A subdued murmur of assent ran through the ranks of the artisans, and Chromatistes, in alarm, attempted to step forward and address them. But he found himself encompassed with guards and forced to remain silent while the Chief Circle in a few impassioned words made a final appeal to the women, exclaiming that, if the Colour Bill passed, no marriage would henceforth be safe, no woman’s honour secure; fraud, deception, hypocrisy would pervade every household; domestic bliss would share the fate of the Constitution and pass to speedy perdition. “Sooner than this,” he cried, “come death.”

At these words, which were the preconcerted signal for action, the Isosceles Convicts fell on and transfixed the wretched Chromatistes; the regular classes, opening their ranks, made way for a band of women who, under direction of the Circles, moved, back foremost, invisibly and unerringly upon the unconscious soldiers; the artisans, imitating the example of their betters, also opened their ranks. Meantime bands of convicts occupied every entrance with an impenetrable phalanx.

The battle, or rather carnage, was of short duration. Under the skillful generalship of the Circles almost every woman’s charge was fatal and very many extracted their sting uninjured, ready for a second slaughter. But no second blow was needed; the rabble of the Isosceles did the rest of the business for themselves. Surprised, leader-less, attacked in front by invisible foes, and finding egress cut off by the convicts behind them, they at once⁠—after their manner⁠—lost all presence of mind, and raised the cry of “treachery.” This sealed their fate. Every Isosceles now saw and felt a foe in every other. In half an hour not one of that vast multitude was living; and the fragments of seven score thousand of the criminal class slain by one another’s angles attested the triumph of Order.