of both cities. The Greater City was clearly the original seat of the present civilization, from which it extended southward along both shores until it met at the southern apex and became the Lesser City. I was able, however, to distinguish but little, if any, difference between the two.