of them, on the right side of the room, were revolutionists. They stood up and hurrahed at us. The other half, on the left, were prisoners. Most of them seemed to have dressed hurriedly. They looked at us with uneasy eyes.
Around the room, shoulder to shoulder against the wall except on the platform and where the doors were, stood Einarson’s soldiers.
An old man came in between two soldiers—a mild-eyed old gentleman, bald, stooped, with a wrinkled, clean-shaven, scholarly face.
“Doctor Semich,” Grantham whispered.
The President’s guards took him to the center one of the three desks on the platform. He paid no attention to us who were sitting on the platform, and he did not sit down.
A red-haired Deputy—one of the revolutionary party—got up and talked. His fellows cheered when he had finished. The President spoke—three words in a very dry, very calm voice, and left the platform to walk back the way he had come, the two soldiers accompanying him.
“Refused to resign,” Grantham informed me.
The red-haired Deputy came up on the platform and took the center desk. The legislative machinery began to grind. Men talked briefly, apparently to the point—revolutionists. None of the prisoner Deputies rose. A vote was taken. A few of the in-wrongs didn’t vote. Most of them seemed to vote with the ins.
“They’ve revoked the constitution.” Grantham whispered.
The Deputies were hurrahing again—those who were there voluntarily. Einarson leaned over and mumbled to Grantham and me:
“That is as far as we may safely go today. It leaves all in our hands.”