Thrown into a panic, the Government immediately took repressive measures. This time neither pretty gentlemen nor kiddykuddlers were spared; their ranks were decimated, the victims chosen by lot. The reign of terror recalled the worst moments of the war. By no means all the deaths were caused by Government action; the two parties inflicted wholesale massacres on each other, and many men with no particular political convictions took advantage of the general disorder to go about wounding and murdering. Still the voice fluted on: its demand for fresh air and sunlight could be heard above the rattle of machine-guns and the volleys of firing squads. The Government retired to their most secret bomb-proof, gas-proof, ray-proof, germ-proof shelter, and there it was that they ordered the Slaughter of the Innocents which brought the dispensation to an end.
For hardly had the shots rung out and the toddlers toppled over than the second child appeared. No shouts of laughter greeted him, only aghast faces and a horrified, despairing silence. He said nothing, but beckoned and slowly walked away; and by ones and twos people began to move. Nobody tried to stop them as they passed down long corridors, and when they came to the mouth of the cave the guards stood up and saluted them. So they went out into the daylight, about a million in all, half the population of the English Underworld.
[Facial Justice, Hartley, L. P.]
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