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diff --git a/12163-0.txt b/12163-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eaf1d0b --- /dev/null +++ b/12163-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8733 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12163 *** + + THE SLEEPER AWAKES + + A Revised Edition of "When the Sleeper Wakes" + + H.G. WELLS + + 1899 + + + + +PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION + +_When the Sleeper Wakes_, whose title I have now altered to _The Sleeper +Awakes_, was first published as a book in 1899 after a serial appearance +in the _Graphic_ and one or two American and colonial periodicals. It is +one of the most ambitious and least satisfactory of my books, and I have +taken the opportunity afforded by this reprinting to make a number of +excisions and alterations. Like most of my earlier work, it was written +under considerable pressure; there are marks of haste not only in the +writing of the latter part, but in the very construction of the story. +Except for certain streaks of a slovenliness which seems to be an almost +unavoidable defect in me, there is little to be ashamed of in the writing +of the opening portion; but it will be fairly manifest to the critic that +instead of being put aside and thought over through a leisurely +interlude, the ill-conceived latter part was pushed to its end. I was at +that time overworked, and badly in need of a holiday. In addition to +various necessary journalistic tasks, I had in hand another book, _Love +and Mr. Lewisham_, which had taken a very much stronger hold upon my +affections than this present story. My circumstances demanded that one or +other should be finished before I took any rest, and so I wound up the +Sleeper sufficiently to make it a marketable work, hoping to be able to +revise it before the book printers at any rate got hold of it. But +fortune was against me. I came back to England from Italy only to fall +dangerously ill, and I still remember the impotent rage and strain of my +attempt to put some sort of finish to my story of Mr. Lewisham, with my +temperature at a hundred and two. I couldn't endure the thought of +leaving that book a fragment. I did afterwards contrive to save it from +the consequences of that febrile spurt--_Love and Mr. Lewisham_ is indeed +one of my most carefully balanced books--but the Sleeper escaped me. + +It is twelve years now since the Sleeper was written, and that young man +of thirty-one is already too remote for me to attempt any very drastic +reconstruction of his work. I have played now merely the part of an +editorial elder brother: cut out relentlessly a number of long tiresome +passages that showed all too plainly the fagged, toiling brain, the heavy +sluggish _driven_ pen, and straightened out certain indecisions at the +end. Except for that, I have done no more than hack here and there at +clumsy phrases and repetitions. The worst thing in the earlier version, +and the thing that rankled most in my mind, was the treatment of the +relations of Helen Wotton and Graham. Haste in art is almost always +vulgarisation, and I slipped into the obvious vulgarity of making what +the newspaper syndicates call a "love interest" out of Helen. There was +even a clumsy intimation that instead of going up in the flying-machine +to fight, Graham might have given in to Ostrog, and married Helen. I have +now removed the suggestion of these uncanny connubialities. Not the +slightest intimation of any sexual interest could in truth have arisen +between these two. They loved and kissed one another, but as a girl and +her heroic grandfather might love, and in a crisis kiss. I have found it +possible, without any very serious disarrangement, to clear all that +objectionable stuff out of the story, and so a little ease my conscience +on the score of this ungainly lapse. I have also, with a few strokes of +the pen, eliminated certain dishonest and regrettable suggestions that +the People beat Ostrog. My Graham dies, as all his kind must die, with no +certainty of either victory or defeat. + +Who will win--Ostrog or the People? A thousand years hence that will +still be just the open question we leave to-day. + +H.G. WELLS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. INSOMNIA + + II. THE TRANCE + + III. THE AWAKENING + + IV. THE SOUND OF A TUMULT + + V. THE MOVING WAYS + + VI. THE HALL OF THE ATLAS + + VII. IN THE SILENT ROOMS + + VIII. THE ROOF SPACES + + IX. THE PEOPLE MARCH + + X. THE BATTLE OF THE DARKNESS + + XI. THE OLD MAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING + + XII. OSTROG + + XIII. THE END OF THE OLD ORDER + + XIV. FROM THE CROW'S NEST + + XV. PROMINENT PEOPLE + + XVI. THE MONOPLANE + + XVII. THREE DAYS + + XVIII. GRAHAM REMEMBERS + + XIX. OSTROG'S POINT OF VIEW + + XX. IN THE CITY WAYS + + XXI. THE UNDER-SIDE + + XXII. THE STRUGGLE IN THE COUNCIL HOUSE + + XXIII. GRAHAM SPEAKS HIS WORD + + XXIV. WHILE THE AEROPLANES WERE COMING + + XXV. THE COMING OF THE AEROPLANES + + + + +THE SLEEPER AWAKES + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INSOMNIA + + +One afternoon, at low water, Mr. Isbister, a young artist lodging at +Boscastle, walked from that place to the picturesque cove of Pentargen, +desiring to examine the caves there. Halfway down the precipitous path to +the Pentargen beach he came suddenly upon a man sitting in an attitude of +profound distress beneath a projecting mass of rock. The hands of this +man hung limply over his knees, his eyes were red and staring before him, +and his face was wet with tears. + +He glanced round at Isbister's footfall. Both men were disconcerted, +Isbister the more so, and, to override the awkwardness of his involuntary +pause, he remarked, with an air of mature conviction, that the weather +was hot for the time of year. + +"Very," answered the stranger shortly, hesitated a second, and added in a +colourless tone, "I can't sleep." + +Isbister stopped abruptly. "No?" was all he said, but his bearing +conveyed his helpful impulse. + +"It may sound incredible," said the stranger, turning weary eyes to +Isbister's face and emphasizing his words with a languid hand, "but I +have had no sleep--no sleep at all for six nights." + +"Had advice?" + +"Yes. Bad advice for the most part. Drugs. My nervous system.... They are +all very well for the run of people. It's hard to explain. I dare not +take ... sufficiently powerful drugs." + +"That makes it difficult," said Isbister. + +He stood helplessly in the narrow path, perplexed what to do. Clearly the +man wanted to talk. An idea natural enough under the circumstances, +prompted him to keep the conversation going. "I've never suffered from +sleeplessness myself," he said in a tone of commonplace gossip, "but in +those cases I have known, people have usually found something--" + +"I dare make no experiments." + +He spoke wearily. He gave a gesture of rejection, and for a space both +men were silent. + +"Exercise?" suggested Isbister diffidently, with a glance from his +interlocutor's face of wretchedness to the touring costume he wore. + +"That is what I have tried. Unwisely perhaps. I have followed the coast, +day after day--from New Quay. It has only added muscular fatigue to the +mental. The cause of this unrest was overwork--trouble. There was +something--" + +He stopped as if from sheer fatigue. He rubbed his forehead with a lean +hand. He resumed speech like one who talks to himself. + +"I am a lone wolf, a solitary man, wandering through a world in which I +have no part. I am wifeless--childless--who is it speaks of the childless +as the dead twigs on the tree of life? I am wifeless, childless--I could +find no duty to do. No desire even in my heart. One thing at last I set +myself to do. + +"I said, I _will_ do this, and to do it, to overcome the inertia of this +dull body, I resorted to drugs. Great God, I've had enough of drugs! I +don't know if _you_ feel the heavy inconvenience of the body, its +exasperating demand of time from the mind--time--life! Live! We only live +in patches. We have to eat, and then comes the dull digestive +complacencies--or irritations. We have to take the air or else our +thoughts grow sluggish, stupid, run into gulfs and blind alleys. A +thousand distractions arise from within and without, and then comes +drowsiness and sleep. Men seem to live for sleep. How little of a man's +day is his own--even at the best! And then come those false friends, +those Thug helpers, the alkaloids that stifle natural fatigue and kill +rest--black coffee, cocaine--" + +"I see," said Isbister. + +"I did my work," said the sleepless man with a querulous intonation. + +"And this is the price?" + +"Yes." + +For a little while the two remained without speaking. + +"You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel--a hunger and +thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a +whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts +leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady--" He paused. "Towards +the gulf." + +"You must sleep," said Isbister decisively, and with an air of a remedy +discovered. "Certainly you must sleep." + +"My mind is perfectly lucid. It was never clearer. But I know I am +drawing towards the vortex. Presently--" + +"Yes?" + +"You have seen things go down an eddy? Out of the light of the day, out +of this sweet world of sanity--down--" + +"But," expostulated Isbister. + +The man threw out a hand towards him, and his eyes were wild, and his +voice suddenly high. "I shall kill myself. If in no other way--at the +foot of yonder dark precipice there, where the waves are green, and the +white surge lifts and falls, and that little thread of water trembles +down. There at any rate is ... sleep." + +"That's unreasonable," said Isbister, startled at the man's hysterical +gust of emotion. "Drugs are better than that." + +"There at any rate is sleep," repeated the stranger, not heeding him. + +Isbister looked at him. "It's not a cert, you know," he remarked. +"There's a cliff like that at Lulworth Cove--as high, anyhow--and a +little girl fell from top to bottom. And lives to-day--sound and well." + +"But those rocks there?" + +"One might lie on them rather dismally through a cold night, broken bones +grating as one shivered, chill water splashing over you. Eh?" + +Their eyes met. "Sorry to upset your ideals," said Isbister with a sense +of devil-may-careish brilliance. "But a suicide over that cliff (or any +cliff for the matter of that), really, as an artist--" He laughed. "It's +so damned amateurish." + +"But the other thing," said the sleepless man irritably, "the other +thing. No man can keep sane if night after night--" + +"Have you been walking along this coast alone?" + +"Yes." + +"Silly sort of thing to do. If you'll excuse my saying so. Alone! As you +say; body fag is no cure for brain fag. Who told you to? No wonder; +walking! And the sun on your head, heat, fag, solitude, all the day long, +and then, I suppose, you go to bed and try very hard--eh?" + +Isbister stopped short and looked at the sufferer doubtfully. + +"Look at these rocks!" cried the seated man with a sudden force of +gesture. "Look at that sea that has shone and quivered there for ever! +See the white spume rush into darkness under that great cliff. And this +blue vault, with the blinding sun pouring from the dome of it. It is your +world. You accept it, you rejoice in it. It warms and supports and +delights you. And for me--" + +He turned his head and showed a ghastly face, bloodshot pallid eyes and +bloodless lips. He spoke almost in a whisper. "It is the garment of my +misery. The whole world ... is the garment of my misery." + +Isbister looked at all the wild beauty of the sunlit cliffs about them +and back to that face of despair. For a moment he was silent. + +He started, and made a gesture of impatient rejection. "You get a +night's sleep," he said, "and you won't see much misery out here. Take +my word for it." + +He was quite sure now that this was a providential encounter. Only half +an hour ago he had been feeling horribly bored. Here was employment the +bare thought of which, was righteous self-applause. He took possession +forthwith. The first need of this exhausted being was companionship. He +flung himself down on the steeply sloping turf beside the motionless +seated figure, and threw out a skirmishing line of gossip. + +His hearer lapsed into apathy; he stared dismally seaward, and spoke only +in answer to Isbister's direct questions--and not to all of those. But he +made no objection to this benevolent intrusion upon his despair. + +He seemed even grateful, and when presently Isbister, feeling that his +unsupported talk was losing vigour, suggested that they should reascend +the steep and return towards Boscastle, alleging the view into Blackapit, +he submitted quietly. Halfway up he began talking to himself, and +abruptly turned a ghastly face on his helper. "What can be happening?" he +asked with a gaunt illustrative hand. "What can be happening? Spin, spin, +spin, spin. It goes round and round, round and round for evermore." + +He stood with his hand circling. + +"It's all right, old chap," said Isbister with the air of an old friend. +"Don't worry yourself. Trust to me," + +The man dropped his hand and turned again. They went over the brow and to +the headland beyond Penally, with the sleepless man gesticulating ever +and again, and speaking fragmentary things concerning his whirling brain. +At the headland they stood by the seat that looks into the dark mysteries +of Blackapit, and then he sat down. Isbister had resumed his talk +whenever the path had widened sufficiently for them to walk abreast. He +was enlarging upon the complex difficulty of making Boscastle Harbour in +bad weather, when suddenly and quite irrelevantly his companion +interrupted him again. + +"My head is not like what it was," he said, gesticulating for want of +expressive phrases. "It's not like what it was. There is a sort of +oppression, a weight. No--not drowsiness, would God it were! It is like +a shadow, a deep shadow falling suddenly and swiftly across something +busy. Spin, spin into the darkness. The tumult of thought, the confusion, +the eddy and eddy. I can't express it. I can hardly keep my mind on +it--steadily enough to tell you." + +He stopped feebly. + +"Don't trouble, old chap," said Isbister. "I think I can understand. At +any rate, it don't matter very much just at present about telling me, +you know." + +The sleepless man thrust his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed them. +Isbister talked for awhile while this rubbing continued, and then he had +a fresh idea. "Come down to my room," he said, "and try a pipe. I can +show you some sketches of this Blackapit. If you'd care?" + +The other rose obediently and followed him down the steep. + +Several times Isbister heard him stumble as they came down, and his +movements were slow and hesitating. "Come in with me," said +Isbister, "and try some cigarettes and the blessed gift of alcohol. +If you take alcohol?" + +The stranger hesitated at the garden gate. He seemed no longer aware of +his actions. "I don't drink," he said slowly, coming up the garden path, +and after a moment's interval repeated absently, "No--I don't drink. It +goes round. Spin, it goes--spin--" + +He stumbled at the doorstep and entered the room with the bearing of one +who sees nothing. + +Then he sat down heavily in the easy chair, seemed almost to fall into +it. He leant forward with his brows on his hands and became motionless. +Presently he made a faint sound in his throat. + +Isbister moved about the room with the nervousness of an inexperienced +host, making little remarks that scarcely required answering. He +crossed the room to his portfolio, placed it on the table and noticed +the mantel clock. + +"I don't know if you'd care to have supper with me," he said with an +unlighted cigarette in his hand--his mind troubled with ideas of a +furtive administration of chloral. "Only cold mutton, you know, but +passing sweet. Welsh. And a tart, I believe." He repeated this after +momentary silence. + +The seated man made no answer. Isbister stopped, match in hand, +regarding him. + +The stillness lengthened. The match went out, the cigarette was put down +unlit. The man was certainly very still. Isbister took up the portfolio, +opened it, put it down, hesitated, seemed about to speak. "Perhaps," he +whispered doubtfully. Presently he glanced at the door and back to the +figure. Then he stole on tiptoe out of the room, glancing at his +companion after each elaborate pace. + +He closed the door noiselessly. The house door was standing open, and +he went out beyond the porch, and stood where the monkshood rose at the +corner of the garden bed. From this point he could see the stranger +through the open window, still and dim, sitting head on hand. He had +not moved. + +A number of children going along the road stopped and regarded the artist +curiously. A boatman exchanged civilities with him. He felt that possibly +his circumspect attitude and position looked peculiar and unaccountable. +Smoking, perhaps, might seem more natural. He drew pipe and pouch from +his pocket, filled the pipe slowly. + +"I wonder," ... he said, with a scarcely perceptible loss of +complacency. "At any rate one must give him a chance." He struck a match +in the virile way, and proceeded to light his pipe. + +He heard his landlady behind him, coming with his lamp lit from the +kitchen. He turned, gesticulating with his pipe, and stopped her at the +door of his sitting-room. He had some difficulty in explaining the +situation in whispers, for she did not know he had a visitor. She +retreated again with the lamp, still a little mystified to judge from her +manner, and he resumed his hovering at the corner of the porch, flushed +and less at his ease. + +Long after he had smoked out his pipe, and when the bats were abroad, +curiosity dominated his complex hesitations, and he stole back into his +darkling sitting-room. He paused in the doorway. The stranger was still +in the same attitude, dark against the window. Save for the singing of +some sailors aboard one of the little slate-carrying ships in the harbour +the evening was very still. Outside, the spikes of monkshood and +delphinium stood erect and motionless against the shadow of the hillside. +Something flashed into Isbister's mind; he started, and leaning over the +table, listened. An unpleasant suspicion grew stronger; became +conviction. Astonishment seized him and became--dread! + +No sound of breathing came from the seated figure! + +He crept slowly and noiselessly round the table, pausing twice to listen. +At last he could lay his hand on the back of the armchair. He bent down +until the two heads were ear to ear. + +Then he bent still lower to look up at his visitor's face. He started +violently and uttered an exclamation. The eyes were void spaces of white. + +He looked again and saw that they were open and with the pupils rolled +under the lids. He was afraid. He took the man by the shoulder and shook +him. "Are you asleep?" he said, with his voice jumping, and again, "Are +you asleep?" + +A conviction took possession of his mind that this man was dead. He +became active and noisy, strode across the room, blundering against the +table as he did so, and rang the bell. + +"Please bring a light at once," he said in the passage. "There is +something wrong with my friend." + +He returned to the motionless seated figure, grasped the shoulder, shook +it, shouted. The room was flooded with yellow glare as his landlady +entered with the light. His face was white as he turned blinking towards +her. "I must fetch a doctor," he said. "It is either death or a fit. Is +there a doctor in the village? Where is a doctor to be found?" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE TRANCE + + +The state of cataleptic rigour into which this man had fallen, lasted for +an unprecedented length of time, and then he passed slowly to the flaccid +state, to a lax attitude suggestive of profound repose. Then it was his +eyes could be closed. + +He was removed from the hotel to the Boscastle surgery, and from the +surgery, after some weeks, to London. But he still resisted every attempt +at reanimation. After a time, for reasons that will appear later, these +attempts were discontinued. For a great space he lay in that strange +condition, inert and still--neither dead nor living but, as it were, +suspended, hanging midway between nothingness and existence. His was a +darkness unbroken by a ray of thought or sensation, a dreamless +inanition, a vast space of peace. The tumult of his mind had swelled and +risen to an abrupt climax of silence. Where was the man? Where is any man +when insensibility takes hold of him? + +"It seems only yesterday," said Isbister. "I remember it all as though it +happened yesterday--clearer, perhaps, than if it had happened yesterday." + +It was the Isbister of the last chapter, but he was no longer a young +man. The hair that had been brown and a trifle in excess of the +fashionable length, was iron grey and clipped close, and the face that +had been pink and white was buff and ruddy. He had a pointed beard shot +with grey. He talked to an elderly man who wore a summer suit of drill +(the summer of that year was unusually hot). This was Warming, a London +solicitor and next of kin to Graham, the man who had fallen into the +trance. And the two men stood side by side in a room in a house in London +regarding his recumbent figure. + +It was a yellow figure lying lax upon a water-bed and clad in a flowing +shirt, a figure with a shrunken face and a stubby beard, lean limbs and +lank nails, and about it was a case of thin glass. This glass seemed to +mark off the sleeper from the reality of life about him, he was a thing +apart, a strange, isolated abnormality. The two men stood close to the +glass, peering in. + +"The thing gave me a shock," said Isbister. "I feel a queer sort of +surprise even now when I think of his white eyes. They were white, you +know, rolled up. Coming here again brings it all back to me." + +"Have you never seen him since that time?" asked Warming. + +"Often wanted to come," said Isbister; "but business nowadays is too +serious a thing for much holiday keeping. I've been in America most of +the time." + +"If I remember rightly," said Warming, "you were an artist?" + +"Was. And then I became a married man. I saw it was all up with black and +white, very soon--at least for a mediocrity, and I jumped on to process. +Those posters on the Cliffs at Dover are by my people." + +"Good posters," admitted the solicitor, "though I was sorry to see +them there." + +"Last as long as the cliffs, if necessary," exclaimed Isbister with +satisfaction. "The world changes. When he fell asleep, twenty years ago, +I was down at Boscastle with a box of water-colours and a noble, +old-fashioned ambition. I didn't expect that some day my pigments would +glorify the whole blessed coast of England, from Land's End round again +to the Lizard. Luck comes to a man very often when he's not looking." + +Warming seemed to doubt the quality of the luck. "I just missed seeing +you, if I recollect aright." + +"You came back by the trap that took me to Camelford railway station. It +was close on the Jubilee, Victoria's Jubilee, because I remember the +seats and flags in Westminster, and the row with the cabman at Chelsea." + +"The Diamond Jubilee, it was," said Warming; "the second one." + +"Ah, yes! At the proper Jubilee--the Fifty Year affair--I was down at +Wookey--a boy. I missed all that.... What a fuss we had with him! My +landlady wouldn't take him in, wouldn't let him stay--he looked so queer +when he was rigid. We had to carry him in a chair up to the hotel. And +the Boscastle doctor--it wasn't the present chap, but the G.P. before +him--was at him until nearly two, with me and the landlord holding lights +and so forth." + +"Do you mean--he was stiff and hard?" + +"Stiff!--wherever you bent him he stuck. You might have stood him on his +head and he'd have stopped. I never saw such stiffness. Of course +this"--he indicated the prostrate figure by a movement of his head--"is +quite different. And the little doctor--what was his name?" + +"Smithers?" + +"Smithers it was--was quite wrong in trying to fetch him round too soon, +according to all accounts. The things he did! Even now it makes me feel +all--ugh! Mustard, snuff, pricking. And one of those beastly little +things, not dynamos--" + +"Coils." + +"Yes. You could see his muscles throb and jump, and he twisted about. +There were just two flaring yellow candles, and all the shadows were +shivering, and the little doctor nervous and putting on side, and +_him_--stark and squirming in the most unnatural ways. Well, it made +me dream." + +Pause. + +"It's a strange state," said Warming. + +"It's a sort of complete absence," said Isbister. "Here's the body, +empty. Not dead a bit, and yet not alive. It's like a seat vacant and +marked 'engaged.' No feeling, no digestion, no beating of the heart--not +a flutter. _That_ doesn't make me feel as if there was a man present. In +a sense it's more dead than death, for these doctors tell me that even +the hair has stopped growing. Now with the proper dead, the hair will go +on growing--" + +"I know," said Warming, with a flash of pain in his expression. + +They peered through the glass again. Graham was indeed in a strange +state, in the flaccid phase of a trance, but a trance unprecedented in +medical history. Trances had lasted for as much as a year before--but at +the end of that time it had ever been a waking or a death; sometimes +first one and then the other. Isbister noted the marks the physicians +had made in injecting nourishment, for that had been resorted to to +postpone collapse; he pointed them out to Warming, who had been trying +not to see them. + +"And while he has been lying here," said Isbister, with the zest of a +life freely spent, "I have changed my plans in life; married, raised a +family, my eldest lad--I hadn't begun to think of sons then--is an +American citizen, and looking forward to leaving Harvard. There's a touch +of grey in my hair. And this man, not a day older nor wiser (practically) +than I was in my downy days. It's curious to think of." + +Warming turned. "And I have grown old too. I played cricket with him when +I was still only a boy. And he looks a young man still. Yellow perhaps. +But that _is_ a young man nevertheless." + +"And there's been the War," said Isbister. + +"From beginning to end." + +"And these Martians." + +"I've understood," said Isbister after a pause, "that he had some +moderate property of his own?" + +"That is so," said Warming. He coughed primly. "As it happens--I have +charge of it." + +"Ah!" Isbister thought, hesitated and spoke: "No doubt--his keep here is +not expensive--no doubt it will have improved--accumulated?" + +"It has. He will wake up very much better off--if he wakes--than when +he slept." + +"As a business man," said Isbister, "that thought has naturally been in +my mind. I have, indeed, sometimes thought that, speaking commercially, +of course, this sleep may be a very good thing for him. That he knows +what he is about, so to speak, in being insensible so long. If he had +lived straight on--" + +"I doubt if he would have premeditated as much," said Warming. "He was +not a far-sighted man. In fact--" + +"Yes?" + +"We differed on that point. I stood to him somewhat in the relation of a +guardian. You have probably seen enough of affairs to recognise that +occasionally a certain friction--. But even if that was the case, there +is a doubt whether he will ever wake. This sleep exhausts slowly, but it +exhausts. Apparently he is sliding slowly, very slowly and tediously, +down a long slope, if you can understand me?" + +"It will be a pity to lose his surprise. There's been a lot of change +these twenty years. It's Rip Van Winkle come real." + +"There has been a lot of change certainly," said Warming. "And, among +other changes, I have changed. I am an old man." + +Isbister hesitated, and then feigned a belated surprise. "I shouldn't +have thought it." + +"I was forty-three when his bankers--you remember you wired to his +bankers--sent on to me." + +"I got their address from the cheque book in his pocket," said Isbister. + +"Well, the addition is not difficult," said Warming. + +There was another pause, and then Isbister gave way to an unavoidable +curiosity. "He may go on for years yet," he said, and had a moment of +hesitation. "We have to consider that. His affairs, you know, may fall +some day into the hands of--someone else, you know." + +"That, if you will believe me, Mr. Isbister, is one of the problems most +constantly before my mind. We happen to be--as a matter of fact, there +are no very trustworthy connexions of ours. It is a grotesque and +unprecedented position." + +"Rather," said Isbister. + +"It seems to me it's a case of some public body, some practically +undying guardian. If he really is going on living--as the doctors, some +of them, think. As a matter of fact, I have gone to one or two public men +about it. But, so far, nothing has been done." + +"It wouldn't be a bad idea to hand him over to some public body--the +British Museum Trustees, or the Royal College of Physicians. Sounds a bit +odd, of course, but the whole situation is odd." + +"The difficulty is to induce them to take him." + +"Red tape, I suppose?" + +"Partly." + +Pause. "It's a curious business, certainly," said Isbister. "And compound +interest has a way of mounting up." + +"It has," said Warming. "And now the gold supplies are running short +there is a tendency towards ... appreciation." + +"I've felt that," said Isbister with a grimace. "But it makes it better +for _him_." + +"_If_ he wakes." + +"If he wakes," echoed Isbister. "Do you notice the pinched-in look of his +nose, and the way in which his eyelids sink?" + +Warming looked and thought for a space. "I doubt if he will wake," he +said at last. + +"I never properly understood," said Isbister, "what it was brought this +on. He told me something about overstudy. I've often been curious." + +"He was a man of considerable gifts, but spasmodic, emotional. He +had grave domestic troubles, divorced his wife, in fact, and it was +as a relief from that, I think, that he took up politics of the +rabid sort. He was a fanatical Radical--a Socialist--or typical +Liberal, as they used to call themselves, of the advanced school. +Energetic--flighty--undisciplined. Overwork upon a controversy did this +for him. I remember the pamphlet he wrote--a curious production. Wild, +whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies. Some of them are +already exploded, some of them are established facts. But for the most +part to read such a thesis is to realise how full the world is of +unanticipated things. He will have much to learn, much to unlearn, when +he wakes. If ever a waking comes." + +"I'd give anything to be there," said Isbister, "just to hear what he +would say to it all." + +"So would I," said Warming. "Aye! so would I," with an old man's sudden +turn to self pity. "But I shall never see him wake." + +He stood looking thoughtfully at the waxen figure. "He will never awake," +he said at last. He sighed. "He will never awake again." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE AWAKENING + + +But Warming was wrong in that. An awakening came. + +What a wonderfully complex thing! this simple seeming unity--the self! +Who can trace its reintegration as morning after morning we awaken, the +flux and confluence of its countless factors interweaving, rebuilding, +the dim first stirrings of the soul, the growth and synthesis of the +unconscious to the subconscious, the subconscious to dawning +consciousness, until at last we recognise ourselves again. And as it +happens to most of us after the night's sleep, so it was with Graham at +the end of his vast slumber. A dim cloud of sensation taking shape, a +cloudy dreariness, and he found himself vaguely somewhere, recumbent, +faint, but alive. + +The pilgrimage towards a personal being seemed to traverse vast gulfs, to +occupy epochs. Gigantic dreams that were terrible realities at the time, +left vague perplexing memories, strange creatures, strange scenery, as if +from another planet. There was a distinct impression, too, of a momentous +conversation, of a name--he could not tell what name--that was +subsequently to recur, of some queer long-forgotten sensation of vein and +muscle, of a feeling of vast hopeless effort, the effort of a man near +drowning in darkness. Then came a panorama of dazzling unstable confluent +scenes.... + +Graham became aware that his eyes were open and regarding some +unfamiliar thing. + +It was something white, the edge of something, a frame of wood. He moved +his head slightly, following the contour of this shape. It went up +beyond the top of his eyes. He tried to think where he might be. Did it +matter, seeing he was so wretched? The colour of his thoughts was a dark +depression. He felt the featureless misery of one who wakes towards the +hour of dawn. He had an uncertain sense of whispers and footsteps +hastily receding. + +The movement of his head involved a perception of extreme physical +weakness. He supposed he was in bed in the hotel at the place in the +valley--but he could not recall that white edge. He must have slept. He +remembered now that he had wanted to sleep. He recalled the cliff and +Waterfall again, and then recollected something about talking to a +passer-by.... + +How long had he slept? What was that sound of pattering feet? And that +rise and fall, like the murmur of breakers on pebbles? He put out a +languid hand to reach his watch from the chair whereon it was his habit +to place it, and touched some smooth hard surface like glass. This was so +unexpected that it startled him extremely. Quite suddenly he rolled over, +stared for a moment, and struggled into a sitting position. The effort +was unexpectedly difficult, and it left him giddy and weak--and amazed. + +He rubbed his eyes. The riddle of his surroundings was confusing but his +mind was quite clear--evidently his sleep had benefited him. He was not +in a bed at all as he understood the word, but lying naked on a very soft +and yielding mattress, in a trough of dark glass. The mattress was +partly transparent, a fact he observed with a sense of insecurity, and +below it was a mirror reflecting him greyly. About his arm--and he saw +with a shock that his skin was strangely dry and yellow--was bound a +curious apparatus of rubber, bound so cunningly that it seemed to pass +into his skin above and below. And this bed was placed in a case of +greenish coloured glass (as it seemed to him), a bar in the white +framework of which had first arrested his attention. In the corner of the +case was a stand of glittering and delicately made apparatus, for the +most part quite strange appliances, though a maximum and minimum +thermometer was recognisable. + +The slightly greenish tint of the glass-like substance which surrounded +him on every hand obscured what lay behind, but he perceived it was a +vast apartment of splendid appearance, and with a very large and simple +white archway facing him. Close to the walls of the cage were articles of +furniture, a table covered with a silvery cloth, silvery like the side of +a fish, a couple of graceful chairs, and on the table a number of dishes +with substances piled on them, a bottle and two glasses. He realised that +he was intensely hungry. + +He could see no one, and after a period of hesitation scrambled off the +translucent mattress and tried to stand on the clean white floor of his +little apartment. He had miscalculated his strength, however, and +staggered and put his hand against the glass like pane before him to +steady himself. For a moment it resisted his hand, bending outward like a +distended bladder, then it broke with a slight report and vanished--a +pricked bubble. He reeled out into the general space of the hall, greatly +astonished. He caught at the table to save himself, knocking one of the +glasses to the floor--it rang but did not break--and sat down in one of +the armchairs. + +When he had a little recovered he filled the remaining glass from the +bottle and drank--a colourless liquid it was, but not water, with a +pleasing faint aroma and taste and a quality of immediate support and +stimulus. He put down the vessel and looked about him. + +The apartment lost none of its size and magnificence now that the +greenish transparency that had intervened was removed. The archway he saw +led to a flight of steps, going downward without the intermediation of a +door, to a spacious transverse passage. This passage ran between polished +pillars of some white-veined substance of deep ultramarine, and along it +came the sound of human movements, and voices and a deep undeviating +droning note. He sat, now fully awake, listening alertly, forgetting the +viands in his attention. + +Then with a shock he remembered that he was naked, and casting about him +for covering, saw a long black robe thrown on one of the chairs beside +him. This he wrapped about him and sat down again, trembling. + +His mind was still a surging perplexity. Clearly he had slept, and had +been removed in his sleep. But where? And who were those people, the +distant crowd beyond the deep blue pillars? Boscastle? He poured out and +partially drank another glass of the colourless fluid. + +What was this place?--this place that to his senses seemed subtly +quivering like a thing alive? He looked about him at the clean and +beautiful form of the apartment, unstained by ornament, and saw that the +roof was broken in one place by a circular shaft full of light, and, as +he looked, a steady, sweeping shadow blotted it out and passed, and came +again and passed. "Beat, beat," that sweeping shadow had a note of its +own in the subdued tumult that filled the air. + +He would have called out, but only a little sound came into his throat. +Then he stood up, and, with the uncertain steps of a drunkard, made his +way towards the archway. He staggered down the steps, tripped on the +corner of the black cloak he had wrapped about himself, and saved himself +by catching at one of the blue pillars. + +The passage ran down a cool vista of blue and purple and ended remotely +in a railed space like a balcony brightly lit and projecting into a space +of haze, a space like the interior of some gigantic building. Beyond and +remote were vast and vague architectural forms. The tumult of voices rose +now loud and clear, and on the balcony and with their backs to him, +gesticulating and apparently in animated conversation, were three +figures, richly dressed in loose and easy garments of bright soft +colourings. The noise of a great multitude of people poured up over the +balcony, and once it seemed the top of a banner passed, and once some +brightly coloured object, a pale blue cap or garment thrown up into the +air perhaps, flashed athwart the space and fell. The shouts sounded like +English, there was a reiteration of "Wake!" He heard some indistinct +shrill cry, and abruptly these three men began laughing. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed one--a red-haired man in a short purple robe. "When +the Sleeper wakes--_When_!" + +He turned his eyes full of merriment along the passage. His face changed, +the whole man changed, became rigid. The other two turned swiftly at his +exclamation and stood motionless. Their faces assumed an expression of +consternation, an expression that deepened into awe. + +Suddenly Graham's knees bent beneath him, his arm against the pillar +collapsed limply, he staggered forward and fell upon his face. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SOUND OF A TUMULT + + +Graham's last impression before he fainted was of the ringing of bells. +He learnt afterwards that he was insensible, hanging between life and +death, for the better part of an hour. When he recovered his senses, he +was back on his translucent couch, and there was a stirring warmth at +heart and throat. The dark apparatus, he perceived, had been removed from +his arm, which was bandaged. The white framework was still about him, but +the greenish transparent substance that had filled it was altogether +gone. A man in a deep violet robe, one of those who had been on the +balcony, was looking keenly into his face. + +Remote but insistent was a clamour of bells and confused sounds, that +suggested to his mind the picture of a great number of people +shouting together. Something seemed to fall across this tumult, a +door suddenly closed. + +Graham moved his head. "What does this all mean?" he said slowly. +"Where am I?" + +He saw the red-haired man who had been first to discover him. A voice +seemed to be asking what he had said, and was abruptly stilled. + +The man in violet answered in a soft voice, speaking English with a +slightly foreign accent, or so at least it seemed to the Sleeper's ears. +"You are quite safe. You were brought hither from where you fell asleep. +It is quite safe. You have been here some time--sleeping. In a trance." + +He said, something further that Graham could not hear, and a little phial +was handed across to him. Graham felt a cooling spray, a fragrant mist +played over his forehead for a moment, and his sense of refreshment +increased. He closed his eyes in satisfaction. + +"Better?" asked the man in violet, as Graham's eyes reopened. He was a +pleasant-faced man of thirty, perhaps, with a pointed flaxen beard, and a +clasp of gold at the neck of his violet robe. + +"Yes," said Graham. + +"You have been asleep some time. In a cataleptic trance. You have heard? +Catalepsy? It may seem strange to you at first, but I can assure you +everything is well." + +Graham did not answer, but these words served their reassuring purpose. +His eyes went from face to face of the three people about him. They were +regarding him strangely. He knew he ought to be somewhere in Cornwall, +but he could not square these things with that impression. + +A matter that had been in his mind during his last waking moments at +Boscastle recurred, a thing resolved upon and somehow neglected. He +cleared his throat. + +"Have you wired my cousin?" he asked. "E. Warming, 27, Chancery Lane?" + +They were all assiduous to hear. But he had to repeat it. "What an odd +_blurr_ in his accent!" whispered the red-haired man. "Wire, sir?" said +the young man with the flaxen beard, evidently puzzled. + +"He means send an electric telegram," volunteered the third, a +pleasant-faced youth of nineteen or twenty. The flaxen-bearded man gave a +cry of comprehension. "How stupid of me! You may be sure everything shall +be done, sir," he said to Graham. "I am afraid it would be difficult +to--_wire_ to your cousin. He is not in London now. But don't trouble +about arrangements yet; you have been asleep a very long time and the +important thing is to get over that, sir." (Graham concluded the word was +sir, but this man pronounced it "_Sire_.") + +"Oh!" said Graham, and became quiet. + +It was all very puzzling, but apparently these people in unfamiliar dress +knew what they were about. Yet they were odd and the room was odd. It +seemed he was in some newly established place. He had a sudden flash of +suspicion! Surely this wasn't some hall of public exhibition! If it was +he would give Warming a piece of his mind. But it scarcely had that +character. And in a place of public exhibition he would not have +discovered himself naked. + +Then suddenly, quite abruptly, he realised what had happened. There was +no perceptible interval of suspicion, no dawn to his knowledge. Abruptly +he knew that his trance had lasted for a vast interval; as if by some +processes of thought-reading he interpreted the awe in the faces that +peered into his. He looked at them strangely, full of intense emotion. It +seemed they read his eyes. He framed his lips to speak and could not. A +queer impulse to hide his knowledge came into his mind almost at the +moment of his discovery. He looked at his bare feet, regarding them +silently. His impulse to speak passed. He was trembling exceedingly. + +They gave him some pink fluid with a greenish fluorescence and a meaty +taste, and the assurance of returning strength grew. + +"That--that makes me feel better," he said hoarsely, and there were +murmurs of respectful approval. He knew now quite clearly. He made to +speak again, and again he could not. + +He pressed his throat and tried a third time. "How long?" he asked in a +level voice. "How long have I been asleep?" + +"Some considerable time," said the flaxen-bearded man, glancing quickly +at the others. + +"How long?" + +"A very long time." + +"Yes--yes," said Graham, suddenly testy. "But I want--Is it--it is--some +years? Many years? There was something--I forget what. I feel--confused. +But you--" He sobbed. "You need not fence with me. How long--?" + +He stopped, breathing irregularly. He squeezed his eyes with his knuckles +and sat waiting for an answer. + +They spoke in undertones. + +"Five or six?" he asked faintly. "More?" + +"Very much more than that." + +"More!" + +"More." + +He looked at them and it seemed as though imps were twitching the muscles +of his face. He looked his question. + +"Many years," said the man with the red beard. + +Graham struggled into a sitting position. He wiped a rheumy tear from +his face with a lean hand. "Many years!" he repeated. He shut his eyes +tight, opened them, and sat looking about him from one unfamiliar thing +to another. + +"How many years?" he asked. + +"You must be prepared to be surprised." + +"Well?" + +"More than a gross of years." + +He was irritated at the strange word. "More than a _what_?" + +Two of them spoke together. Some quick remarks that were made about +"decimal" he did not catch. + +"How long did you say?" asked Graham. "How long? Don't look like +that. Tell me." + +Among the remarks in an undertone, his ear caught six words: "More than a +couple of centuries." + +"_What_?" he cried, turning on the youth who he thought had spoken. "Who +says--? What was that? A couple of _centuries_!" + +"Yes," said the man with the red beard. "Two hundred years." + +Graham repeated the words. He had been prepared to hear of a vast repose, +and yet these concrete centuries defeated him. + +"Two hundred years," he said again, with the figure of a great gulf +opening very slowly in his mind; and then, "Oh, but--!" + +They said nothing. + +"You--did you say--?" + +"Two hundred years. Two centuries of years," said the man with the +red beard. + +There was a pause. Graham looked at their faces and saw that what he had +heard was indeed true. + +"But it can't be," he said querulously. "I am dreaming. Trances--trances +don't last. That is not right--this is a joke you have played upon me! +Tell me--some days ago, perhaps, I was walking along the coast of +Cornwall--?" + +His voice failed him. + +The man with the flaxen beard hesitated. "I'm not very strong in history, +sir," he said weakly, and glanced at the others. + +"That was it, sir," said the youngster. "Boscastle, in the old Duchy of +Cornwall--it's in the south-west country beyond the dairy meadows. There +is a house there still. I have been there." + +"Boscastle!" Graham turned his eyes to the youngster. "That was +it--Boscastle. Little Boscastle. I fell asleep--somewhere there. I don't +exactly remember. I don't exactly remember." + +He pressed his brows and whispered, "More than _two hundred years_!" + +He began to speak quickly with a twitching face, but his heart was +cold within him. "But if it _is_ two hundred years, every soul I know, +every human being that ever I saw or spoke to before I went to sleep, +must be dead." + +They did not answer him. + +"The Queen and the Royal Family, her Ministers, Church and State. High +and low, rich and poor, one with another ... Is there England still?" + +"That's a comfort! Is there London?" + +"This _is_ London, eh? And you are my assistant-custodian; +assistant-custodian. And these--? Eh? Assistant-custodians too!" + +He sat with a gaunt stare on his face. "But why am I here? No! Don't +talk. Be quiet. Let me--" + +He sat silent, rubbed his eyes, and, uncovering them, found another +little glass of pinkish fluid held towards him. He took the dose. +Directly he had taken it he began to weep naturally and refreshingly. + +Presently he looked at their faces, suddenly laughed through his tears, a +little foolishly. "But--two--hun--dred--years!" he said. He grimaced +hysterically and covered his face again. + +After a space he grew calm. He sat up, his hands hanging over his knees +in almost precisely the same attitude in which Isbister had found him on +the cliff at Pentargen. His attention was attracted by a thick +domineering voice, the footsteps of an advancing personage. "What are you +doing? Why was I not warned? Surely you could tell? Someone will suffer +for this. The man must be kept quiet. Are the doorways closed? All the +doorways? He must be kept perfectly quiet. He must not be told. Has he +been told anything?" + +The man with the fair beard made some inaudible remark, and Graham +looking over his shoulder saw approaching a short, fat, and thickset +beardless man, with aquiline nose and heavy neck and chin. Very thick +black and slightly sloping eyebrows that almost met over his nose and +overhung deep grey eyes, gave his face an oddly formidable expression. He +scowled momentarily at Graham and then his regard returned to the man +with the flaxen beard. "These others," he said in a voice of extreme +irritation. "You had better go." + +"Go?" said the red-bearded man. + +"Certainly--go now. But see the doorways are closed as you go." + +The two men addressed turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at +Graham, and instead of going through the archway as he expected, walked +straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. A long +strip of this apparently solid wall rolled up with a snap, hung over the +two retreating men and fell again, and immediately Graham was alone with +the newcomer and the purple-robed man with the flaxen beard. + +For a space the thickset man took not the slightest notice of Graham, but +proceeded to interrogate the other--obviously his subordinate---upon the +treatment of their charge. He spoke clearly, but in phrases only +partially intelligible to Graham. The awakening seemed not only a matter +of surprise but of consternation and annoyance to him. He was evidently +profoundly excited. + +"You must not confuse his mind by telling him things," he repeated again +and again. "You must not confuse his mind." + +His questions answered, he turned quickly and eyed the awakened sleeper +with an ambiguous expression. + +"Feel queer?" he asked. + +"Very." + +"The world, what you see of it, seems strange to you?" + +"I suppose I have to live in it, strange as it seems." + +"I suppose so, now." + +"In the first place, hadn't I better have some clothes?" + +"They--" said the thickset man and stopped, and the flaxen-bearded man +met his eye and went away. "You will very speedily have clothes," said +the thickset man. + +"Is it true indeed, that I have been asleep two hundred--?" asked Graham. + +"They have told you that, have they? Two hundred and three, as a +matter of fact." + +Graham accepted the indisputable now with raised eyebrows and depressed +mouth. He sat silent for a moment, and then asked a question, "Is there a +mill or dynamo near here?" He did not wait for an answer. "Things have +changed tremendously, I suppose?" he said. + +"What is that shouting?" he asked abruptly. + +"Nothing," said the thickset man impatiently. "It's people. You'll +understand better later--perhaps. As you say, things have changed." He +spoke shortly, his brows were knit, and he glanced about him like a man +trying to decide in an emergency. "We must get you clothes and so forth, +at any rate. Better wait here until they can be procured. No one will +come near you. You want shaving." + +Graham rubbed his chin. + +The man with the flaxen beard came back towards them, turned suddenly, +listened for a moment, lifted his eyebrows at the older man, and hurried +off through the archway towards the balcony. The tumult of shouting grew +louder, and the thickset man turned and listened also. He cursed suddenly +under his breath, and turned his eyes upon Graham with an unfriendly +expression. It was a surge of many voices, rising and falling, shouting +and screaming, and once came a sound like blows and sharp cries, and then +a snapping like the crackling of dry sticks. Graham strained his ears to +draw some single thread of sound from the woven tumult. + +Then he perceived, repeated again and again, a certain formula. For a +time he doubted his ears. But surely these were the words: "Show us the +Sleeper! Show us the Sleeper!" + +The thickset man rushed suddenly to the archway. + +"Wild!" he cried. "How do they know? Do they know? Or is it guessing?" + +There was perhaps an answer. + +"I can't come," said the thickset man; "I have _him_ to see to. But shout +from the balcony." + +There was an inaudible reply. + +"Say he is not awake. Anything! I leave it to you." + +He came hurrying back to Graham. "You must have clothes at once," he +said. "You cannot stop here--and it will be impossible to--" + +He rushed away, Graham shouting unanswered questions after him. In a +moment he was back. + +"I can't tell you what is happening. It is too complex to explain. In a +moment you shall have your clothes made. Yes--in a moment. And then I can +take you away from here. You will find out our troubles soon enough." + +"But those voices. They were shouting--?" + +"Something about the Sleeper--that's you. They have some twisted idea. I +don't know what it is. I know nothing." + +A shrill bell jetted acutely across the indistinct mingling of remote +noises, and this brusque person sprang to a little group of appliances in +the corner of the room. He listened for a moment, regarding a ball of +crystal, nodded, and said a few indistinct words; then he walked to the +wall through which the two men had vanished. It rolled up again like a +curtain, and he stood waiting. + +Graham lifted his arm and was astonished to find what strength the +restoratives had given him. He thrust one leg over the side of the couch +and then the other. His head no longer swam. He could scarcely credit his +rapid recovery. He sat feeling his limbs. + +The man with the flaxen beard re-entered from the archway, and as he did +so the cage of a lift came sliding down in front of the thickset man, and +a lean, grey-bearded man, carrying a roll, and wearing a tightly-fitting +costume of dark green, appeared therein. + +"This is the tailor," said the thickset man with an introductory gesture. +"It will never do for you to wear that black. I cannot understand how it +got here. But I shall. I shall. You will be as rapid as possible?" he +said to the tailor. + +The man in green bowed, and, advancing, seated himself by Graham on the +bed. His manner was calm, but his eyes were full of curiosity. "You will +find the fashions altered, Sire," he said. He glanced from under his +brows at the thickset man. + +He opened the roller with a quick movement, and a confusion of brilliant +fabrics poured out over his knees. "You lived, Sire, in a period +essentially cylindrical--the Victorian. With a tendency to the hemisphere +in hats. Circular curves always. Now--" He flicked out a little appliance +the size and appearance of a keyless watch, whirled the knob, and +behold--a little figure in white appeared kinetoscope fashion on the +dial, walking and turning. The tailor caught up a pattern of bluish white +satin. "That is my conception of your immediate treatment," he said. + +The thickset man came and stood by the shoulder of Graham. + +"We have very little time," he said. + +"Trust me," said the tailor. "My machine follows. What do you +think of this?" + +"What is that?" asked the man from the nineteenth century. + +"In your days they showed you a fashion-plate," said the tailor, "but +this is our modern development. See here." The little figure repeated its +evolutions, but in a different costume. "Or this," and with a click +another small figure in a more voluminous type of robe marched on to the +dial. The tailor was very quick in his movements, and glanced twice +towards the lift as he did these things. + +It rumbled again, and a crop-haired anemic lad with features of the +Chinese type, clad in coarse pale blue canvas, appeared together with a +complicated machine, which he pushed noiselessly on little castors into +the room. Incontinently the little kinetoscope was dropped, Graham was +invited to stand in front of the machine and the tailor muttered some +instructions to the crop-haired lad, who answered in guttural tones and +with words Graham did not recognise. The boy then went to conduct an +incomprehensible monologue in the corner, and the tailor pulled out a +number of slotted arms terminating in little discs, pulling them out +until the discs were flat against the body of Graham, one at each +shoulder blade, one at the elbows, one at the neck and so forth, so that +at last there were, perhaps, two score of them upon his body and limbs. +At the same time, some other person entered the room by the lift, behind +Graham. The tailor set moving a mechanism that initiated a faint-sounding +rhythmic movement of parts in the machine, and in another moment he was +knocking up the levers and Graham was released. The tailor replaced his +cloak of black, and the man with the flaxen beard proffered him a little +glass of some refreshing fluid. Graham saw over the rim of the glass a +pale-faced young man regarding him with a singular fixity. + +The thickset man had been pacing the room fretfully, and now turned and +went through the archway towards the balcony, from which the noise of a +distant crowd still came in gusts and cadences. The crop-headed lad +handed the tailor a roll of the bluish satin and the two began fixing +this in the mechanism in a manner reminiscent of a roll of paper in a +nineteenth century printing machine. Then they ran the entire thing on +its easy, noiseless bearings across the room to a remote corner where a +twisted cable looped rather gracefully from the wall. They made some +connexion and the machine became energetic and swift. + +"What is that doing?" asked Graham, pointing with the empty glass to the +busy figures and trying to ignore the scrutiny of the new comer. "Is +that--some sort of force--laid on?" + +"Yes," said the man with the flaxen beard. + +"Who is _that_?" He indicated the archway behind him. + +The man in purple stroked his little beard, hesitated, and answered in +an undertone, "He is Howard, your chief guardian. You see, Sire--it's +a little difficult to explain. The Council appoints a guardian and +assistants. This hall has under certain restrictions been public. In +order that people might satisfy themselves. We have barred the +doorways for the first time. But I think--if you don't mind, I will +leave him to explain." + +"Odd!" said Graham. "Guardian? Council?" Then turning his back on the +new comer, he asked in an undertone, "Why is this man _glaring_ at me? Is +he a mesmerist?" + +"Mesmerist! He is a capillotomist." + +"Capillotomist!" + +"Yes--one of the chief. His yearly fee is sixdoz lions." + +It sounded sheer nonsense. Graham snatched at the last phrase with an +unsteady mind. "Sixdoz lions?" he said. + +"Didn't you have lions? I suppose not. You had the old pounds? They are +our monetary units." + +"But what was that you said--sixdoz?" + +"Yes. Six dozen, Sire. Of course things, even these little things, have +altered. You lived in the days of the decimal system, the Arab +system--tens, and little hundreds and thousands. We have eleven numerals +now. We have single figures for both ten and eleven, two figures for a +dozen, and a dozen dozen makes a gross, a great hundred, you know, a +dozen gross a dozand, and a dozand dozand a myriad. Very simple?" + +"I suppose so," said Graham. "But about this cap--what was it?" + +The man with the flaxen beard glanced over his shoulder. + +"Here are your clothes!" he said. Graham turned round sharply and saw the +tailor standing at his elbow smiling, and holding some palpably new +garments over his arm. The crop-headed boy, by means of one ringer, was +impelling the complicated machine towards the lift by which he had +arrived. Graham stared at the completed suit. "You don't mean to say--!" + +"Just made," said the tailor. He dropped the garments at the feet of +Graham, walked to the bed, on which Graham had so recently been lying, +flung out the translucent mattress, and turned up the looking-glass. As +he did so a furious bell summoned the thickset man to the corner. The +man with the flaxen beard rushed across to him and then hurried out by +the archway. + +The tailor was assisting Graham into a dark purple combination garment, +stockings, vest, and pants in one, as the thickset man came back from +the corner to meet the man with the flaxen beard returning from the +balcony. They began speaking quickly in an undertone, their bearing had +an unmistakable quality of anxiety. Over the purple under-garment came +a complex garment of bluish white, and Graham, was clothed in the +fashion once more and saw himself, sallow-faced, unshaven and shaggy +still, but at least naked no longer, and in some indefinable +unprecedented way graceful. + +"I must shave," he said regarding himself in the glass. + +"In a moment," said Howard. + +The persistent stare ceased. The young man closed his eyes, reopened +them, and with a lean hand extended, advanced on Graham. Then he stopped, +with his hand slowly gesticulating, and looked about him. + +"A seat," said Howard impatiently, and in a moment the flaxen-bearded man +had a chair behind Graham. "Sit down, please," said Howard. + +Graham hesitated, and in the other hand of the wild-eyed man he saw the +glint of steel. + +"Don't you understand, Sire?" cried the flaxen-bearded man with hurried +politeness. "He is going to cut your hair." + +"Oh!" cried Graham enlightened. "But you called him--" + +"A capillotomist--precisely! He is one of the finest artists in +the world." + +Graham sat down abruptly. The flaxen-bearded man disappeared. The +capillotomist came forward, examined Graham's ears and surveyed him, felt +the back of his head, and would have sat down again to regard him but for +Howard's audible impatience. Forthwith with rapid movements and a +succession of deftly handled implements he shaved Graham's chin, clipped +his moustache, and cut and arranged his hair. All this he did without a +word, with something of the rapt air of a poet inspired. And as soon as +he had finished Graham was handed a pair of shoes. + +Suddenly a loud voice shouted--it seemed from a piece of machinery in the +corner--"At once--at once. The people know all over the city. Work is +being stopped. Work is being stopped. Wait for nothing, but come." + +This shout appeared to perturb Howard exceedingly. By his gestures it +seemed to Graham that he hesitated between two directions. Abruptly he +went towards the corner where the apparatus stood about the little +crystal ball. As he did so the undertone of tumultuous shouting from the +archway that had continued during all these occurrences rose to a mighty +sound, roared as if it were sweeping past, and fell again as if receding +swiftly. It drew Graham after it with an irresistible attraction. He +glanced at the thickset man, and then obeyed his impulse. In two strides +he was down the steps and in the passage, and in a score he was out upon +the balcony upon which the three men had been standing. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MOVING WAYS + + +He went to the railings of the balcony and stared upward. An exclamation +of surprise at his appearance, and the movements of a number of people +came from the great area below. + +His first impression was of overwhelming architecture. The place into +which he looked was an aisle of Titanic buildings, curving spaciously in +either direction. Overhead mighty cantilevers sprang together across the +huge width of the place, and a tracery of translucent material shut out +the sky. Gigantic globes of cool white light shamed the pale sunbeams +that filtered down through the girders and wires. Here and there a +gossamer suspension bridge dotted with foot passengers flung across the +chasm and the air was webbed with slender cables. A cliff of edifice +hung above him, he perceived as he glanced upward, and the opposite +façade was grey and dim and broken by great archings, circular +perforations, balconies, buttresses, turret projections, myriads of vast +windows, and an intricate scheme of architectural relief. Athwart these +ran inscriptions horizontally and obliquely in an unfamiliar lettering. +Here and there close to the roof cables of a peculiar stoutness were +fastened, and drooped in a steep curve to circular openings on the +opposite side of the space, and even as Graham noted these a remote and +tiny figure of a man clad in pale blue arrested his attention. This +little figure was far overhead across the space beside the higher +fastening of one of these festoons, hanging forward from a little ledge +of masonry and handling some well-nigh invisible strings dependent from +the line. Then suddenly, with a swoop that sent Graham's heart into his +mouth, this man had rushed down the curve and vanished through a round +opening on the hither side of the way. Graham had been looking up as he +came out upon the balcony, and the things he saw above and opposed to +him had at first seized his attention to the exclusion of anything else. +Then suddenly he discovered the roadway! It was not a roadway at all, as +Graham understood such things, for in the nineteenth century the only +roads and streets were beaten tracks of motionless earth, jostling +rivulets of vehicles between narrow footways. But this roadway was three +hundred feet across, and it moved; it moved, all save the middle, the +lowest part. For a moment, the motion dazzled his mind. Then he +understood. Under the balcony this extraordinary roadway ran swiftly to +Graham's right, an endless flow rushing along as fast as a nineteenth +century express train, an endless platform of narrow transverse +overlapping slats with little interspaces that permitted it to follow +the curvatures of the street. Upon it were seats, and here and there +little kiosks, but they swept by too swiftly for him to see what might +be therein. From this nearest and swiftest platform a series of others +descended to the centre of the space. Each moved to the right, each +perceptibly slower than the one above it, but the difference in pace was +small enough to permit anyone to step from any platform to the one +adjacent, and so walk uninterruptedly from the swiftest to the +motionless middle way. Beyond this middle way was another series of +endless platforms rushing with varying pace to Graham's left. And seated +in crowds upon the two widest and swiftest platforms, or stepping from +one to another down the steps, or swarming over the central space, was +an innumerable and wonderfully diversified multitude of people. + +"You must not stop here," shouted Howard suddenly at his side. "You must +come away at once." + +Graham made no answer. He heard without hearing. The platforms ran with a +roar and the people were shouting. He perceived women and girls with +flowing hair, beautifully robed, with bands crossing between the breasts. +These first came out of the confusion. Then he perceived that the +dominant note in that kaleidoscope of costume was the pale blue that the +tailor's boy had worn. He became aware of cries of "The Sleeper. What has +happened to the Sleeper?" and it seemed as though the rushing platforms +before him were suddenly spattered with the pale buff of human faces, and +then still more thickly. He saw pointing fingers. He perceived that the +motionless central area of this huge arcade just opposite to the balcony +was densely crowded with blue-clad people. Some sort of struggle had +sprung into life. People seemed to be pushed up the running platforms on +either side, and carried away against their will. They would spring off +so soon as they were beyond the thick of the confusion, and run back +towards the conflict. + +"It is the Sleeper. Verily it is the Sleeper," shouted voices. "That is +never the Sleeper," shouted others. More and more faces were turned to +him. At the intervals along this central area Graham noted openings, +pits, apparently the heads of staircases going down with people +ascending out of them and descending into them. The struggle it seemed +centred about the one of these nearest to him. People were running down +the moving platforms to this, leaping dexterously from platform to +platform. The clustering people on the higher platforms seemed to divide +their interest between this point and the balcony. A number of sturdy +little figures clad in a uniform of bright red, and working methodically +together, were employed it seemed in preventing access to this descending +staircase. About them a crowd was rapidly accumulating. Their brilliant +colour contrasted vividly with the whitish-blue of their antagonists, for +the struggle was indisputable. + +He saw these things with Howard shouting in his ear and shaking his arm. +And then suddenly Howard was gone and he stood alone. + +He perceived that the cries of "The Sleeper!" grew in volume, and that +the people on the nearer platform were standing up. The nearer platform +he perceived was empty to the right of him, and far across the space the +platform running in the opposite direction was coming crowded and passing +away bare. With incredible swiftness a vast crowd had gathered in the +central space before his eyes; a dense swaying mass of people, and the +shouts grew from a fitful crying to a voluminous incessant clamour: "The +Sleeper! The Sleeper!" and yells and cheers, a waving of garments and +cries of "Stop the Ways!" They were also crying another name strange to +Graham. It sounded like "Ostrog." The slower platforms were soon thick +with active people, running against the movement so as to keep themselves +opposite to him. + +"Stop the Ways," they cried. Agile figures ran up from the centre to the +swift road nearest to him, were borne rapidly past him, shouting strange, +unintelligible things, and ran back obliquely to the central way. One +thing he distinguished: "It is indeed the Sleeper. It is indeed the +Sleeper," they testified. + +For a space Graham stood motionless. Then he became vividly aware that +all this concerned him. He was pleased at his wonderful popularity, he +bowed, and, seeking a gesture of longer range, waved his arm. He was +astonished at the violence of uproar that this provoked. The tumult about +the descending stairway rose to furious violence. He became aware of +crowded balconies, of men sliding along ropes, of men in trapeze-like +seats hurling athwart the space. He heard voices behind him, a number of +people descending the steps through the archway; he suddenly perceived +that his guardian Howard was back again and gripping his arm painfully, +and shouting inaudibly in his ear. + +He turned, and Howard's face was white. "Come back," he heard. "They will +stop the ways. The whole city will be in confusion." + +He perceived a number of men hurrying along the passage of blue pillars +behind Howard, the red-haired man, the man with the flaxen beard, a tall +man in vivid vermilion, a crowd of others in red carrying staves, and all +these people had anxious eager faces. + +"Get him away," cried Howard. + +"But why?" said Graham. "I don't see--" + +"You must come away!" said the man in red in a resolute voice. His face +and eyes were resolute, too. Graham's glances went from face to face, and +he was suddenly aware of that most disagreeable flavour in life, +compulsion. Someone gripped his arm.... + +He was being dragged away. It seemed as though the tumult suddenly +became two, as if half the shouts that had come in from this wonderful +roadway had sprung into the passages of the great building behind him. +Marvelling and confused, feeling an impotent desire to resist, Graham was +half led, half thrust, along the passage of blue pillars, and suddenly he +found himself alone with Howard in a lift and moving swiftly upward. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE HALL OF THE ATLAS + + +From the moment when the tailor had bowed his farewell to the moment when +Graham found himself in the lift, was altogether barely five minutes. As +yet the haze of his vast interval of sleep hung about him, as yet the +initial strangeness of his being alive at all in this remote age touched +everything with wonder, with a sense of the irrational, with something of +the quality of a realistic dream. He was still detached, an astonished +spectator, still but half involved in life. What he had seen, and +especially the last crowded tumult, framed in the setting of the balcony, +had a spectacular turn, like a thing witnessed from the box of a theatre. +"I don't understand," he said. "What was the trouble? My mind is in a +whirl. Why were they shouting? What is the danger?" + +"We have our troubles," said Howard. His eyes avoided Graham's enquiry. +"This is a time of unrest. And, in fact, your appearance, your waking +just now, has a sort of connexion--" + +He spoke jerkily, like a man not quite sure of his breathing. He +stopped abruptly. + +"I don't understand," said Graham. + +"It will be clearer later," said Howard. + +He glanced uneasily upward, as though he found the progress of the +lift slow. + +"I shall understand better, no doubt, when I have seen my way about a +little," said Graham puzzled. "It will be--it is bound to be perplexing. +At present it is all so strange. Anything seems possible. Anything. In +the details even. Your counting, I understand, is different." + +The lift stopped, and they stepped out into a narrow but very long +passage between high walls, along which ran an extraordinary number of +tubes and big cables. + +"What a huge place this is!" said Graham. "Is it all one building? What +place is it?" + +"This is one of the city ways for various public services. Light and +so forth." + +"Was it a social trouble--that--in the great roadway place? How are you +governed? Have you still a police?" + +"Several," said Howard. + +"Several?" + +"About fourteen." + +"I don't understand." + +"Very probably not. Our social order will probably seem very complex +to you. To tell you the truth, I don't understand it myself very +clearly. Nobody does. You will, perhaps--bye and bye. We have to go to +the Council." + +Graham's attention was divided between the urgent necessity of his +inquiries and the people in the passages and halls they were traversing. +For a moment his mind would be concentrated upon Howard and the halting +answers he made, and then he would lose the thread in response to some +vivid unexpected impression. Along the passages, in the halls, half the +people seemed to be men in the red uniform. The pale blue canvas that had +been so abundant in the aisle of moving ways did not appear. Invariably +these men looked at him, and saluted him and Howard as they passed. + +He had a clear vision of entering a long corridor, and there were a +number of girls sitting on low seats, as though in a class. He saw no +teacher, but only a novel apparatus from which he fancied a voice +proceeded. The girls regarded him and his conductor, he thought, with +curiosity and astonishment. But he was hurried on before he could form +a clear idea of the gathering. He judged they knew Howard and not +himself, and that they wondered who he was. This Howard, it seemed, was +a person of importance. But then he was also merely Graham's guardian. +That was odd. + +There came a passage in twilight, and into this passage a footway hung so +that he could see the feet and ankles of people going to and fro thereon, +but no more of them. Then vague impressions of galleries and of casual +astonished passers-by turning round to stare after the two of them with +their red-clad guard. + +The stimulus of the restoratives he had taken was only temporary. He was +speedily fatigued by this excessive haste. He asked Howard to slacken his +speed. Presently he was in a lift that had a window upon the great street +space, but this was glazed and did not open, and they were too high for +him to see the moving platforms below. But he saw people going to and fro +along cables and along strange, frail-looking bridges. + +Thence they passed across the street and at a vast height above it. They +crossed by means of a narrow bridge closed in with glass, so clear that +it made him giddy even to remember it. The floor of it also was of glass. +From his memory of the cliffs between New Quay and Boscastle, so remote +in time, and so recent in his experience, it seemed to him that they +must be near four hundred feet above the moving ways. He stopped, looked +down between his legs upon the swarming blue and red multitudes, minute +and foreshortened, struggling and gesticulating still towards the little +balcony far below, a little toy balcony, it seemed, where he had so +recently been standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mighty globes of +light obscured everything. A man seated in a little openwork cradle shot +by from some point still higher than the little narrow bridge, rushing +down a cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling. Graham stopped +involuntarily to watch this strange passenger vanish below, and then his +eyes went back to the tumultuous struggle. + +Along one of the faster ways rushed a thick crowd of red spots. This +broke up into individuals as it approached the balcony, and went pouring +down the slower ways towards the dense struggling crowd on the central +area. These men in red appeared to be armed with sticks or truncheons; +they seemed to be striking and thrusting. A great shouting, cries of +wrath, screaming, burst out and came up to Graham, faint and thin. "Go +on," cried Howard, laying hands on him. + +Another man rushed down a cable. Graham suddenly glanced up to see whence +he came, and beheld through the glassy roof and the network of cables and +girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vanes of windmills, and +between them glimpses of a remote and pallid sky. Then Howard had thrust +him forward across the bridge, and he was in a little narrow passage +decorated with geometrical patterns. + +"I want to see more of that," cried Graham, resisting. + +"No, no," cried Howard, still gripping his arm. "This way. You must go +this way." And the men in red following them seemed ready to enforce +his orders. + +Some negroes in a curious wasp-like uniform of black and yellow appeared +down the passage, and one hastened to throw up a sliding shutter that +had seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham found +himself in a gallery overhanging the end of a great chamber. The +attendant in black and yellow crossed this, thrust up a second shutter +and stood waiting. + +This place had the appearance of an ante-room. He saw a number of +people in the central space, and at the opposite end a large and +imposing doorway at the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but +giving a glimpse of some still larger hall beyond. He perceived white +men in red and other negroes in black and yellow standing stiffly about +those portals. + +As they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below, "The Sleeper," +and was aware of a turning of heads, a hum of observation. They entered +another little passage in the wall of this ante-chamber, and then he +found himself on an iron-railed gallery of metal that passed round the +side of the great hall he had already seen through the curtains. He +entered the place at the corner, so that he received the fullest +impression of its huge proportions. The black in the wasp uniform stood +aside like a well-trained servant, and closed the valve behind him. + +Compared with any of the places Graham had seen thus far, this second +hall appeared to be decorated with extreme richness. On a pedestal at the +remoter end, and more brilliantly lit than any other object, was a +gigantic white figure of Atlas, strong and strenuous, the globe upon his +bowed shoulders. It was the first thing to strike his attention, it was +so vast, so patiently and painfully real, so white and simple. Save for +this figure and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the place was +a shining vacancy. The dais was remote in the greatness of the area; it +would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been for the group of +seven men who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of its +proportions. They were all dressed in white robes, they seemed to have +arisen that moment from their seats, and they were regarding Graham +steadfastly. At the end of the table he perceived the glitter of some +mechanical appliances. + +Howard led him along the end gallery until they were opposite this mighty +labouring figure. Then he stopped. The two men in red who had followed +them into the gallery came and stood on either hand of Graham. + +"You must remain here," murmured Howard, "for a few moments," and, +without waiting for a reply, hurried away along the gallery. + +"But, _why_--?" began Graham. + +He moved as if to follow Howard, and found his path obstructed by one of +the men in red. "You have to wait here, Sire," said the man in red. + +"_Why_?" + +"Orders, Sire." + +"Whose orders?" + +"Our orders, Sire." + +Graham looked his exasperation. + +"What place is this?" he said presently. "Who are those men?" + +"They are the lords of the Council, Sire." + +"What Council?" + +"_The_ Council." + +"Oh!" said Graham, and after an equally ineffectual attempt at the other +man, went to the railing and stared at the distant men in white, who +stood watching him and whispering together. + +The Council? He perceived there were now eight, though how the newcomer +had arrived he had not observed. They made no gestures of greeting; they +stood regarding him as in the nineteenth century a group of men might +have stood in the street regarding a distant balloon that had suddenly +floated into view. What council could it be that gathered there, that +little body of men beneath the significant white Atlas, secluded from +every eavesdropper in this impressive spaciousness? And why should he be +brought to them, and be looked at strangely and spoken of inaudibly? +Howard appeared beneath, walking quickly across the polished floor +towards them. As he drew near he bowed and performed certain peculiar +movements, apparently of a ceremonious nature. Then he ascended the steps +of the dais, and stood by the apparatus at the end of the table. + +Graham watched that visible inaudible conversation. Occasionally, one of +the white-robed men would glance towards him. He strained his ears in +vain. The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated. He +glanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants.... When he +looked again Howard was extending his hands and moving his head like a +man who protests. He was interrupted, it seemed, by one of the +white-robed men rapping the table. + +The conversation lasted an interminable time to Graham's sense. His eyes +rose to the still giant at whose feet the Council sat. Thence they +wandered to the walls of the hall. It was decorated in long painted +panels of a quasi-Japanese type, many of them very beautiful. These +panels were grouped in a great and elaborate framing of dark metal, +which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries, and the +great structural lines of the interior. The facile grace of these panels +enhanced the mighty white effort that laboured in the centre of the +scheme. Graham's eyes came back to the Council, and Howard was +descending the steps. As he drew nearer his features could be +distinguished, and Graham saw that he was flushed and blowing out his +cheeks. His countenance was still disturbed when presently he reappeared +along the gallery. + +"This way," he said concisely, and they went on in silence to a little +door that opened at their approach. The two men in red stopped on either +side of this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing +back, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group and +looking at him. Then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, and +for the first time since his awakening he was in silence. The floor, +even, was noiseless to his feet. + +Howard opened another door, and they were in the first of two contiguous +chambers furnished in white and green. "What Council was that?" began +Graham. "What were they discussing? What have they to do with me?" Howard +closed the door carefully, heaved a huge sigh, and said something in an +undertone. He walked slantingways across the room and turned, blowing out +his cheeks again. "Ugh!" he grunted, a man relieved. + +Graham stood regarding him. + +"You must understand," began Howard abruptly, avoiding Graham's eyes, +"that our social order is very complex. A half explanation, a bare +unqualified statement would give you false impressions. As a matter of +fact--it is a case of compound interest partly--your small fortune, and +the fortune of your cousin Warming which was left to you--and certain +other beginnings--have become very considerable. And in other ways that +will be hard for you to understand, you have become a person of +significance--of very considerable significance--involved in the +world's affairs." + +He stopped. + +"Yes?" said Graham. + +"We have grave social troubles." + +"Yes?" + +"Things have come to such a pass that, in fact, it is advisable to +seclude you here." + +"Keep me prisoner!" exclaimed Graham. + +"Well--to ask you to keep in seclusion." + +Graham turned on him. "This is strange!" he said. + +"No harm will be done you." + +"No harm!" + +"But you must be kept here--" + +"While I learn my position, I presume." + +"Precisely." + +"Very well then. Begin. Why _harm_?" + +"Not now." + +"Why not?" + +"It is too long a story, Sire." + +"All the more reason I should begin at once. You say I am a person of +importance. What was that shouting I heard? Why is a great multitude +shouting and excited because my trance is over, and who are the men in +white in that huge council chamber?" + +"All in good time, Sire," said Howard. "But not crudely, not crudely. +This is one of those flimsy times when no man has a settled mind. Your +awakening--no one expected your awakening. The Council is consulting." + +"What council?" + +"The Council you saw." + +Graham made a petulant movement. "This is not right," he said. "I should +be told what is happening." + +"You must wait. Really you must wait." + +Graham sat down abruptly. "I suppose since I have waited so long to +resume life," he said, "that I must wait a little longer." + +"That is better," said Howard. "Yes, that is much better. And I must +leave you alone. For a space. While I attend the discussion in the +Council.... I am sorry." + +He went towards the noiseless door, hesitated and vanished. + +Graham walked to the door, tried it, found it securely fastened in some +way he never came to understand, turned about, paced the room restlessly, +made the circuit of the room, and sat down. He remained sitting for some +time with folded arms and knitted brow, biting his finger nails and +trying to piece together the kaleidoscopic impressions of this first hour +of awakened life; the vast mechanical spaces, the endless series of +chambers and passages, the great struggle that roared and splashed +through these strange ways, the little group of remote unsympathetic men +beneath the colossal Atlas, Howard's mysterious behaviour. There was an +inkling of some vast inheritance already in his mind--a vast inheritance +perhaps misapplied--of some unprecedented importance and opportunity. +What had he to do? And this room's secluded silence was eloquent of +imprisonment! + +It came into Graham's mind with irresistible conviction that this series +of magnificent impressions was a dream. He tried to shut his eyes and +succeeded, but that time-honoured device led to no awakening. + +Presently he began to touch and examine all the unfamiliar appointments +of the two small rooms in which he found himself. + +In a long oval panel of mirror he saw himself and stopped astonished. He +was clad in a graceful costume of purple and bluish white, with a little +greyshot beard trimmed to a point, and his hair, its blackness streaked +now with bands of grey, arranged over his forehead in an unfamiliar but +pleasing manner. He seemed a man of five-and-forty perhaps. For a moment +he did not perceive this was himself. + +A flash of laughter came with the recognition. "To call on old Warming +like this!" he exclaimed, "and make him take me out to lunch!" + +Then he thought of meeting first one and then another of the few familiar +acquaintances of his early manhood, and in the midst of his amusement +realised that every soul with whom he might jest had died many score of +years ago. The thought smote him abruptly and keenly; he stopped short, +the expression of his face changed to a white consternation. + +The tumultuous memory of the moving platforms and the huge façade of that +wonderful street reasserted itself. The shouting multitudes came back +clear and vivid, and those remote, inaudible, unfriendly councillors in +white. He felt himself a little figure, very small and ineffectual, +pitifully conspicuous. And all about him, the world was--_strange_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +IN THE SILENT ROOMS + + +Presently Graham resumed his examination of his apartments. Curiosity +kept him moving in spite of his fatigue. The inner room, he perceived, +was high, and its ceiling dome shaped, with an oblong aperture in the +centre, opening into a funnel in which a wheel of broad vanes seemed to +be rotating, apparently driving the air up the shaft. The faint humming +note of its easy motion was the only clear sound in that quiet place. As +these vanes sprang up one after the other, Graham could get transient +glimpses of the sky. He was surprised to see a star. + +This drew his attention to the fact that the bright lighting of these +rooms was due to a multitude of very faint glow lamps set about the +cornices. There were no windows. And he began to recall that along all +the vast chambers and passages he had traversed with Howard he had +observed no windows at all. Had there been windows? There were windows on +the street indeed, but were they for light? Or was the whole city lit day +and night for evermore, so that there was no night there? + +And another thing dawned upon him. There was no fireplace in either room. +Was the season summer, and were these merely summer apartments, or was +the whole city uniformly heated or cooled? He became interested in these +questions, began examining the smooth texture of the walls, the simply +constructed bed, the ingenious arrangements by which the labour of +bedroom service was practically abolished. And over everything was a +curious absence of deliberate ornament, a bare grace of form and colour, +that he found very pleasing to the eye. There were several very +comfortable chairs, a light table on silent runners carrying several +bottles of fluids and glasses, and two plates bearing a clear substance +like jelly. Then he noticed there were no books, no newspapers, no +writing materials. "The world has changed indeed," he said. + +He observed one entire side of the outer room was set with rows of +peculiar double cylinders inscribed with green lettering on white that +harmonized with the decorative scheme of the room, and in the centre of +this side projected a little apparatus about a yard square and having a +white smooth face to the room. A chair faced this. He had a transitory +idea that these cylinders might be books, or a modern substitute for +books, but at first it did not seem so. + +The lettering on the cylinders puzzled him. At first sight it seemed like +Russian. Then he noticed a suggestion of mutilated English about certain +of the words. + +"Thi Man huwdbi Kin" forced itself on him as "The Man who would be King." + +"Phonetic spelling," he said. He remembered reading a story with that +title, then he recalled the story vividly, one of the best stories in the +world. But this thing before him was not a book as he understood it. He +puzzled out the titles of two adjacent cylinders. "The Heart of Darkness" +he had never heard of before nor "The Madonna of the Future"--no doubt if +they were indeed stories, they were by post-Victorian authors. + +He puzzled over this peculiar cylinder for some time and replaced it. +Then he turned to the square apparatus and examined that. He opened a +sort of lid and found one of the double cylinders within, and on the +upper edge a little stud like the stud of an electric bell. He pressed +this and a rapid clicking began and ceased. He became aware of voices and +music, and noticed a play of colour on the smooth front face. He suddenly +realised what this might be, and stepped back to regard it. + +On the flat surface was now a little picture, very vividly coloured, and +in this picture were figures that moved. Not only did they move, but they +were conversing in clear small voices. It was exactly like reality viewed +through an inverted opera glass and heard through a long tube. His +interest was seized at once by the situation, which presented a man +pacing up and down and vociferating angry things to a pretty but petulant +woman. Both were in the picturesque costume that seemed so strange to +Graham. "I have worked," said the man, "but what have you been doing?" + +"Ah!" said Graham. He forgot everything else, and sat down in the chair. +Within five minutes he heard himself, named, heard "when the Sleeper +wakes," used jestingly as a proverb for remote postponement, and passed +himself by, a thing remote and incredible. But in a little while he knew +those two people like intimate friends. + +At last the miniature drama came to an end, and the square face of the +apparatus was blank again. + +It was a strange world into which he had been permitted to see, +unscrupulous, pleasure seeking, energetic, subtle, a world too of dire +economic struggle; there were allusions he did not understand, incidents +that conveyed strange suggestions of altered moral ideals, flashes of +dubious enlightenment. The blue canvas that bulked so largely in his +first impression of the city ways appeared again and again as the costume +of the common people. He had no doubt the story was contemporary, and its +intense realism was undeniable. And the end had been a tragedy that +oppressed him. He sat staring at the blankness. + +He started and rubbed his eyes. He had been so absorbed in the latter-day +substitute for a novel, that he awoke to the little green and white room +with more than a touch of the surprise of his first awakening. + +He stood up, and abruptly he was back in his own wonderland. The +clearness of the kinetoscope drama passed, and the struggle in the vast +place of streets, the ambiguous Council, the swift phases of his waking +hour, came back. These people had spoken of the Council with suggestions +of a vague universality of power. And they had spoken of the Sleeper; it +had not really struck him vividly at the time that he was the Sleeper. He +had to recall precisely what they had said.... + +He walked into the bedroom and peered up through the quick intervals of +the revolving fan. As the fan swept round, a dim turmoil like the noise +of machinery came in rhythmic eddies. All else was silence. Though the +perpetual day still irradiated his apartments, he perceived the little +intermittent strip of sky was now deep blue--black almost, with a dust of +little stars.... + +He resumed his examination of the rooms. He could find no way of opening +the padded door, no bell nor other means of calling for attendance. His +feeling of wonder was in abeyance; but he was curious, anxious for +information. He wanted to know exactly how he stood to these new things. +He tried to compose himself to wait until someone came to him. Presently +he became restless and eager for information, for distraction, for fresh +sensations. + +He went back to the apparatus in the other room, and had soon puzzled out +the method of replacing the cylinders by others. As he did so, it came +into his mind that it must be these little appliances had fixed the +language so that it was still clear and understandable after two hundred +years. The haphazard cylinders he substituted displayed a musical +fantasia. At first it was beautiful, and then it was sensuous. He +presently recognised what appeared to him to be an altered version of the +story of Tannhauser. The music was unfamiliar. But the rendering was +realistic, and with a contemporary unfamiliarity. Tannhauser did not go +to a Venusberg, but to a Pleasure City. What was a Pleasure City? A +dream, surely, the fancy of a fantastic, voluptuous writer. + +He became interested, curious. The story developed with a flavour of +strangely twisted sentimentality. Suddenly he did not like it. He liked +it less as it proceeded. + +He had a revulsion of feeling. These were no pictures, no idealisations, +but photographed realities. He wanted no more of the twenty-second +century Venusberg. He forgot the part played by the model in nineteenth +century art, and gave way to an archaic indignation. He rose, angry and +half ashamed at himself for witnessing this thing even in solitude. He +pulled forward the apparatus, and with some violence sought for a means +of stopping its action. Something snapped. A violet spark stung and +convulsed his arm and the thing was still. When he attempted next day to +replace these Tannhauser cylinders by another pair, he found the +apparatus broken.... + +He struck out a path oblique to the room and paced to and fro, struggling +with intolerable vast impressions. The things he had derived from the +cylinders and the things he had seen, conflicted, confused him. It seemed +to him the most amazing thing of all that in his thirty years of life he +had never tried to shape a picture of these coming times. "We were making +the future," he said, "and hardly any of us troubled to think what future +we were making. And here it is!" + +"What have they got to, what has been done? How do I come into the midst +of it all?" The vastness of street and house he was prepared for, the +multitudes of people. But conflicts in the city ways! And the +systematised sensuality of a class of rich men! + +He thought of Bellamy, the hero of whose Socialistic Utopia had so oddly +anticipated this actual experience. But here was no Utopia, no +Socialistic state. He had already seen enough to realise that the ancient +antithesis of luxury, waste and sensuality on the one hand and abject +poverty on the other, still prevailed. He knew enough of the essential +factors of life to understand that correlation. And not only were the +buildings of the city gigantic and the crowds in the street gigantic, but +the voices he had heard in the ways, the uneasiness of Howard, the very +atmosphere spoke of gigantic discontent. What country was he in? Still +England it seemed, and yet strangely "un-English." His mind glanced at +the rest of the world, and saw only an enigmatical veil. + +He prowled about his apartment, examining everything as a caged animal +might do. He was very tired, with that feverish exhaustion that does not +admit of rest. He listened for long spaces under the ventilator to catch +some distant echo of the tumults he felt must be proceeding in the city. + +He began to talk to himself. "Two hundred and three years!" he said to +himself over and over again, laughing stupidly. "Then I am two hundred +and thirty-three years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely they haven't +reversed the tendency of our time and gone back to the rule of the +oldest. My claims are indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the +Bulgarian atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a great age! Ha +ha!" He was surprised at first to hear himself laughing, and then laughed +again deliberately and louder. Then he realised that he was behaving +foolishly. "Steady," he said. "Steady!" + +His pacing became more regular. "This new world," he said. "I don't +understand it. _Why_? ... But it is all _why_!" + +"I suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things. Let me try and +remember just how it began." + +He was surprised at first to find how vague the memories of his first +thirty years had become. He remembered fragments, for the most part +trivial moments, things of no great importance that he had observed. His +boyhood seemed the most accessible at first, he recalled school books and +certain lessons in mensuration. Then he revived the more salient features +of his life, memories of the wife long since dead, her magic influence +now gone beyond corruption, of his rivals and friends and betrayers, of +the decision of this issue and that, and then of his last years of +misery, of fluctuating resolves, and at last of his strenuous studies. In +a little while he perceived he had it all again; dim perhaps, like metal +long laid aside, but in no way defective or injured, capable of +re-polishing. And the hue of it was a deepening misery. Was it worth +re-polishing? By a miracle he had been lifted out of a life that had +become intolerable.... + +He reverted to his present condition. He wrestled with the facts in vain. +It became an inextricable tangle. He saw the sky through the ventilator +pink with dawn. An old persuasion came out of the dark recesses of his +memory. "I must sleep," he said. It appeared as a delightful relief from +this mental distress and from the growing pain and heaviness of his +limbs. He went to the strange little bed, lay down and was presently +asleep.... + +He was destined to become very familiar indeed with these apartments +before he left them, for he remained imprisoned for three days. During +that time no one, except Howard, entered the rooms. The marvel of his +fate mingled with and in some way minimised the marvel of his survival. +He had awakened to mankind it seemed only to be snatched away into this +unaccountable solitude. Howard came regularly with subtly sustaining and +nutritive fluids, and light and pleasant foods, quite strange to Graham. +He always closed the door carefully as he entered. On matters of detail +he was increasingly obliging, but the bearing of Graham on the great +issues that were evidently being contested so closely beyond the +sound-proof walls that enclosed him, he would not elucidate. He evaded, +as politely as possible, every question on the position of affairs in the +outer world. + +And in those three days Graham's incessant thoughts went far and wide. +All that he had seen, all this elaborate contrivance to prevent him +seeing, worked together in his mind. Almost every possible interpretation +of his position he debated--even as it chanced, the right interpretation. +Things that presently happened to him, came to him at last credible, by +virtue of this seclusion. When at length the moment of his release +arrived, it found him prepared.... + +Howard's bearing went far to deepen Graham's impression of his own +strange importance; the door between its opening and closing seemed to +admit with him a breath of momentous happening. His enquiries became +more definite and searching. Howard retreated through protests and +difficulties. The awakening was unforeseen, he repeated; it happened +to have fallen in with the trend of a social convulsion. "To explain +it I must tell you the history of a gross and a half of years," +protested Howard. + +"The thing is this," said Graham. "You are afraid of something I shall +do. In some way I am arbitrator--I might be arbitrator." + +"It is not that. But you have--I may tell you this much--the automatic +increase of your property puts great possibilities of interference in +your hands. And in certain other ways you have influence, with your +eighteenth century notions." + +"Nineteenth century," corrected Graham. + +"With your old world notions, anyhow, ignorant as you are of every +feature of our State." + +"Am I a fool?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Do I seem to be the sort of man who would act rashly?" + +"You were never expected to act at all. No one counted on your +awakening. No one dreamt you would ever awake. The Council had surrounded +you with antiseptic conditions. As a matter of fact, we thought that you +were dead--a mere arrest of decay. And--but it is too complex. We dare +not suddenly---while you are still half awake." + +"It won't do," said Graham. "Suppose it is as you say--why am I not being +crammed night and day with facts and warnings and all the wisdom of the +time to fit me for my responsibilities? Am I any wiser now than two days +ago, if it is two days, when I awoke?" + +Howard pulled his lip. + +"I am beginning to feel--every hour I feel more clearly--a system of +concealment of which you are the face. Is this Council, or committee, or +whatever they are, cooking the accounts of my estate? Is that it?" + +"That note of suspicion--" said Howard. + +"Ugh!" said Graham. "Now, mark my words, it will be ill for those who +have put me here. It will be ill. I am alive. Make no doubt of it, I am +alive. Every day my pulse is stronger and my mind clearer and more +vigorous. No more quiescence. I am a man come back to life. And I want +to _live_--" + +"_Live_!" + +Howard's face lit with an idea. He came towards Graham and spoke in an +easy confidential tone. + +"The Council secludes you here for your good. You are restless. +Naturally--an energetic man! You find it dull here. But we are anxious +that everything you may desire--every desire--every sort of desire ... +There may be something. Is there any sort of company?" + +He paused meaningly. + +"Yes," said Graham thoughtfully. "There is." + +"Ah! _Now_! We have treated you neglectfully." + +"The crowds in yonder streets of yours." + +"That," said Howard, "I am afraid--But--" + +Graham began pacing the room. Howard stood near the door watching him. +The implication of Howard's suggestion was only half evident to Graham. +Company? Suppose he were to accept the proposal, demand some sort of +_company_? Would there be any possibilities of gathering from the +conversation of this additional person some vague inkling of the struggle +that had broken out so vividly at his waking moment? He meditated again, +and the suggestion took colour. He turned on Howard abruptly. + +"What do you mean by company?" + +Howard raised his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. "Human beings," he +said, with a curious smile on his heavy face. "Our social ideas," he +said, "have a certain increased liberality, perhaps, in comparison with +your times. If a man wishes to relieve such a tedium as this--by feminine +society, for instance. We think it no scandal. We have cleared our minds +of formulae. There is in our city a class, a necessary class, no longer +despised--discreet--" + +Graham stopped dead. + +"It would pass the time," said Howard. "It is a thing I should perhaps +have thought of before, but, as a matter of fact, so much is happening--" + +He indicated the exterior world. + +Graham hesitated. For a moment the figure of a possible woman dominated +his mind with an intense attraction. Then he flashed into anger. + +"_No_!" he shouted. + +He began striding rapidly up and down the room. "Everything you say, +everything you do, convinces me--of some great issue in which I am +concerned. I do not want to pass the time, as you call it. Yes, I know. +Desire and indulgence are life in a sense--and Death! Extinction! In my +life before I slept I had worked out that pitiful question. I will not +begin again. There is a city, a multitude--. And meanwhile I am here like +a rabbit in a bag." + +His rage surged high. He choked for a moment and began to wave his +clenched fists. He gave way to an anger fit, he swore archaic curses. His +gestures had the quality of physical threats. + +"I do not know who your party may be. I am in the dark, and you keep me +in the dark. But I know this, that I am secluded here for no good +purpose. For no good purpose. I warn you, I warn you of the consequences. +Once I come at my power--" + +He realised that to threaten thus might be a danger to himself. He +stopped. Howard stood regarding him with a curious expression. + +"I take it this is a message to the Council," said Howard. + +Graham had a momentary impulse to leap upon the man, fell or stun him. It +must have shown upon his face; at any rate Howard's movement was quick. +In a second the noiseless door had closed again, and the man from the +nineteenth century was alone. + +For a moment he stood rigid, with clenched hands half raised. Then he +flung them down. "What a fool I have been!" he said, and gave way to his +anger again, stamping about the room and shouting curses.... For a long +time he kept himself in a sort of frenzy, raging at his position, at his +own folly, at the knaves who had imprisoned him. He did this because he +did not want to look calmly at his position. He clung to his +anger--because he was afraid of fear. + +Presently he found himself reasoning with himself. This imprisonment +was unaccountable, but no doubt the legal forms--new legal forms--of +the time permitted it. It must, of course, be legal. These people were +two hundred years further on in the march of civilisation than the +Victorian generation. It was not likely they would be less--humane. Yet +they had cleared their minds of formulae! Was humanity a formula as +well as chastity? + +His imagination set to work to suggest things that might be done to him. +The attempts of his reason to dispose of these suggestions, though for +the most part logically valid, were quite unavailing. "Why should +anything be done to me?" + +"If the worst comes to the worst," he found himself saying at last, "I +can give up what they want. But what do they want? And why don't they ask +me for it instead of cooping me up?" + +He returned to his former preoccupation with the Council's possible +intentions. He began to reconsider the details of Howard's behaviour, +sinister glances, inexplicable hesitations. Then, for a time, his mind +circled about the idea of escaping from these rooms; but whither could he +escape into this vast, crowded world? He would be worse off than a Saxon +yeoman suddenly dropped into nineteenth century London. And besides, how +could anyone escape from these rooms? + +"How can it benefit anyone if harm should happen to me?" + +He thought of the tumult, the great social trouble of which he was so +unaccountably the axis. A text, irrelevant enough, and yet curiously +insistent, came floating up out of the darkness of his memory. This also +a Council had said: + +"It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ROOF SPACES + + +As the fans in the circular aperture of the inner room rotated and +permitted glimpses of the night, dim sounds drifted in thereby. And +Graham, standing underneath, was startled by the sound of a voice. + +He peered up and saw in the intervals of the rotation, dark and dim, the +face and shoulders of a man regarding him. Then a dark hand was extended, +the swift vane struck it, swung round and beat on with a little brownish +patch on the edge of its thin blade, and something began to fall +therefrom upon the floor, dripping silently. + +Graham looked down, and there were spots of blood at his feet. He looked +up again in a strange excitement. The figure had gone. + +He remained motionless--his every sense intent upon the flickering patch +of darkness. He became aware of some faint, remote, dark specks floating +lightly through the outer air. They came down towards him, fitfully, +eddyingly, and passed aside out of the uprush from the fan. A gleam of +light flickered, the specks flashed white, and then the darkness came +again. Warmed and lit as he was, he perceived that it was snowing within +a few feet of him. + +Graham walked across the room and came back to the ventilator again. He +saw the head of a man pass near. There was a sound of whispering. Then a +smart blow on some metallic substance, effort, voices, and the vanes +stopped. A gust of snowflakes whirled into the room, and vanished before +they touched the floor. "Don't be afraid," said a voice. + +Graham stood under the vane. "Who are you?" he whispered. + +For a moment there was nothing but a swaying of the fan, and then the +head of a man was thrust cautiously into the opening. His face +appeared nearly inverted to Graham; his dark hair was wet with +dissolving flakes of snow upon it. His arm went up into the darkness +holding something unseen. He had a youthful face and bright eyes, and +the veins of his forehead were swollen. He seemed to be exerting +himself to maintain his position. + +For several seconds neither he nor Graham spoke. + +"You were the Sleeper?" said the stranger at last. + +"Yes," said Graham. "What do you want with me?" + +"I come from Ostrog, Sire." + +"Ostrog?" + +The man in the ventilator twisted his head round so that his profile was +towards Graham. He appeared to be listening. Suddenly there was a hasty +exclamation, and the intruder sprang back just in time to escape the +sweep of the released fan. And when Graham peered up there was nothing +visible but the slowly falling snow. + +It was perhaps a quarter of an hour before anything returned to the +ventilator. But at last came the same metallic interference again; the +fans stopped and the face reappeared. Graham had remained all this time +in the same place, alert and tremulously excited. + +"Who are you? What do you want?" he said. + +"We want to speak to you, Sire," said the intruder. "We want--I +can't hold the thing. We have been trying to find a way to you--these +three days." + +"Is it rescue?" whispered Graham. "Escape?" + +"Yes, Sire. If you will." + +"You are my party--the party of the Sleeper?" + +"Yes, Sire." + +"What am I to do?" said Graham. + +There was a struggle. The stranger's arm appeared, and his hand was +bleeding. His knees came into view over the edge of the funnel. "Stand +away from me," he said, and he dropped rather heavily on his hands and +one shoulder at Graham's feet. The released ventilator whirled noisily. +The stranger rolled over, sprang up nimbly and stood panting, hand to a +bruised shoulder, and with his bright eyes on Graham. + +"You are indeed the Sleeper," he said. "I saw you asleep. When it was the +law that anyone might see you." + +"I am the man who was in the trance," said Graham. "They have imprisoned +me here. I have been here since I awoke--at least three days." + +The intruder seemed about to speak, heard something, glanced swiftly at +the door, and suddenly left Graham and ran towards it, shouting quick +incoherent words. A bright wedge of steel flashed in his hand, and he +began tap, tap, a quick succession of blows upon the hinges. "Mind!" +cried a voice. "Oh!" The voice came from above. + +Graham glanced up, saw the soles of two feet, ducked, was struck on the +shoulder by one of them, and a heavy weight bore him to the earth. He +fell on his knees and forward, and the weight went over his head. He +knelt up and saw a second man from above seated before him. + +"I did not see you, Sire," panted the man. He rose and assisted +Graham to rise. "Are you hurt, Sire?" he panted. A succession of heavy +blows on the ventilator began, something fell close to Graham's face, +and a shivering edge of white metal danced, fell over, and lay fiat +upon the floor. + +"What is this?" cried Graham, confused and looking at the ventilator. +"Who are you? What are you going to do? Remember, I understand nothing." + +"Stand back," said the stranger, and drew him from under the ventilator +as another fragment of metal fell heavily. + +"We want you to come, Sire," panted the newcomer, and Graham glancing at +his face again, saw a new cut had changed from white to red on his +forehead, and a couple of little trickles of blood starting therefrom. +"Your people call for you." + +"Come where? My people?" + +"To the hall about the markets. Your life is in danger here. We have +spies. We learned but just in time. The Council has decided--this very +day--either to drug or kill you. And everything is ready. The people are +drilled, the Wind-Vane police, the engineers, and half the way-gearers +are with us. We have the halls crowded--shouting. The whole city shouts +against the Council. We have arms." He wiped the blood with his hand. +"Your life here is not worth--" + +"But why arms?" + +"The people have risen to protect you, Sire. What?" + +He turned quickly as the man who had first come down made a hissing with +his teeth. Graham saw the latter start back, gesticulate to them to +conceal themselves, and move as if to hide behind the opening door. + +As he did so Howard appeared, a little tray in one hand and his heavy +face downcast. He started, looked up, the door slammed behind him, the +tray tilted side-ways, and the steel wedge struck him behind the ear. He +went down like a felled tree, and lay as he fell athwart the floor of the +outer room. The man who had struck him bent hastily, studied his face for +a moment, rose, and returned to his work at the door. + +"Your poison!" said a voice in Graham's ear. + +Then abruptly they were in darkness. The innumerable cornice lights had +been extinguished. Graham saw the aperture of the ventilator with ghostly +snow whirling above it and dark figures moving hastily. Three knelt on +the vane. Some dim thing--a ladder--was being lowered through the +opening, and a hand appeared holding a fitful yellow light. + +He had a moment of hesitation. But the manner of these men, their swift +alacrity, their words, marched so completely with his own fears of the +Council, with his idea and hope of a rescue, that it lasted not a moment. +And his people awaited him! + +"I do not understand," he said. "I trust. Tell me what to do." + +The man with the cut brow gripped Graham's arm. "Clamber up the ladder," +he whispered. "Quick. They will have heard--" + +Graham felt for the ladder with extended hands, put his foot on the +lower rung, and, turning his head, saw over the shoulder of the nearest +man, in the yellow flicker of the light, the first-comer astride over +Howard and still working at the door. Graham turned to the ladder again, +and was thrust by his conductor and helped up by those above, and then +he was standing on something hard and cold and slippery outside the +ventilating funnel. + +He shivered. He was aware of a great difference in the temperature. Half +a dozen men stood about him, and light flakes of snow touched hands and +face and melted. For a moment it was dark, then for a flash a ghastly +violet white, and then everything was dark again. + +He saw he had come out upon the roof of the vast city structure which had +replaced the miscellaneous houses, streets and open spaces of Victorian +London. The place upon which he stood was level, with huge serpentine +cables lying athwart it in every direction. The circular wheels of a +number of windmills loomed indistinct and gigantic through the darkness +and snowfall, and roared with a varying loudness as the fitful wind rose +and fell. Some way off an intermittent white light smote up from below, +touched the snow eddies with a transient glitter, and made an evanescent +spectre in the night; and here and there, low down, some vaguely outlined +wind-driven mechanism flickered with livid sparks. + +All this he appreciated in a fragmentary manner as his rescuers stood +about him. Someone threw a thick soft cloak of fur-like texture about +him, and fastened it by buckled straps at waist and shoulders. Things +were said briefly, decisively. Someone thrust him forward. + +Before his mind was yet clear a dark shape gripped his arm. "This way," +said this shape, urging him along, and pointed Graham across the flat +roof in the direction of a dim semicircular haze of light. Graham obeyed. + +"Mind!" said a voice, as Graham stumbled against a cable. "Between them +and not across them," said the voice. And, "We must hurry." + +"Where are the people?" said Graham. "The people you said awaited me?" + +The stranger did not answer. He left Graham's arm as the path grew +narrower, and led the way with rapid strides. Graham followed blindly. In +a minute he found himself running. "Are the others coming?" he panted, +but received no reply. His companion glanced back and ran on. They came +to a sort of pathway of open metal-work, transverse to the direction they +had come, and they turned aside to follow this. Graham looked back, but +the snowstorm had hidden the others. + +"Come on!" said his guide. Running now, they drew near a little windmill +spinning high in the air. "Stoop," said Graham's guide, and they avoided +an endless band running roaring up to the shaft of the vane. "This way!" +and they were ankle deep in a gutter full of drifted thawing snow, +between two low walls of metal that presently rose waist high. "I will go +first," said the guide. Graham drew his cloak about him and followed. +Then suddenly came a narrow abyss across which the gutter leapt to the +snowy darkness of the further side. Graham peeped over the side once and +the gulf was black. For a moment he regretted his flight. He dared not +look again, and his brain spun as he waded through the half liquid snow. + +Then out of the gutter they clambered and hurried across a wide flat +space damp with thawing snow, and for half its extent dimly translucent +to lights that went to and fro underneath. He hesitated at this unstable +looking substance, but his guide ran on unheeding, and so they came to +and clambered up slippery steps to the rim of a great dome of glass. +Round this they went. Far below a number of people seemed to be dancing, +and music filtered through the dome.... Graham fancied he heard a +shouting through the snowstorm, and his guide hurried him on with a new +spurt of haste. They clambered panting to a space of huge windmills, one +so vast that only the lower edge of its vanes came rushing into sight and +rushed up again and was lost in the night and the snow. They hurried for +a time through the colossal metallic tracery of its supports, and came at +last above a place of moving platforms like the place into which Graham +had looked from the balcony. They crawled across the sloping transparency +that covered this street of platforms, crawling on hands and knees +because of the slipperiness of the snowfall. + +For the most part the glass was bedewed, and Graham saw only hazy +suggestions of the forms below, but near the pitch of the transparent +roof the glass was clear, and he found himself looking sheerly down +upon it all. For awhile, in spite of the urgency of his guide, he gave +way to vertigo and lay spread-eagled on the glass, sick and paralysed. +Far below, mere stirring specks and dots, went the people of the +unsleeping city in their perpetual daylight, and the moving platforms +ran on their incessant journey. Messengers and men on unknown +businesses shot along the drooping cables and the frail bridges were +crowded with men. It was like peering into a gigantic glass hive, and +it lay vertically below him with only a tough glass of unknown +thickness to save him from a fall. The street showed warm and lit, and +Graham was wet now to the skin with thawing snow, and his feet were +numbed with cold. For a space he could not move. "Come on!" cried his +guide, with terror in his voice. "Come on!" + +Graham reached the pitch of the roof by an effort. + +Over the ridge, following his guide's example, he turned about and slid +backward down the opposite slope very swiftly, amid a little avalanche of +snow. While he was sliding he thought of what would happen if some broken +gap should come in his way. At the edge he stumbled to his feet ankle +deep in slush, thanking heaven for an opaque footing again. His guide was +already clambering up a metal screen to a level expanse. + +Through the spare snowflakes above this loomed another line of vast +windmills, and then suddenly the amorphous tumult of the rotating wheels +was pierced with a deafening sound. It was a mechanical shrilling of +extraordinary intensity that seemed to come simultaneously from every +point of the compass. + +"They have missed us already!" cried Graham's guide in an accent of +terror, and suddenly, with a blinding flash, the night became day. + +Above the driving snow, from the summits of the wind-wheels, appeared +vast masts carrying globes of livid light. They receded in illimitable +vistas in every direction. As far as his eye could penetrate the snowfall +they glared. + +"Get on this," cried Graham's conductor, and thrust him forward to a long +grating of snowless metal that ran like a band between two slightly +sloping expanses of snow. It felt warm to Graham's benumbed feet, and a +faint eddy of steam rose from it. + +"Come on!" shouted his guide ten yards off, and, without waiting, ran +swiftly through the incandescent glare towards the iron supports of the +next range of wind-wheels. Graham, recovering from his astonishment, +followed as fast, convinced of his imminent capture.... + +In a score of seconds they were within a tracery of glare and black +shadows shot with moving bars beneath the monstrous wheels. Graham's +conductor ran on for some time, and suddenly darted sideways and vanished +into a black shadow in the corner of the foot of a huge support. In +another moment Graham was beside him. + +They cowered panting and stared out. + +The scene upon which Graham looked was very wild and strange. The snow +had now almost ceased; only a belated flake passed now and again across +the picture. But the broad stretch of level before them was a ghastly +white, broken only by gigantic masses and moving shapes and lengthy +strips of impenetrable darkness, vast ungainly Titans of shadow. All +about them, huge metallic structures, iron girders, inhumanly vast as it +seemed to him, interlaced, and the edges of wind-wheels, scarcely moving +in the lull, passed in great shining curves steeper and steeper up into a +luminous haze. Wherever the snow-spangled light struck down, beams and +girders, and incessant bands running with a halting, indomitable +resolution, passed upward and downward into the black. And with all that +mighty activity, with an omnipresent sense of motive and design, this +snow-clad desolation of mechanism seemed void of all human presence save +themselves, seemed as trackless and deserted and unfrequented by men as +some inaccessible Alpine snowfield. + +"They will be chasing us," cried the leader. "We are scarcely halfway +there yet. Cold as it is we must hide here for a space--at least until it +snows more thickly again." + +His teeth chattered in his head. + +"Where are the markets?" asked Graham staring out. "Where are all +the people?" + +The other made no answer. + +"_Look_!" whispered Graham, crouched close, and became very still. + +The snow had suddenly become thick again, and sliding with the whirling +eddies out of the black pit of the sky came something, vague and large +and very swift. It came down in a steep curve and swept round, wide wings +extended and a trail of white condensing steam behind it, rose with an +easy swiftness and went gliding up the air, swept horizontally forward in +a wide curve, and vanished again in the steaming specks of snow. And, +through the ribs of its body, Graham saw two little men, very minute and +active, searching the snowy areas about him, as it seemed to him, with +field glasses. For a second they were clear, then hazy through a thick +whirl of snow, then small and distant, and in a minute they were gone. + +"_Now_!" cried his companion. "Come!" + +He pulled Graham's sleeve, and incontinently the two were running +headlong down the arcade of iron-work beneath the wind-wheels. Graham, +running blindly, collided with his leader, who had turned back on him +suddenly. He found himself within a dozen yards of a black chasm. It +extended as far as he could see right and left. It seemed to cut off +their progress in either direction. + +"Do as I do," whispered his guide. He lay down and crawled to the edge, +thrust his head over and twisted until one leg hung. He seemed to feel +for something with his foot, found it, and went sliding over the edge +into the gulf. His head reappeared. "It is a ledge," he whispered. "In +the dark all the way along. Do as I did." + +Graham hesitated, went down upon all fours, crawled to the edge, and +peered into a velvety blackness. For a sickly moment he had courage +neither to go on nor retreat, then he sat and hung his leg down, felt his +guide's hands pulling at him, had a horrible sensation of sliding over +the edge into the unfathomable, splashed, and felt himself in a slushy +gutter, impenetrably dark. + +"This way," whispered the voice, and he began crawling along the gutter +through the trickling thaw, pressing himself against the wall. They +continued along it for some minutes. He seemed to pass through a hundred +stages of misery, to pass minute after minute through a hundred degrees +of cold, damp, and exhaustion. In a little while he ceased to feel his +hands and feet. + +The gutter sloped downwards. He observed that they were now many feet +below the edge of the buildings. Rows of spectral white shapes like the +ghosts of blind-drawn windows rose above them. They came to the end of a +cable fastened above one of these white windows, dimly visible and +dropping into impenetrable shadows. Suddenly his hand came against his +guide's. "_Still_!" whispered the latter very softly. + +He looked up with a start and saw the huge wings of the flying machine +gliding slowly and noiselessly overhead athwart the broad band of +snow-flecked grey-blue sky. In a moment it was hidden again. + +"Keep still; they were just turning." + +For awhile both were motionless, then Graham's companion stood up, and +reaching towards the fastenings of the cable fumbled with some +indistinct tackle. + +"What is that?" asked Graham. + +The only answer was a faint cry. The man crouched motionless. Graham +peered and saw his face dimly. He was staring down the long ribbon of +sky, and Graham, following his eyes, saw the flying machine small and +faint and remote. Then he saw that the wings spread on either side, that +it headed towards them, that every moment it grew larger. It was +following the edge of the chasm towards them. + +The man's movements became convulsive. He thrust two cross bars into +Graham's hand. Graham could not see them, he ascertained their form by +feeling. They were slung by thin cords to the cable. On the cord were +hand grips of some soft elastic substance. "Put the cross between your +legs," whispered the guide hysterically, "and grip the holdfasts. Grip +tightly, grip!" + +Graham did as he was told. + +"Jump," said the voice. "In heaven's name, jump!" + +For one momentous second Graham could not speak. He was glad afterwards +that darkness hid his face. He said nothing. He began to tremble +violently. He looked sideways at the swift shadow that swallowed up the +sky as it rushed upon him. + +"Jump! Jump--in God's name! Or they will have us," cried Graham's guide, +and in the violence of his passion thrust him forward. + +Graham tottered convulsively, gave a sobbing cry, a cry in spite of +himself, and then, as the flying machine swept over them, fell forward +into the pit of that darkness, seated on the cross wood and holding the +ropes with the clutch of death. Something cracked, something rapped +smartly against a wall. He heard the pulley of the cradle hum on its +rope. He heard the aeronauts shout. He felt a pair of knees digging into +his back.... He was sweeping headlong through the air, falling through +the air. All his strength was in his hands. He would have screamed but he +had no breath. + +He shot into a blinding light that made him grip the tighter. He +recognised the great passage with the running ways, the hanging lights +and interlacing girders. They rushed upward and by him. He had a +momentary impression of a great round mouth yawning to swallow him up. + +He was in the dark again, falling, falling, gripping with aching hands, +and behold! a clap of sound, a burst of light, and he was in a brightly +lit hall with a roaring multitude of people beneath his feet. The people! +His people! A proscenium, a stage rushed up towards him, and his cable +swept down to a circular aperture to the right of this. He felt he was +travelling slower, and suddenly very much slower. He distinguished shouts +of "Saved! The Master. He is safe!" The stage rushed up towards him with +rapidly diminishing swiftness. Then-- + +He heard the man clinging behind him shout as if suddenly terrified, and +this shout was echoed by a shout from below. He felt that he was no +longer gliding along the cable but falling with it. There was a tumult of +yells, screams, and cries. He felt something soft against his extended +hand, and the impact of a broken fall quivering through his arm.... + +He wanted to be still and the people were lifting him. He believed +afterwards he was carried to the platform and given some drink, but he +was never sure. He did not notice what became of his guide. When his mind +was clear again he was on his feet; eager hands were assisting him to +stand. He was in a big alcove, occupying the position that in his +previous experience had been devoted to the lower boxes. If this was +indeed a theatre. + +A mighty tumult was in his ears, a thunderous roar, the shouting of a +countless multitude. "It is the Sleeper! The Sleeper is with us!" + +"The Sleeper is with us! The Master--the Owner! The Master is with us. +He is safe." + +Graham had a surging vision of a great hall crowded with people. He saw +no individuals, he was conscious of a froth of pink faces, of waving arms +and garments, he felt the occult influence of a vast crowd pouring over +him, buoying him up. There were balconies, galleries, great archways +giving remoter perspectives, and everywhere people, a vast arena of +people, densely packed and cheering. Across the nearer space lay the +collapsed cable like a huge snake. It had been cut by the men of the +flying machine at its upper end, and had crumpled down into the hall. Men +seemed to be hauling this out of the way. But the whole effect was vague, +the very buildings throbbed and leapt with the roar of the voices. + +He stood unsteadily and looked at those about him. Someone supported him +by one arm. "Let me go into a little room," he said, weeping; "a little +room," and could say no more. A man in black stepped forward, took his +disengaged arm. He was aware of officious men opening a door before him. +Someone guided him to a seat. He staggered. He sat down heavily and +covered his face with his hands; he was trembling violently, his nervous +control was at an end. He was relieved of his cloak, he could not +remember how; his purple hose he saw were black with wet. People were +running about him, things were happening, but for some time he gave no +heed to them. + +He had escaped. A myriad of cries told him that. He was safe. These were +the people who were on his side. For a space he sobbed for breath, and +then he sat still with his face covered. The air was full of the shouting +of innumerable men. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE PEOPLE MARCH + + +He became aware of someone urging a glass of clear fluid upon his +attention, looked up and discovered this was a dark young man in a yellow +garment. He took the dose forthwith, and in a moment he was glowing. A +tall man in a black robe stood by his shoulder, and pointed to the half +open door into the hall. This man was shouting close to his ear and yet +what was said was indistinct because of the tremendous uproar from the +great theatre. Behind the man was a girl in a silvery grey robe, whom +Graham, even in this confusion, perceived to be beautiful. Her dark eyes, +full of wonder and curiosity, were fixed on him, her lips trembled apart. +A partially opened door gave a glimpse of the crowded hall, and admitted +a vast uneven tumult, a hammering, clapping and shouting that died away +and began again, and rose to a thunderous pitch, and so continued +intermittently all the time that Graham remained in the little room. He +watched the lips of the man in black and gathered that he was making some +explanation. + +He stared stupidly for some moments at these things and then stood up +abruptly; he grasped the arm of this shouting person. + +"Tell me!" he cried. "Who am I? Who am I?" + +The others came nearer to hear his words. "Who am I?" His eyes searched +their faces. + +"They have told him nothing!" cried the girl. + +"Tell me, tell me!" cried Graham. + +"You are the Master of the Earth. You are owner of the world." + +He did not believe he heard aright. He resisted the persuasion. He +pretended not to understand, not to hear. He lifted his voice again. "I +have been awake three days--a prisoner three days. I judge there is some +struggle between a number of people in this city--it is London?" + +"Yes," said the younger man. + +"And those who meet in the great hall with the white Atlas? How does it +concern me? In some way it has to do with me. _Why_, I don't know. Drugs? +It seems to me that while I have slept the world has gone mad. I have +gone mad.... Who are those Councillors under the Atlas? Why should they +try to drug me?" + +"To keep you insensible," said the man in yellow. "To prevent your +interference." + +"But _why_?" + +"Because _you_ are the Atlas, Sire," said the man in yellow. "The world +is on your shoulders. They rule it in your name." + +The sounds from the hall had died into a silence threaded by one +monotonous voice. Now suddenly, trampling on these last words, came a +deafening tumult, a roaring and thundering, cheer crowded on cheer, +voices hoarse and shrill, beating, overlapping, and while it lasted the +people in the little room could not hear each other shout. + +Graham stood, his intelligence clinging helplessly to the thing he had +just heard. "The Council," he repeated blankly, and then snatched at a +name that had struck him. "But who is Ostrog?" he said. + +"He is the organiser--the organiser of the revolt. Our Leader--in +your name." + +"In my name?--And you? Why is he not here?" + +"He--has deputed us. I am his brother--his half-brother, Lincoln. He +wants you to show yourself to these people and then come on to him. That +is why he has sent. He is at the wind-vane offices directing. The people +are marching." + +"In your name," shouted the younger man. "They have ruled, crushed, +tyrannised. At last even--" + +"In my name! My name! Master?" + +The younger man suddenly became audible in a pause of the outer thunder, +indignant and vociferous, a high penetrating voice under his red +aquiline nose and bushy moustache. "No one expected you to wake. No one +expected you to wake. They were cunning. Damned tyrants! But they were +taken by surprise. They did not know whether to drug you, hypnotise you, +kill you." + +Again the hall dominated everything. + +"Ostrog is at the wind-vane offices ready--. Even now there is a rumour +of fighting beginning." + +The man who had called himself Lincoln came close to him. "Ostrog has it +planned. Trust him. We have our organisations ready. We shall seize the +flying stages--. Even now he may be doing that. Then--" + +"This public theatre," bawled the man in yellow, "is only a contingent. +We have five myriads of drilled men--" + +"We have arms," cried Lincoln. "We have plans. A leader. Their police +have gone from the streets and are massed in the--" (inaudible). "It is +now or never. The Council is rocking--They cannot trust even their +drilled men--" + +"Hear the people calling to you!" + +Graham's mind was like a night of moon and swift clouds, now dark and +hopeless, now clear and ghastly. He was Master of the Earth, he was a man +sodden with thawing snow. Of all his fluctuating impressions the dominant +ones presented an antagonism; on the one hand was the White Council, +powerful, disciplined, few, the White Council from which he had just +escaped; and on the other, monstrous crowds, packed masses of +indistinguishable people clamouring his name, hailing him Master. The +other side had imprisoned him, debated his death. These shouting +thousands beyond the little doorway had rescued him. But why these things +should be so he could not understand. + +The door opened, Lincoln's voice was swept away and drowned, and a rash +of people followed on the heels of the tumult. These intruders came +towards him and Lincoln gesticulating. The voices without explained their +soundless lips. "Show us the Sleeper, show us the Sleeper!" was the +burden of the uproar. Men were bawling for "Order! Silence!" + +Graham glanced towards the open doorway, and saw a tall, oblong picture +of the hall beyond, a waving, incessant confusion of crowded, shouting +faces, men and women together, waving pale blue garments, extended hands. +Many were standing, one man in rags of dark brown, a gaunt figure, stood +on the seat and waved a black cloth. He met the wonder and expectation of +the girl's eyes. What did these people expect from him. He was dimly +aware that the tumult outside had changed its character, was in some way +beating, marching. His own mind, too, changed. For a space he did not +recognise the influence that was transforming him. But a moment that was +near to panic passed. He tried to make audible inquiries of what was +required of him. + +Lincoln was shouting in his ear, but Graham was deafened to that. All the +others save the woman gesticulated towards the hall. He perceived what +had happened to the uproar. The whole mass of people was chanting +together. It was not simply a song, the voices were gathered together and +upborne by a torrent of instrumental music, music like the music of an +organ, a woven texture of sounds, full of trumpets, full of flaunting +banners, full of the march and pageantry of opening war. And the feet of +the people were beating time--tramp, tramp. + +He was urged towards the door. He obeyed mechanically. The strength of +that chant took hold of him, stirred him, emboldened him. The hall opened +to him, a vast welter of fluttering colour swaying to the music. + +"Wave your arm to them," said Lincoln. "Wave your arm to them." + +"This," said a voice on the other side, "he must have this." Arms were +about his neck detaining him in the doorway, and a black +subtly-folding mantle hung from his shoulders. He threw his arm free +of this and followed Lincoln. He perceived the girl in grey close to +him, her face lit, her gesture onward. For the instant she became to +him, flushed and eager as she was, an embodiment of the song. He +emerged in the alcove again. Incontinently the mounting waves of the +song broke upon his appearing, and flashed up into a foam of shouting. +Guided by Lincoln's hand he marched obliquely across the centre of the +stage facing the people. + +The hall was a vast and intricate space--galleries, balconies, broad +spaces of amphitheatral steps, and great archways. Far away, high up, +seemed the mouth of a huge passage full of struggling humanity. The whole +multitude was swaying in congested masses. Individual figures sprang out +of the tumult, impressed him momentarily, and lost definition again. +Close to the platform swayed a beautiful fair woman, carried by three +men, her hair across her face and brandishing a green staff. Next this +group an old careworn man in blue canvas maintained his place in the +crush with difficulty, and behind shouted a hairless face, a great cavity +of toothless mouth. A voice called that enigmatical word "Ostrog." All +his impressions were vague save the massive emotion of that trampling +song. The multitude were beating time with their feet--marking time, +tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The green weapons waved, flashed and slanted. +Then he saw those nearest to him on a level space before the stage were +marching in front of him, passing towards a great archway, shouting "To +the Council!" Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. He raised his arm, and the +roaring was redoubled. He remembered he had to shout "March!" His mouth +shaped inaudible heroic words. He waved his arm again and pointed to the +archway, shouting "Onward!" They were no longer marking time, they were +marching; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. In that host were bearded men, old +men, youths, fluttering robed bare-armed women, girls. Men and women of +the new age! Rich robes, grey rags fluttered together in the whirl of +their movement amidst the dominant blue. A monstrous black banner jerked +its way to the right. He perceived a blue-clad negro, a shrivelled woman +in yellow, then a group of tall fair-haired, white-faced, blue-clad men +pushed theatrically past him. He noted two Chinamen. A tall, sallow, +dark-haired, shining-eyed youth, white clad from top to toe, clambered up +towards the platform shouting loyally, and sprang down again and receded, +looking backward. Heads, shoulders, hands clutching weapons, all were +swinging with those marching cadences. + +Faces came out of the confusion to him as he stood there, eyes met his +and passed and vanished. Men gesticulated to him, shouted inaudible +personal things. Most of the faces were flushed, but many were ghastly +white. And disease was there, and many a hand that waved to him was gaunt +and lean. Men and women of the new age! Strange and incredible meeting! +As the broad stream passed before him to the right, tributary gangways +from the remote uplands of the hall thrust downward in an incessant +replacement of people; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The unison of the song +was enriched and complicated by the massive echoes of arches and +passages. Men and women mingled in the ranks; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. +The whole world seemed marching. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; his brain +was tramping. The garments waved onward, the faces poured by more +abundantly. + +Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; at Lincoln's pressure he turned towards the +archway, walking unconsciously in that rhythm, scarcely noticing his +movement for the melody and stir of it. The multitude, the gesture and +song, all moved in that direction, the flow of people smote downward +until the upturned faces were below the level of his feet. He was aware +of a path before him, of a suite about him, of guards and dignities, and +Lincoln on his right hand. Attendants intervened, and ever and again +blotted out the sight of the multitude to the left. Before him went the +backs of the guards in black--three and three and three. He was marched +along a little railed way, and crossed above the archway, with the +torrent dipping to flow beneath, and shouting up to him. He did not know +whither he went; he did not want to know. He glanced back across a +flaming spaciousness of hall. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE BATTLE OF THE DARKNESS + + +He was no longer in the hall. He was marching along a gallery overhanging +one of the great streets of the moving platforms that traversed the city. +Before him and behind him tramped his guards. The whole concave of the +moving ways below was a congested mass of people marching, tramping to +the left, shouting, waving hands and arms, pouring along a huge vista, +shouting as they came into view, shouting as they passed, shouting as +they receded, until the globes of electric light receding in perspective +dropped down it seemed and hid the swarming bare heads. Tramp, tramp, +tramp, tramp. + +The song roared up to Graham now, no longer upborne by music, but coarse +and noisy, and the beating of the marching feet, tramp, tramp, tramp, +tramp, interwove with a thunderous irregularity of footsteps from the +undisciplined rabble that poured along the higher ways. + +Abruptly he noted a contrast. The buildings on the opposite side of the +way seemed deserted, the cables and bridges that laced across the aisle +were empty and shadowy. It came into Graham's mind that these also should +have swarmed with people. + +He felt a curious emotion--throbbing--very fast! He stopped again. The +guards before him marched on; those about him stopped as he did. He saw +anxiety and fear in their faces. The throbbing had something to do with +the lights. He too looked up. + +At first it seemed to him a thing that affected the lights simply, an +isolated phenomenon, having no bearing on the things below. Each huge +globe of blinding whiteness was as it were clutched, compressed in a +systole that was followed by a transitory diastole, and again a systole +like a tightening grip, darkness, light, darkness, in rapid alternation. + +Graham became aware that this strange behaviour of the lights had to do +with the people below. The appearance of the houses and ways, the +appearance of the packed masses changed, became a confusion of vivid +lights and leaping shadows. He saw a multitude of shadows had sprung into +aggressive existence, seemed rushing up, broadening, widening, growing +with steady swiftness--to leap suddenly back and return reinforced. The +song and the tramping had ceased. The unanimous march, he discovered, was +arrested, there were eddies, a flow sideways, shouts of "The lights!" +Voices were crying together one thing. "The lights!" cried these voices. +"The lights!" He looked down. In this dancing death of the lights the +area of the street had suddenly become a monstrous struggle. The huge +white globes became purple-white, purple with a reddish glow, flickered, +flickered faster and faster, fluttered between light and extinction, +ceased to flicker and became mere fading specks of glowing red in a vast +obscurity. In ten seconds the extinction was accomplished, and there was +only this roaring darkness, a black monstrosity that had suddenly +swallowed up those glittering myriads of men. + +He felt invisible forms about him; his arms were gripped. Something +rapped sharply against his shin. A voice bawled in his ear, "It is all +right--all right." + +Graham shook off the paralysis of his first astonishment. He struck his +forehead against Lincoln's and bawled, "What is this darkness?" + +"The Council has cut the currents that light the city. We must +wait--stop. The people will go on. They will--" + +His voice was drowned. Voices were shouting, "Save the Sleeper. Take care +of the Sleeper." A guard stumbled against Graham and hurt his hand by an +inadvertent blow of his weapon. A wild tumult tossed and whirled about +him, growing, as it seemed, louder, denser, more furious each moment. +Fragments of recognisable sounds drove towards him, were whirled away +from him as his mind reached out to grasp them. Voices seemed to be +shouting conflicting orders, other voices answered. There were suddenly a +succession of piercing screams close beneath them. + +A voice bawled in his ear, "The red police," and receded forthwith beyond +his questions. + +A crackling sound grew to distinctness, and therewith a leaping of faint +flashes along the edge of the further ways. By their light Graham saw the +heads and bodies of a number of men, armed with weapons like those of his +guards, leap into an instant's dim visibility. The whole area began to +crackle, to flash with little instantaneous streaks of light, and +abruptly the darkness rolled back like a curtain. + +A glare of light dazzled his eyes, a vast seething expanse of struggling +men confused his mind. A shout, a burst of cheering, came across the +ways. He looked up to see the source of the light. A man hung far +overhead from the upper part of a cable, holding by a rope the blinding +star that had driven the darkness back. + +Graham's eyes fell to the ways again. A wedge of red a little way +along the vista caught his eye. He saw it was a dense mass of red-clad +men jammed on the higher further way, their backs against the pitiless +cliff of building, and surrounded by a dense crowd of antagonists. +They were fighting. Weapons flashed and rose and fell, heads vanished +at the edge of the contest, and other heads replaced them, the little +flashes from the green weapons became little jets of smoky grey while +the light lasted. + +Abruptly the flare was extinguished and the ways were an inky darkness +once more, a tumultuous mystery. + +He felt something thrusting against him. He was being pushed along the +gallery. Someone was shouting--it might be at him. He was too confused +to hear. He was thrust against the wall, and a number of people +blundered past him. It seemed to him that his guards were struggling +with one another. + +Suddenly the cable-hung star-holder appeared again, and the whole scene +was white and dazzling. The band of red-coats seemed broader and nearer; +its apex was half-way down the ways towards the central aisle. And +raising his eyes Graham saw that a number of these men had also appeared +now in the darkened lower galleries of the opposite building, and were +firing over the heads of their fellows below at the boiling confusion of +people on the lower ways. The meaning of these things dawned upon him. +The march of the people had come upon an ambush at the very outset. +Thrown into confusion by the extinction of the lights they were now being +attacked by the red police. Then he became aware that he was standing +alone, that his guards and Lincoln were along the gallery in the +direction along which he had come before the darkness fell. He saw they +were gesticulating to him wildly, running back towards him. A great +shouting came from across the ways. Then it seemed as though the whole +face of the darkened building opposite was lined and speckled with +red-clad men. And they were pointing over to him and shouting. "The +Sleeper! Save the Sleeper!" shouted a multitude of throats. + +Something struck the wall above his head. He looked up at the impact and +saw a star-shaped splash of silvery metal. He saw Lincoln near him. Felt +his arm gripped. Then, pat, pat; he had been missed twice. + +For a moment he did not understand this. The street was hidden, +everything was hidden, as he looked. The second flare had burned out. + +Lincoln had gripped Graham by the arm, was lugging him along the gallery. +"Before the next light!" he cried. His haste was contagious. Graham's +instinct of self-preservation overcame the paralysis of his incredulous +astonishment. He became for a time the blind creature of the fear of +death. He ran, stumbling because of the uncertainty of the darkness, +blundered into his guards as they turned to run with him. Haste was his +one desire, to escape this perilous gallery upon which he was exposed. A +third glare came close on its predecessors. With it came a great shouting +across the ways, an answering tumult from the ways. The red-coats below, +he saw, had now almost gained the central passage. Their countless faces +turned towards him, and they shouted. The white façade opposite was +densely stippled with red. All these wonderful things concerned him, +turned upon him as a pivot. These were the guards of the Council +attempting to recapture him. + +Lucky it was for him that these shots were the first fired in anger for +a hundred and fifty years. He heard bullets whacking over his head, felt +a splash of molten metal sting his ear, and perceived without looking +that the whole opposite façade, an unmasked ambuscade of red police, was +crowded and bawling and firing at him. + +Down went one of his guards before him, and Graham, unable to stop, leapt +the writhing body. + +In another second he had plunged, unhurt, into a black passage, and +incontinently someone, coming, it may be, in a transverse direction, +blundered violently into him. He was hurling down a staircase in absolute +darkness. He reeled, and was struck again, and came against a wall with +his hands. He was crushed by a weight of struggling bodies, whirled +round, and thrust to the right. A vast pressure pinned him. He could not +breathe, his ribs seemed cracking. He felt a momentary relaxation, and +then the whole mass of people moving together, bore him back towards the +great theatre from which he had so recently come. There were moments when +his feet did not touch the ground. Then he was staggering and shoving. He +heard shouts of "They are coming!" and a muffled cry close to him. His +foot blundered against something soft, he heard a hoarse scream under +foot. He heard shouts of "The Sleeper!" but he was too confused to speak. +He heard the green weapons crackling. For a space he lost his individual +will, became an atom in a panic, blind, unthinking, mechanical. He thrust +and pressed back and writhed in the pressure, kicked presently against a +step, and found himself ascending a slope. And abruptly the faces all +about him leapt out of the black, visible, ghastly-white and astonished, +terrified, perspiring, in a livid glare. One face, a young man's, was +very near to him, not twenty inches away. At the time it was but a +passing incident of no emotional value, but afterwards it came back to +him in his dreams. For this young man, wedged upright in the crowd for a +time, had been shot and was already dead. + +A fourth white star must have been lit by the man on the cable. Its +light came glaring in through vast windows and arches and showed Graham +that he was now one of a dense mass of flying black figures pressed back +across the lower area of the great theatre. This time the picture was +livid and fragmentary, slashed and barred with black shadows. He saw +that quite near to him the red guards were fighting their way through +the people. He could not tell whether they saw him. He looked for +Lincoln and his guards. He saw Lincoln near the stage of the theatre +surrounded in a crowd of black-badged revolutionaries, lifted up and +staring to and fro as if seeking him. Graham perceived that he himself +was near the opposite edge of the crowd, that behind him, separated by a +barrier, sloped the now vacant seats of the theatre. A sudden idea came +to him, and he began fighting his way towards the barrier. As he reached +it the glare came to an end. + +In a moment he had thrown off the great cloak that not only impeded his +movements but made him conspicuous, and had slipped it from his +shoulders. He heard someone trip in its folds. In another he was scaling +the barrier and had dropped into the blackness on the further side. Then +feeling his way he came to the lower end of an ascending gangway. In the +darkness the sound of firing ceased and the roar of feet and voices +lulled. Then suddenly he came to an unexpected step and tripped and fell. +As he did so pools and islands amidst the darkness about him leapt to +vivid light again, the uproar surged louder and the glare of the fifth +white star shone through the vast fenestrations of the theatre walls. + +He rolled over among some seats, heard a shouting and the whirring rattle +of weapons, struggled up and was knocked back again, perceived that a +number of black-badged men were all about him firing at the reds below, +leaping from seat to seat, crouching among the seats to reload. +Instinctively he crouched amidst the seats, as stray shots ripped the +pneumatic cushions and cut bright slashes on their soft metal frames. +Instinctively he marked the direction of the gangways, the most plausible +way of escape for him so soon as the veil of darkness fell again. + +A young man in faded blue garments came vaulting over the seats. "Hullo!" +he said, with his flying feet within six inches of the crouching +Sleeper's face. + +He stared without any sign of recognition, turned to fire, fired, and +shouting, "To hell with the Council!" was about to fire again. Then it +seemed to Graham that the half of this man's neck had vanished. A drop of +moisture fell on Graham's cheek. The green weapon stopped half raised. +For a moment the man stood still with his face suddenly expressionless, +then he began to slant forward. His knees bent. Man and darkness fell +together. At the sound of his fall Graham rose up and ran for his life +until a step down to the gangway tripped him. He scrambled to his feet, +turned up the gangway and ran on. + +When the sixth star glared he was already close to the yawning throat of +a passage. He ran on the swifter for the light, entered the passage and +turned a corner into absolute night again. He was knocked sideways, +rolled over, and recovered his feet. He found himself one of a crowd of +invisible fugitives pressing in one direction. His one thought now was +their thought also; to escape out of this fighting. He thrust and struck, +staggered, ran, was wedged tightly, lost ground and then was clear again. + +For some minutes he was running through the darkness along a winding +passage, and then he crossed some wide and open space, passed down a long +incline, and came at last down a flight of steps to a level place. Many +people were shouting, "They are coming! The guards are coming. They are +firing. Get out of the fighting. The guards are firing. It will be safe +in Seventh Way. Along here to Seventh Way!" There were women and children +in the crowd as well as men. + +The crowd converged on an archway, passed through a short throat and +emerged on a wider space again, lit dimly. The black figures about him +spread out and ran up what seemed in the twilight to be a gigantic series +of steps. He followed. The people dispersed to the right and left.... He +perceived that he was no longer in a crowd. He stopped near the highest +step. Before him, on that level, were groups of seats and a little kiosk. +He went up to this and, stopping in the shadow of its eaves, looked about +him panting. + +Everything was vague and grey, but he recognised that these great steps +were a series of platforms of the "ways," now motionless again. The +platform slanted up on either side, and the tall buildings rose beyond, +vast dim ghosts, their inscriptions and advertisements indistinctly seen, +and up through the girders and cables was a faint interrupted ribbon of +pallid sky. A number of people hurried by. From their shouts and voices, +it seemed they were hurrying to join the fighting. Other less noisy +figures flitted timidly among the shadows. + +From very far away down the street he could hear the sound of a struggle. +But it was evident to him that this was not the street into which the +theatre opened. That former fight, it seemed, had suddenly dropped out of +sound and hearing. And they were fighting for him! + +For a space he was like a man who pauses in the reading of a vivid book, +and suddenly doubts what he has been taking unquestionably. At that time +he had little mind for details; the whole effect was a huge astonishment. +Oddly enough, while the flight from the Council prison, the great crowd +in the hall, and the attack of the red police upon the swarming people +were clearly present in his mind, it cost him an effort to piece in his +awakening and to revive the meditative interval of the Silent Rooms. At +first his memory leapt these things and took him back to the cascade at +Pentargen quivering in the wind, and all the sombre splendours of the +sunlit Cornish coast. The contrast touched everything with unreality. And +then the gap filled, and he began to comprehend his position. + +It was no longer absolutely a riddle, as it had been in the Silent Rooms. +At least he had the strange, bare outline now. He was in some way the +owner of the world, and great political parties were fighting to possess +him. On the one hand was the Council, with its red police, set +resolutely, it seemed, on the usurpation of his property and perhaps his +murder; on the other, the revolution that had liberated him, with this +unseen "Ostrog" as its leader. And the whole of this gigantic city was +convulsed by their struggle. Frantic development of his world! "I do not +understand," he cried. "I do not understand!" + +He had slipped out between the contending parties into this liberty of +the twilight. What would happen next? What was happening? He figured the +red-clad men as busily hunting him, driving the black-badged +revolutionists before them. + +At any rate chance had given him a breathing space. He could lurk +unchallenged by the passers-by, and watch the course of things. His eye +followed up the intricate dim immensity of the twilight buildings, and it +came to him as a thing infinitely wonderful, that above there the sun was +rising, and the world was lit and glowing with the old familiar light of +day. In a little while he had recovered his breath. His clothing had +already dried upon him from the snow. + +He wandered for miles along these twilight ways, speaking to no one, +accosted by no one--a dark figure among dark figures--the coveted man out +of the past, the inestimable unintentional owner of the world. Wherever +there were lights or dense crowds, or exceptional excitement, he was +afraid of recognition, and watched and turned back or went up and down by +the middle stairways, into some transverse system of ways at a lower or +higher level. And though he came on no more fighting, the whole city +stirred with battle. Once he had to run to avoid a marching multitude of +men that swept the street. Everyone abroad seemed involved. For the most +part they were men, and they carried what he judged were weapons. It +seemed as though the struggle was concentrated mainly in the quarter of +the city from which he came. Ever and again a distant roaring, the +remote suggestion of that conflict, reached his ears. Then his caution +and his curiosity struggled together. But his caution prevailed, and he +continued wandering away from the fighting--so far as he could judge. He +went unmolested, unsuspected through the dark. After a time he ceased to +hear even a remote echo of the battle, fewer and fewer people passed him, +until at last the streets became deserted. The frontages of the buildings +grew plain, and harsh; he seemed to have come to a district of vacant +warehouses. Solitude crept upon him--his pace slackened. + +He became aware of a growing fatigue. At times he would turn aside and +sit down on one of the numerous benches of the upper ways. But a feverish +restlessness, the knowledge of his vital implication in this struggle, +would not let him rest in any place for long. Was the struggle on his +behalf alone? + +And then in a desolate place came the shock of an earthquake--a roaring +and thundering--a mighty wind of cold air pouring through the city, the +smash of glass, the slip and thud of falling masonry--a series of +gigantic concussions. A mass of glass and ironwork fell from the remote +roofs into the middle gallery, not a hundred yards away from him, and in +the distance were shouts and running. He, too, was startled to an aimless +activity, and ran first one way and then as aimlessly back. + +A man came running towards him. His self-control returned. "What have +they blown up?" asked the man breathlessly. "That was an explosion," and +before Graham could speak he had hurried on. + +The great buildings rose dimly, veiled by a perplexing twilight, albeit +the rivulet of sky above was now bright with day. He noted many strange +features, understanding none at the time; he even spelt out many of the +inscriptions in Phonetic lettering. But what profit is it to decipher a +confusion of odd-looking letters resolving itself, after painful strain +of eye and mind, into "Here is Eadhamite," or, "Labour Bureau--Little +Side"? Grotesque thought, that all these cliff-like houses were his! + +The perversity of his experience came to him vividly. In actual fact he +had made such a leap in time as romancers have imagined again and again. +And that fact realised, he had been prepared. His mind had, as it were, +seated itself for a spectacle. And no spectacle unfolded itself, but a +great vague danger, unsympathetic shadows and veils of darkness. +Somewhere through the labyrinthine obscurity his death sought him. Would +he, after all, be killed before he saw? It might be that even at the next +corner his destruction ambushed. A great desire to see, a great longing +to know, arose in him. + +He became fearful of corners. It seemed to him that there was safety in +concealment. Where could he hide to be inconspicuous when the lights +returned? At last he sat down upon a seat in a recess on one of the +higher ways, conceiving he was alone there. + +He squeezed his knuckles into his weary eyes. Suppose when he looked +again he found the dark trough of parallel ways and that intolerable +altitude of edifice gone. Suppose he were to discover the whole story of +these last few days, the awakening, the shouting multitudes, the darkness +and the fighting, a phantasmagoria, a new and more vivid sort of dream. +It must be a dream; it was so inconsecutive, so reasonless. Why were the +people fighting for him? Why should this saner world regard him as Owner +and Master? + +So he thought, sitting blinded, and then he looked again, half hoping in +spite of his ears to see some familiar aspect of the life of the +nineteenth century, to see, perhaps, the little harbour of Boscastle +about him, the cliffs of Pentargen, or the bedroom of his home. But fact +takes no heed of human hopes. A squad of men with a black banner tramped +athwart the nearer shadows, intent on conflict, and beyond rose that +giddy wall of frontage, vast and dark, with the dim incomprehensible +lettering showing faintly on its face. + +"It is no dream," he said, "no dream." And he bowed his face upon +his hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE OLD MAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING + + +He was startled by a cough close at hand. + +He turned sharply, and peering, saw a small, hunched-up figure sitting a +couple of yards off in the shadow of the enclosure. + +"Have ye any news?" asked the high-pitched wheezy voice of a very old +man. + +Graham hesitated. "None," he said. + +"I stay here till the lights come again," said the old man. "These blue +scoundrels are everywhere--everywhere." + +Graham's answer was inarticulate assent. He tried to see the old man but +the darkness hid his face. He wanted very much to respond, to talk, but +he did not know how to begin. + +"Dark and damnable," said the old man suddenly. "Dark and damnable. +Turned out of my room among all these dangers." + +"That's hard," ventured Graham. "That's hard on you." + +"Darkness. An old man lost in the darkness. And all the world gone mad. +War and fighting. The police beaten and rogues abroad. Why don't they +bring some negroes to protect us? ... No more dark passages for me. I +fell over a dead man." + +"You're safer with company," said the old man, "if it's company of +the right sort," and peered frankly. He rose suddenly and came +towards Graham. + +Apparently the scrutiny was satisfactory. The old man sat down as if +relieved to be no longer alone. "Eh!" he said, "but this is a terrible +time! War and fighting, and the dead lying there--men, strong men, dying +in the dark. Sons! I have three sons. God knows where they are to-night." + +The voice ceased. Then repeated quavering: "God knows where they are +to-night." + +Graham stood revolving a question that should not betray his ignorance. +Again the old man's voice ended the pause. + +"This Ostrog will win," he said. "He will win. And what the world will +be like under him no one can tell. My sons are under the wind-vanes, +all three. One of my daughters-in-law was his mistress for a while. +His mistress! We're not common people. Though they've sent me to +wander to-night and take my chance.... I knew what was going on. +Before most people. But this darkness! And to fall over a dead body +suddenly in the dark!" + +His wheezy breathing could be heard. + +"Ostrog!" said Graham. + +"The greatest Boss the world has ever seen," said the voice. + +Graham ransacked his mind. "The Council has few friends among the +people," he hazarded. + +"Few friends. And poor ones at that. They've had their time. Eh! They +should have kept to the clever ones. But twice they held election. And +Ostrog--. And now it has burst out and nothing can stay it, nothing can +stay it. Twice they rejected Ostrog--Ostrog the Boss. I heard of his +rages at the time--he was terrible. Heaven save them! For nothing on +earth can now he has raised the Labour Companies upon them. No one else +would have dared. All the blue canvas armed and marching! He will go +through with it. He will go through." + +He was silent for a little while. "This Sleeper," he said, and stopped. + +"Yes," said Graham. "Well?" + +The senile voice sank to a confidential whisper, the dim, pale face came +close. "The real Sleeper--" + +"Yes," said Graham. + +"Died years ago." + +"What?" said Graham, sharply. + +"Years ago. Died. Years ago." + +"You don't say so!" said Graham. + +"I do. I do say so. He died. This Sleeper who's woke up--they changed in +the night. A poor, drugged insensible creature. But I mustn't tell all I +know. I mustn't tell all I know." + +For a little while he muttered inaudibly. His secret was too much for +him. "I don't know the ones that put him to sleep--that was before my +time--but I know the man who injected the stimulants and woke him again. +It was ten to one--wake or kill. Wake or kill. Ostrog's way." + +Graham was so astonished at these things that he had to interrupt, to +make the old man repeat his words, to re-question vaguely, before he was +sure of the meaning and folly of what he heard. And his awakening had +not been natural! Was that an old man's senile superstition, too, or had +it any truth in it? Feeling in the dark corners of his memory, he +presently came on something that might conceivably be an impression of +some such stimulating effect. It dawned upon him that he had happened +upon a lucky encounter, that at last he might learn something of the new +age. The old man wheezed awhile and spat, and then the piping, +reminiscent voice resumed: + +"The first time they rejected him. I've followed it all." + +"Rejected whom?" said Graham. "The Sleeper?" + +"Sleeper? _No_. Ostrog. He was terrible--terrible! And he was promised +then, promised certainly the next time. Fools they were--not to be more +afraid of him. Now all the city's his millstone, and such as we dust +ground upon it. Dust ground upon it. Until he set to work--the workers +cut each other's throats, and murdered a Chinaman or a Labour policeman +at times, and left the rest of us in peace. Dead bodies! Robbing! +Darkness! Such a thing hasn't been this gross of years. Eh!--but 'tis ill +on small folks when the great fall out! It's ill." + +"Did you say--there had not been--what?--for a gross of years?" + +"Eh?" said the old man. + +The old man said something about clipping his words, and made him repeat +this a third time. "Fighting and slaying, and weapons in hand, and fools +bawling freedom and the like," said the old man. "Not in all my life has +there been that. These are like the old days--for sure--when the Paris +people broke out--three gross of years ago. That's what I mean hasn't +been. But it's the world's way. It had to come back. I know. I know. This +five years Ostrog has been working, and there has been trouble and +trouble, and hunger and threats and high talk and arms. Blue canvas and +murmurs. No one safe. Everything sliding and slipping. And now here we +are! Revolt and fighting, and the Council come to its end." + +"You are rather well-informed on these things," said Graham. + +"I know what I hear. It isn't all Babble Machine with me." + +"No," said Graham, wondering what Babble Machine might be. "And you are +certain this Ostrog--you are certain Ostrog organised this rebellion and +arranged for the waking of the Sleeper? Just to assert himself--because +he was not elected to the Council?" + +"Everyone knows that, I should think," said the old man. "Except--just +fools. He meant to be master somehow. In the Council or not. Everyone who +knows anything knows that. And here we are with dead bodies lying in the +dark! Why, where have you been if you haven't heard all about the trouble +between Ostrog and the Verneys? And what do you think the troubles are +about? The Sleeper? Eh? You think the Sleeper's real and woke of his own +accord--eh?" + +"I'm a dull man, older than I look, and forgetful," said Graham. "Lots of +things that have happened--especially of late years--. If I was the +Sleeper, to tell you the truth, I couldn't know less about them." + +"Eh!" said the voice. "Old, are you? You don't sound so very old! But +it's not everyone keeps his memory to my time of life--truly. But these +notorious things! But you're not so old as me--not nearly so old as me. +Well! I ought not to judge other men by myself, perhaps. I'm young--for +so old a man. Maybe you're old for so young." + +"That's it," said Graham. "And I've a queer history. I know very little. +And history! Practically I know no history. The Sleeper and Julius +Caesar are all the same to me. It's interesting to hear you talk of +these things." + +"I know a few things," said the old man. "I know a thing or two. +But--. Hark!" + +The two men became silent, listening. There was a heavy thud, a +concussion that made their seat shiver. The passers-by stopped, shouted +to one another. The old man was full of questions; he shouted to a man +who passed near. Graham, emboldened by his example, got up and accosted +others. None knew what had happened. + +He returned to the seat and found the old man muttering vague +interrogations in an undertone. For a while they said nothing to +one another. + +The sense of this gigantic struggle, so near and yet so remote, oppressed +Graham's imagination. Was this old man right, was the report of the +people right, and were the revolutionaries winning? Or were they all in +error, and were the red guards driving all before them? At any time the +flood of warfare might pour into this silent quarter of the city and +seize upon him again. It behoved him to learn all he could while there +was time. He turned suddenly to the old man with a question and left it +unsaid. But his motion moved the old man to speech again. + +"Eh! but how things work together!" said the old man. "This Sleeper that +all the fools put their trust in! I've the whole history of it--I was +always a good one for histories. When I was a boy--I'm that old--I used +to read printed books. You'd hardly think it. Likely you've seen +none--they rot and dust so--and the Sanitary Company burns them to make +ashlarite. But they were convenient in their dirty way. One learnt a +lot. These new-fangled Babble Machines--they don't seem new-fangled to +you, eh?--they're easy to hear, easy to forget. But I've traced all the +Sleeper business from the first." + +"You will scarcely believe it," said Graham slowly, "I'm so +ignorant--I've been so preoccupied in my own little affairs, my +circumstances have been so odd--I know nothing of this Sleeper's history. +Who was he?" + +"Eh!" said the old man. "I know, I know. He was a poor nobody, and set +on a playful woman, poor soul! And he fell into a trance. There's the +old things they had, those brown things--silver photographs--still +showing him as he lay, a gross and a half years ago--a gross and a half +of years." + +"Set on a playful woman, poor soul," said Graham softly to himself, and +then aloud, "Yes--well go on." + +"You must know he had a cousin named Warming, a solitary man without +children, who made a big fortune speculating in roads--the first +Eadhamite roads. But surely you've heard? No? Why? He bought all the +patent rights and made a big company. In those days there were grosses of +grosses of separate businesses and business companies. Grosses of +grosses! His roads killed the railroads--the old things--in two dozen +years; he bought up and Eadhamited the tracks. And because he didn't want +to break up his great property or let in shareholders, he left it all to +the Sleeper, and put it under a Board of Trustees that he had picked and +trained. He knew then the Sleeper wouldn't wake, that he would go on +sleeping, sleeping till he died. He knew that quite well! And plump! a +man in the United States, who had lost two sons in a boat accident, +followed that up with another great bequest. His trustees found +themselves with a dozen myriads of lions'-worth or more of property at +the very beginning." + +"What was his name?" + +"Graham." + +"No--I mean--that American's." + +"Isbister." + +"Isbister!" cried Graham. "Why, I don't even know the name." + +"Of course not," said the old man. "Of course not. People don't learn +much in the schools nowadays. But I know all about him. He was a rich +American who went from England, and he left the Sleeper even more than +Warming. How he made it? That I don't know. Something about pictures by +machinery. But he made it and left it, and so the Council had its start. +It was just a council of trustees at first." + +"And how did it grow?" + +"Eh!--but you're not up to things. Money attracts money--and twelve +brains are better than one. They played it cleverly. They worked politics +with money, and kept on adding to the money by working currency and +tariffs. They grew--they grew. And for years the twelve trustees hid the +growing of the Sleeper's estate under double names and company titles and +all that. The Council spread by title deed, mortgage, share, every +political party, every newspaper they bought. If you listen to the old +stories you will see the Council growing and growing. Billions and +billions of lions at last--the Sleeper's estate. And all growing out of a +whim--out of this Warming's will, and an accident to Isbister's sons. + +"Men are strange," said the old man. "The strange thing to me is how the +Council worked together so long. As many as twelve. But they worked in +cliques from the first. And they've slipped back. In my young days +speaking of the Council was like an ignorant man speaking of God. We +didn't think they could do wrong. We didn't know of their women and all +that! Or else I've got wiser. + +"Men are strange," said the old man. "Here are you, young and +ignorant, and me--sevendy years old, and I might reasonably before +getting--explaining it all to you short and clear. + +"Sevendy," he said, "sevendy, and I hear and see--hear better than I +see. And reason clearly, and keep myself up to all the happenings of +things. Sevendy! + +"Life is strange. I was twaindy before Ostrog was a baby. I remember him +long before he'd pushed his way to the head of the Wind Vanes Control. +I've seen many changes. Eh! I've worn the blue. And at last I've come to +see this crush and darkness and tumult and dead men carried by in heaps +on the ways. And all his doing! All his doing!" + +His voice died away in scarcely articulate praises of Ostrog. + +Graham thought. "Let me see," he said, "if I have it right." + +He extended a hand and ticked off points upon his fingers. "The Sleeper +has been asleep--" + +"Changed," said the old man. + +"Perhaps. And meanwhile the Sleeper's property grew in the hands of +Twelve Trustees, until it swallowed up nearly all the great ownership of +the world. The Twelve Trustees--by virtue of this property have become +masters of the world. Because they are the paying power--just as the old +English Parliament used to be--" + +"Eh!" said the old man. "That's so--that's a good comparison. +You're not so--" + +"And now this Ostrog--has suddenly revolutionised the world by waking the +Sleeper--whom no one but the superstitious, common people had ever dreamt +would wake again--raising the Sleeper to claim his property from the +Council, after all these years." + +The old man endorsed this statement with a cough. "It's strange," he +said, "to meet a man who learns these things for the first time +to-night." + +"Aye," said Graham, "it's strange." + +"Have you been in a Pleasure City?" said the old man. "All my life I've +longed--" He laughed. "Even now," he said, "I could enjoy a little fun. +Enjoy seeing things, anyhow." He mumbled a sentence Graham did not +understand. + +"The Sleeper--when did he awake?" said Graham suddenly. + +"Three days ago." + +"Where is he?" + +"Ostrog has him. He escaped from the Council not four hours ago. My +dear sir, where were you at the time? He was in the hall of the +markets--where the fighting has been. All the city was screaming about +it. All the Babble Machines. Everywhere it was shouted. Even the fools +who speak for the Council were admitting it. Everyone was rushing off to +see him--everyone was getting arms. Were you drunk or asleep? And even +then! But you're joking! Surely you're pretending. It was to stop the +shouting of the Babble Machines and prevent the people gathering that +they turned off the electricity--and put this damned darkness upon us. +Do you mean to say--?" + +"I had heard the Sleeper was rescued," said Graham. "But--to come back a +minute. Are you sure Ostrog has him?" + +"He won't let him go," said the old man. + +"And the Sleeper. Are you sure he is not genuine? I have never heard--" + +"So all the fools think. So they think. As if there wasn't a thousand +things that were never heard. I know Ostrog too well for that. Did I tell +you? In a way I'm a sort of relation of Ostrog's. A sort of relation. +Through my daughter-in-law." + +"I suppose--" + +"Well?" + +"I suppose there's no chance of this Sleeper asserting himself. I suppose +he's certain to be a puppet--in Ostrog's hands or the Council's, as soon +as the struggle is over." + +"In Ostrog's hands--certainly. Why shouldn't he be a puppet? Look at his +position. Everything done for him, every pleasure possible. Why should he +want to assert himself?" + +"What are these Pleasure Cities?" said Graham, abruptly. + +The old man made him repeat the question. When at last he was assured of +Graham's words, he nudged him violently. "That's _too_ much," said he. +"You're poking fun at an old man. I've been suspecting you know more than +you pretend." + +"Perhaps I do," said Graham. "But no! why should I go on acting? No, I do +not know what a Pleasure City is." + +The old man laughed in an intimate way. + +"What is more, I do not know how to read your letters, I do not know +what money you use, I do not know what foreign countries there are. I do +not know where I am. I cannot count. I do not know where to get food, nor +drink, nor shelter." + +"Come, come," said the old man, "if you had a glass of drink now, would +you put it in your ear or your eye?" + +"I want you to tell me all these things." + +"He, he! Well, gentlemen who dress in silk must have their fun." A +withered hand caressed Graham's arm for a moment. "Silk. Well, well! But, +all the same, I wish I was the man who was put up as the Sleeper. He'll +have a fine time of it. All the pomp and pleasure. He's a queer looking +face. When they used to let anyone go to see him, I've got tickets and +been. The image of the real one, as the photographs show him, this +substitute used to be. Yellow. But he'll get fed up. It's a queer world. +Think of the luck of it. The luck of it. I expect he'll be sent to Capri. +It's the best fun for a greener." + +His cough overtook him again. Then he began mumbling enviously of +pleasures and strange delights. "The luck of it, the luck of it! All my +life I've been in London, hoping to get my chance." + +"But you don't know that the Sleeper died," said Graham, suddenly. + +The old man made him repeat his words. + +"Men don't live beyond ten dozen. It's not in the order of things," said +the old man. "I'm not a fool. Fools may believe it, but not me." + +Graham became angry with the old man's assurance. "Whether you are a fool +or not," he said, "it happens you are wrong about the Sleeper." + +"Eh?" + +"You are wrong about the Sleeper. I haven't told you before, but I will +tell you now. You are wrong about the Sleeper." + +"How do you know? I thought you didn't know anything--not even about +Pleasure Cities." + +Graham paused. + +"You don't know," said the old man. "How are you to know? It's very +few men--" + +"I _am_ the Sleeper." + +He had to repeat it. + +There was a brief pause. "There's a silly thing to say, sir, if you'll +excuse me. It might get you into trouble in a time like this," said +the old man. + +Graham, slightly dashed, repeated his assertion. + +"I was saying I was the Sleeper. That years and years ago I did, indeed, +fall asleep, in a little stone-built village, in the days when there were +hedgerows, and villages, and inns, and all the countryside cut up into +little pieces, little fields. Have you never heard of those days? And it +is I--I who speak to you--who awakened again these four days since." + +"Four days since!--the Sleeper! But they've _got_ the Sleeper. They have +him and they won't let him go. Nonsense! You've been talking sensibly +enough up to now. I can see it as though I was there. There will be +Lincoln like a keeper just behind him; they won't let him go about alone. +Trust them. You're a queer fellow. One of these fun pokers. I see now why +you have been clipping your words so oddly, but--" + +He stopped abruptly, and Graham could see his gesture. + +"As if Ostrog would let the Sleeper run about alone! No, you're telling +that to the wrong man altogether. Eh! as if I should believe. What's +your game? And besides, we've been talking of the Sleeper." + +Graham stood up. "Listen," he said. "I am the Sleeper." + +"You're an odd man," said the old man, "to sit here in the dark, talking +clipped, and telling a lie of that sort. But--" + +Graham's exasperation fell to laughter. "It is preposterous," he cried. +"Preposterous. The dream must end. It gets wilder and wilder. Here am +I--in this damned twilight--I never knew a dream in twilight before--an +anachronism by two hundred years and trying to persuade an old fool that +I am myself, and meanwhile--Ugh!" + +He moved in gusty irritation and went striding. In a moment the old man +was pursuing him. "Eh! but don't go!" cried the old man. "I'm an old +fool, I know. Don't go. Don't leave me in all this darkness." + +Graham hesitated, stopped. Suddenly the folly of telling his secret +flashed into his mind. + +"I didn't mean to offend you--disbelieving you," said the old man coming +near. "It's no manner of harm. Call yourself the Sleeper if it pleases +you. 'Tis a foolish trick--" + +Graham hesitated, turned abruptly and went on his way. + +For a time he heard the old man's hobbling pursuit and his wheezy +cries receding. But at last the darkness swallowed him, and Graham saw +him no more. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +OSTROG + + +Graham could now take a clearer view of his position. For a long time yet +he wandered, but after the talk of the old man his discovery of this +Ostrog was clear in his mind as the final inevitable decision. One thing +was evident, those who were at the headquarters of the revolt had +succeeded very admirably in suppressing the fact of his disappearance. +But every moment he expected to hear the report of his death or of his +recapture by the Council. + +Presently a man stopped before him. "Have you heard?" he said. + +"No!" said Graham, starting. + +"Near a dozand," said the man, "a dozand men!" and hurried on. + +A number of men and a girl passed in the darkness, gesticulating and +shouting: "Capitulated! Given up!" "A dozand of men." "Two dozand of +men." "Ostrog, Hurrah! Ostrog, Hurrah!" These cries receded, became +indistinct. + +Other shouting men followed. For a time his attention was absorbed in the +fragments of speech he heard. He had a doubt whether all were speaking +English. Scraps floated to him, scraps like Pigeon English, like "nigger" +dialect, blurred and mangled distortions. He dared accost no one with +questions. The impression the people gave him jarred altogether with his +preconceptions of the struggle and confirmed the old man's faith in +Ostrog. It was only slowly he could bring himself to believe that all +these people were rejoicing at the defeat of the Council, that the +Council which had pursued him with such power and vigour was after all +the weaker of the two sides in conflict. And if that was so, how did it +affect him? Several times he hesitated on the verge of fundamental +questions. Once he turned and walked for a long way after a little man of +rotund inviting outline, but he was unable to master confidence to +address him. + +It was only slowly that it came to him that he might ask for the +"wind-vane offices" whatever the "wind-vane offices" might be. His first +enquiry simply resulted in a direction to go on towards Westminster. His +second led to the discovery of a short cut in which he was speedily lost. +He was told to leave the ways to which he had hitherto confined +himself--knowing no other means of transit--and to plunge down one of the +middle staircases into the blackness of a cross-way. Thereupon came some +trivial adventures; chief of these an ambiguous encounter with a +gruff-voiced invisible creature speaking in a strange dialect that seemed +at first a strange tongue, a thick flow of speech with the drifting +corpses of English Words therein, the dialect of the latter-day vile. +Then another voice drew near, a girl's voice singing, "tralala tralala." +She spoke to Graham, her English touched with something of the same +quality. She professed to have lost her sister, she blundered needlessly +into him he thought, caught hold of him and laughed. But a word of vague +remonstrance sent her into the unseen again. + +The sounds about him increased. Stumbling people passed him, speaking +excitedly. "They have surrendered!" "The Council! Surely not the +Council!" "They are saying so in the Ways." The passage seemed wider. +Suddenly the wall fell away. He was in a great space and people were +stirring remotely. He inquired his way of an indistinct figure. "Strike +straight across," said a woman's voice. He left his guiding wall, and in +a moment had stumbled against a little table on which were utensils of +glass. Graham's eyes, now attuned to darkness, made out a long vista with +tables on either side. He went down this. At one or two of the tables he +heard a clang of glass and a sound of eating. There were people then cool +enough to dine, or daring enough to steal a meal in spite of social +convulsion and darkness. Far off and high up he presently saw a pallid +light of a semi-circular shape. As he approached this, a black edge came +up and hid it. He stumbled at steps and found himself in a gallery. He +heard a sobbing, and found two scared little girls crouched by a railing. +These children became silent at the near sound of feet. He tried to +console them, but they were very still until he left them. Then as he +receded he could hear them sobbing again. + +Presently he found himself at the foot of a staircase and near a wide +opening. He saw a dim twilight above this and ascended out of the +blackness into a street of moving ways again. Along this a disorderly +swarm of people marched shouting. They were singing snatches of the song +of the revolt, most of them out of tune. Here and there torches flared +creating brief hysterical shadows. He asked his way and was twice puzzled +by that same thick dialect. His third attempt won an answer he could +understand. He was two miles from the wind-vane offices in Westminster, +but the way was easy to follow. + +When at last he did approach the district of the wind-vane offices it +seemed to him, from the cheering processions that came marching along the +Ways, from the tumult of rejoicing, and finally from the restoration of +the lighting of the city, that the overthrow of the Council must already +be accomplished. And still no news of his absence came to his ears. + +The re-illumination of the city came with startling abruptness. Suddenly +he stood blinking, all about him men halted dazzled, and the world was +incandescent. The light found him already upon the outskirts of the +excited crowds that choked the ways near the wind-vane offices, and the +sense of visibility and exposure that came with it turned his colourless +intention of joining Ostrog to a keen anxiety. + +For a time he was jostled, obstructed, and endangered by men hoarse and +weary with cheering his name, some of them bandaged and bloody in his +cause. The frontage of the wind-vane offices was illuminated by some +moving picture, but what it was he could not see, because in spite of his +strenuous attempts the density of the crowd prevented his approaching it. +From the fragments of speech he caught, he judged it conveyed news of the +fighting about the Council House. Ignorance and indecision made him slow +and ineffective in his movements. For a time he could not conceive how he +was to get within the unbroken façade of this place. He made his way +slowly into the midst of this mass of people, until he realised that the +descending staircase of the central way led to the interior of the +buildings. This gave him a goal, but the crowding in the central path +was so dense that it was long before he could reach it. And even then he +encountered intricate obstruction, and had an hour of vivid argument +first in this guard room and then in that before he could get a note +taken to the one man of all men who was most eager to see him. His story +was laughed to scorn at one place, and wiser for that, when at last he +reached a second stairway he professed simply to have news of +extraordinary importance for Ostrog. What it was he would not say. They +sent his note reluctantly. For a long time he waited in a little room at +the foot of the lift shaft, and thither at last came Lincoln, eager, +apologetic, astonished. He stopped in the doorway scrutinising Graham, +then rushed forward effusively. + +"Yes," he cried. "It is you. And you are not dead!" + +Graham made a brief explanation. + +"My brother is waiting," explained Lincoln. "He is alone in the wind-vane +offices. We feared you had been killed in the theatre. He doubted--and +things are very urgent still in spite of what we are telling them +_there_--or he would have come to you." + +They ascended a lift, passed along a narrow passage, crossed a great +hall, empty save for two hurrying messengers, and entered a comparatively +little room, whose only furniture was a long settee and a large oval disc +of cloudy, shifting grey, hung by cables from the wall. There Lincoln +left Graham for a space, and he remained alone without understanding the +smoky shapes that drove slowly across this disc. + +His attention was arrested by a sound that began abruptly. It was +cheering, the frantic cheering of a vast but very remote crowd, a roaring +exultation. This ended as sharply as it had begun, like a sound heard +between the opening and shutting of a door. In the outer room was a noise +of hurrying steps and a melodious clinking as if a loose chain was +running over the teeth of a wheel. + +Then he heard the voice of a woman, the rustle of unseen garments. "It is +Ostrog!" he heard her say. A little bell rang fitfully, and then +everything was still again. + +Presently came voices, footsteps and movement without. The footsteps of +some one person detached itself from the other sounds, and drew near, +firm, evenly measured steps. The curtain lifted slowly. A tall, +white-haired man, clad in garments of cream-coloured silk, appeared, +regarding Graham from under his raised arm. + +For a moment the white form remained holding the curtain, then dropped it +and stood before it. Graham's first impression was of a very broad +forehead, very pale blue eyes deep sunken under white brows, an aquiline +nose, and a heavily-lined resolute mouth. The folds of flesh over the +eyes, the drooping of the corners of the mouth contradicted the upright +bearing, and said the man was old. Graham rose to his feet instinctively, +and for a moment the two men stood in silence, regarding each other. + +"You are Ostrog?" said Graham. + +"I am Ostrog." + +"The Boss?" + +"So I am called." + +Graham felt the inconvenience of the silence. "I have to thank you +chiefly, I understand, for my safety," he said presently. + +"We were afraid you were killed," said Ostrog. "Or sent to sleep +again--for ever. We have been doing everything to keep our secret--the +secret of your disappearance. Where have you been? How did you get here?" + +Graham told him briefly. + +Ostrog listened in silence. + +He smiled faintly. "Do you know what I was doing when they came to tell +me you had come?" + +"How can I guess?" + +"Preparing your double." + +"My double?" + +"A man as like you as we could find. We were going to hypnotise him, to +save him the difficulty of acting. It was imperative. The whole of this +revolt depends on the idea that you are awake, alive, and with us. Even +now a great multitude of people has gathered in the theatre clamouring to +see you. They do not trust.... You know, of course--something of your +position?" + +"Very little," said Graham. + +"It is like this." Ostrog walked a pace or two into the room and turned. +"You are absolute owner," he said, "of the world. You are King of the +Earth. Your powers are limited in many intricate ways, but you are the +figure-head, the popular symbol of government. This White Council, the +Council of Trustees as it is called--" + +"I have heard the vague outline of these things." + +"I wondered." + +"I came upon a garrulous old man." + +"I see.... Our masses--the word comes from your days--you know, of +course, that we still have masses--regard you as our actual ruler. Just +as a great number of people in your days regarded the Crown as the +ruler. They are discontented--the masses all over the earth--with the +rule of your Trustees. For the most part it is the old discontent, the +old quarrel of the common man with his commonness--the misery of work and +discipline and unfitness. But your Trustees have ruled ill. In certain +matters, in the administration of the Labour Companies, for example, they +have been unwise. They have given endless opportunities. Already we of +the popular party were agitating for reforms--when your waking came. +Came! If it had been contrived it could not have come more +opportunely." He smiled. "The public mind, making no allowance for +your years of quiescence, had already hit on the thought of waking you +and appealing to you, and--Flash!" + +He indicated the outbreak by a gesture, and Graham moved his head to show +that he understood. + +"The Council muddled--quarrelled. They always do. They could not decide +what to do with you. You know how they imprisoned you?" + +"I see. I see. And now--we win?" + +"We win. Indeed we win. To-night, in five swift hours. Suddenly we struck +everywhere. The wind-vane people, the Labour Company and its millions, +burst the bonds. We got the pull of the aeroplanes." + +"Yes," said Graham. + +"That was, of course, essential. Or they could have got away. All the +city rose, every third man almost was in it! All the blue, all the public +services, save only just a few aeronauts and about half the red police. +You were rescued, and their own police of the ways--not half of them +could be massed at the Council House--have been broken up, disarmed or +killed. All London is ours--now. Only the Council House remains. + +"Half of those who remain to them of the red police were lost in that +foolish attempt to recapture you. They lost their heads when they lost +you. They flung all they had at the theatre. We cut them off from the +Council House there. Truly to-night has been a night of victory. +Everywhere your star has blazed. A day ago--the White Council ruled as it +has ruled for a gross of years, for a century and a half of years, and +then, with only a little whispering, a covert arming here and there, +suddenly--So!" + +"I am very ignorant," said Graham. "I suppose--I do not clearly +understand the conditions of this fighting. If you could explain. Where +is the Council? Where is the fight?" + +Ostrog stepped across the room, something clicked, and suddenly, save for +an oval glow, they were in darkness. For a moment Graham was puzzled. + +Then he saw that the cloudy grey disc had taken depth and colour, had +assumed the appearance of an oval window looking out upon a strange +unfamiliar scene. + +At the first glance he was unable to guess what this scene might be. It +was a daylight scene, the daylight of a wintry day, grey and clear. +Across the picture, and halfway as it seemed between him and the remoter +view, a stout cable of twisted white wire stretched vertically. Then he +perceived that the rows of great wind-wheels he saw, the wide intervals, +the occasional gulfs of darkness, were akin to those through which he had +fled from the Council House. He distinguished an orderly file of red +figures marching across an open space between files of men in black, and +realised before Ostrog spoke that he was looking down on the upper +surface of latter-day London. The overnight snows had gone. He judged +that this mirror was some modern replacement of the camera obscura, but +that matter was not explained to him. He saw that though the file of red +figures was trotting from left to right, yet they were passing out of the +picture to the left. He wondered momentarily, and then saw that the +picture was passing slowly, panorama fashion, across the oval. + +"In a moment you will see the fighting," said Ostrog at his elbow. "Those +fellows in red you notice are prisoners. This is the roof space of +London--all the houses are practically continuous now. The streets and +public squares are covered in. The gaps and chasms of your time have +disappeared." + +Something out of focus obliterated half the picture. Its form suggested a +man. There was a gleam of metal, a flash, something that swept across the +oval, as the eyelid of a bird sweeps across its eye, and the picture was +clear again. And now Graham beheld men running down among the +wind-wheels, pointing weapons from which jetted out little smoky flashes. +They swarmed thicker and thicker to the right, gesticulating--it might be +they were shouting, but of that the picture told nothing. They and the +wind-wheels passed slowly and steadily across the field of the mirror. + +"Now," said Ostrog, "comes the Council House," and slowly a black edge +crept into view and gathered Graham's attention. Soon it was no longer an +edge but a cavity, a huge blackened space amidst the clustering edifices, +and from it thin spires of smoke rose into the pallid winter sky. Gaunt +ruinous masses of the building, mighty truncated piers and girders, rose +dismally out of this cavernous darkness. And over these vestiges of some +splendid place, countless minute men were clambering, leaping, swarming. + +"This is the Council House," said Ostrog. "Their last stronghold. And the +fools wasted enough ammunition to hold out for a month in blowing up the +buildings all about them--to stop our attack. You heard the smash? It +shattered half the brittle glass in the city." + +And while he spoke, Graham saw that beyond this area of ruins, +overhanging it and rising to a great height, was a ragged mass of white +building. This mass had been isolated by the ruthless destruction of its +surroundings. Black gaps marked the passages the disaster had torn apart; +big halls had been slashed open and the decoration of their interiors +showed dismally in the wintry dawn, and down the jagged walls hung +festoons of divided cables and twisted ends of lines and metallic rods. +And amidst all the vast details moved little red specks, the red-clothed +defenders of the Council. Every now and then faint flashes illuminated +the bleak shadows. At the first sight it seemed to Graham that an attack +upon this isolated white building was in progress, but then he perceived +that the party of the revolt was not advancing, but sheltered amidst the +colossal wreckage that encircled this last ragged stronghold of the +red-garbed men, was keeping up a fitful firing. + +And not ten hours ago he had stood beneath the ventilating fans in a +little chamber within that remote building wondering what was happening +in the world! + +Looking more attentively as this warlike episode moved silently across +the centre of the mirror, Graham saw that the white building was +surrounded on every side by ruins, and Ostrog proceeded to describe in +concise phrases how its defenders had sought by such destruction to +isolate themselves from a storm. He spoke of the loss of men that huge +downfall had entailed in an indifferent tone. He indicated an improvised +mortuary among the wreckage, showed ambulances swarming like cheese-mites +along a ruinous groove that had once been a street of moving ways. He was +more interested in pointing out the parts of the Council House, the +distribution of the besiegers. In a little while the civil contest that +had convulsed London was no longer a mystery to Graham. It was no +tumultuous revolt had occurred that night, no equal warfare, but a +splendidly organised _coup d'état_. Ostrog's grasp of details was +astonishing; he seemed to know the business of even the smallest knot of +black and red specks that crawled amidst these places. + +He stretched a huge black arm across the luminous picture, and showed the +room whence Graham had escaped, and across the chasm of ruins the course +of his flight. Graham recognised the gulf across which the gutter ran, +and the wind-wheels where he had crouched from the flying machine. The +rest of his path had succumbed to the explosion. He looked again at the +Council House, and it was already half hidden, and on the right a +hillside with a cluster of domes and pinnacles, hazy, dim and distant, +was gliding into view. + +"And the Council is really overthrown?" he said. + +"Overthrown," said Ostrog. + +"And I--. Is it indeed true that I--?" + +"You are Master of the World." + +"But that white flag--" + +"That is the flag of the Council--the flag of the Rule of the World. It +will fall. The fight is over. Their attack on the theatre was their last +frantic struggle. They have only a thousand men or so, and some of these +men will be disloyal. They have little ammunition. And we are reviving +the ancient arts. We are casting guns." + +"But--help. Is this city the world?" + +"Practically this is all they have left to them of their empire. Abroad +the cities have either revolted with us or wait the issue. Your awakening +has perplexed them, paralysed them." + +"But haven't the Council flying machines? Why is there no fighting +with them?" + +"They had. But the greater part of the aeronauts were in the revolt with +us. They wouldn't take the risk of fighting on our side, but they would +not stir against us. We _had_ to get a pull with the aeronauts. Quite +half were with us, and the others knew it. Directly they knew you had got +away, those looking for you dropped. We killed the man who shot at +you--an hour ago. And we occupied the flying stages at the outset in +every city we could, and so stopped and captured the greater aeroplanes, +and as for the little flying machines that turned out--for some did--we +kept up too straight and steady a fire for them to get near the Council +House. If they dropped they couldn't rise again, because there's no clear +space about there for them to get up. Several we have smashed, several +others have dropped and surrendered, the rest have gone off to the +Continent to find a friendly city if they can before their fuel runs out. +Most of these men were only too glad to be taken prisoner and kept out of +harm's way. Upsetting in a flying machine isn't a very attractive +prospect. There's no chance for the Council that way. Its days are done." + +He laughed and turned to the oval reflection again to show Graham what he +meant by flying stages. Even the four nearer ones were remote and +obscured by a thin morning haze. But Graham could perceive they were very +vast structures, judged even by the standard of the things about them. + +And then as these dim shapes passed to the left there came again the +sight of the expanse across which the disarmed men in red had been +marching. And then the black ruins, and then again the beleaguered white +fastness of the Council. It appeared no longer a ghostly pile, but +glowing amber in the sunlight, for a cloud shadow had passed. About it +the pigmy struggle still hung in suspense, but now the red defenders were +no longer firing. + +So, in a dusky stillness, the man from the nineteenth century saw the +closing scene of the great revolt, the forcible establishment of his +rule. With a quality of startling discovery it came to him that this was +his world, and not that other he had left behind; that this was no +spectacle to culminate and cease; that in this world lay whatever life +was still before him, lay all his duties and dangers and +responsibilities. He turned with fresh questions. Ostrog began to answer +them, and then broke off abruptly. "But these things I must explain more +fully later. At present there are--duties. The people are coming by the +moving ways towards this ward from every part of the city--the markets +and theatres are densely crowded. You are just in time for them. They are +clamouring to see you. And abroad they want to see you. Paris, New York, +Chicago, Denver, Capri--thousands of cities are up and in a tumult, +undecided, and clamouring to see you. They have clamoured that you should +be awakened for years, and now it is done they will scarcely believe--" + +"But surely--I can't go ..." + +Ostrog answered from the other side of the room, and the picture on the +oval disc paled and vanished as the light jerked back again. "There are +kineto-telephoto-graphs," he said. "As you bow to the people here--all +over the world myriads of myriads of people, packed and still in darkened +halls, will see you also. In black and white, of course--not like this. +And you will hear their shouts reinforcing the shouting in the hall. + +"And there is an optical contrivance we shall use," said Ostrog, "used by +some of the posturers and women dancers. It may be novel to you. You +stand in a very bright light, and they see not you but a magnified image +of you thrown on a screen--so that even the furtherest man in the +remotest gallery can, if he chooses, count your eyelashes." + +Graham clutched desperately at one of the questions in his mind. "What is +the population of London?" he said. + +"Eight and twaindy myriads." + +"Eight and what?" + +"More than thirty-three millions." + +These figures went beyond Graham's imagination. + +"You will be expected to say something," said Ostrog. "Not what you used +to call a Speech, but what our people call a word--just one sentence, six +or seven words. Something formal. If I might suggest--'I have awakened +and my heart is with you.' That is the sort of thing they want." + +"What was that?" asked Graham. + +"'I am awakened and my heart is with you.' And bow--bow royally. But +first we must get you black robes--for black is your colour. Do you mind? +And then they will disperse to their homes." + +Graham hesitated. "I am in your hands," he said. + +Ostrog was clearly of that opinion. He thought for a moment, turned to +the curtain and called brief directions to some unseen attendants. Almost +immediately a black robe, the very fellow of the black robe Graham had +worn in the theatre, was brought. And as he threw it about his shoulders +there came from the room without the shrilling of a high-pitched bell. +Ostrog turned in interrogation to the attendant, then suddenly seemed to +change his mind, pulled the curtain aside and disappeared. + +For a moment Graham stood with the deferential attendant listening to +Ostrog's retreating steps. There was a sound of quick question and answer +and of men running. The curtain was snatched back and Ostrog reappeared, +his massive face glowing with excitement. He crossed the room in a +stride, clicked the room into darkness, gripped Graham's arm and pointed +to the mirror. + +"Even as we turned away," he said. + +Graham saw his index finger, black and colossal, above the mirrored +Council House. For a moment he did not understand. And then he perceived +that the flagstaff that had carried the white banner was bare. + +"Do you mean--?" he began. + +"The Council has surrendered. Its rule is at an end for evermore." + +"Look!" and Ostrog pointed to a coil of black that crept in little jerks +up the vacant flagstaff, unfolding as it rose. + +The oval picture paled as Lincoln pulled the curtain aside and entered. + +"They are clamorous," he said. + +Ostrog kept his grip of Graham's arm. + +"We have raised the people," he said. "We have given them arms. For +to-day at least their wishes must be law." + +Lincoln held the curtain open for Graham and Ostrog to pass through.... + +On his way to the markets Graham had a transitory glance of a long narrow +white-walled room in which men in the universal blue canvas were carrying +covered things like biers, and about which men in medical purple hurried +to and fro. From this room came groans and wailing. He had an impression +of an empty blood-stained couch, of men on other couches, bandaged and +blood-stained. It was just a glimpse from a railed footway and then a +buttress hid the place and they were going on towards the markets.... + +The roar of the multitude was near now: it leapt to thunder. And, +arresting his attention, a fluttering of black banners, the waving of +blue canvas and brown rags, and the swarming vastness of the theatre near +the public markets came into view down a long passage. The picture opened +out. He perceived they were entering the great theatre of his first +appearance, the great theatre he had last seen as a chequer-work of glare +and blackness in his flight from the red police. This time he entered it +along a gallery at a level high above the stage. The place was now +brilliantly lit again. His eyes sought the gangway up which he had fled, +but he could not tell it from among its dozens of fellows; nor could he +see anything of the smashed seats, deflated cushions, and such like +traces of the fight because of the density of the people. Except the +stage the whole place was closely packed. Looking down the effect was a +vast area of stippled pink, each dot a still upturned face regarding him. +At his appearance with Ostrog the cheering died away, the singing died +away, a common interest stilled and unified the disorder. It seemed as +though every individual of those myriads was watching him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE END OF THE OLD ORDER + + +So far as Graham was able to judge, it was near midday when the white +banner of the Council fell. But some hours had to elapse before it was +possible to effect the formal capitulation, and so after he had spoken +his "Word" he retired to his new apartments in the wind-vane offices. The +continuous excitement of the last twelve hours had left him inordinately +fatigued, even his curiosity was exhausted; for a space he sat inert and +passive with open eyes, and for a space he slept. He was roused by two +medical attendants, come prepared with stimulants to sustain him through +the next occasion. After he had taken their drugs and bathed by their +advice in cold water, he felt a rapid return of interest and energy, and +was presently able and willing to accompany Ostrog through several miles +(as it seemed) of passages, lifts, and slides to the closing scene of the +White Council's rule. + +The way ran deviously through a maze of buildings. They came at last to a +passage that curved about, and showed broadening before him an oblong +opening, clouds hot with sunset, and the ragged skyline of the ruinous +Council House. A tumult of shouts came drifting up to him. In another +moment they had come out high up on the brow of the cliff of torn +buildings that overhung the wreckage. The vast area opened to Graham's +eyes, none the less strange and wonderful for the remote view he had had +of it in the oval mirror. + +This rudely amphitheatral space seemed now the better part of a mile to +its outer edge. It was gold lit on the left hand, catching the sunlight, +and below and to the right clear and cold in the shadow. Above the +shadowy grey Council House that stood in the midst of it, the great black +banner of the surrender still hung in sluggish folds against the blazing +sunset. Severed rooms, halls and passages gaped strangely, broken masses +of metal projected dismally from the complex wreckage, vast masses of +twisted cable dropped like tangled seaweed, and from its base came a +tumult of innumerable voices, violent concussions, and the sound of +trumpets. All about this great white pile was a ring of desolation; the +smashed and blackened masses, the gaunt foundations and ruinous lumber of +the fabric that had been destroyed by the Council's orders, skeletons of +girders, Titanic masses of wall, forests of stout pillars. Amongst the +sombre wreckage beneath, running water flashed and glistened, and far +away across the space, out of the midst of a vague vast mass of +buildings, there thrust the twisted end of a water-main, two hundred feet +in the air, thunderously spouting a shining cascade. And everywhere great +multitudes of people. + +Wherever there was space and foothold, people swarmed, little people, +small and minutely clear, except where the sunset touched them to +indistinguishable gold. They clambered up the tottering walls, they clung +in wreaths and groups about the high-standing pillars. They swarmed along +the edges of the circle of ruins. The air was full of their shouting, and +they were pressing and swaying towards the central space. + +The upper storeys of the Council House seemed deserted, not a human +being was visible. Only the drooping banner of the surrender hung +heavily against the light. The dead were within the Council House, or +hidden by the swarming people, or carried away. Graham could see only a +few neglected bodies in gaps and corners of the ruins, and amidst the +flowing water. + +"Will you let them see you, Sire?" said Ostrog. "They are very anxious +to see you." + +Graham hesitated, and then walked forward to where the broken verge of +wall dropped sheer. He stood looking down, a lonely, tall, black figure +against the sky. + +Very slowly the swarming ruins became aware of him. And as they did so +little bands of black-uniformed men appeared remotely, thrusting through +the crowds towards the Council House. He saw little black heads become +pink, looking at him, saw by that means a wave of recognition sweep +across the space. It occurred to him that he should accord them some +recognition. He held up his arm, then pointed to the Council House and +dropped his hand. The voices below became unanimous, gathered volume, +came up to him as multitudinous wavelets of cheering. + +The western sky was a pallid bluish green, and Jupiter shone high in the +south, before the capitulation was accomplished. Above was a slow +insensible change, the advance of night serene and beautiful; below was +hurry, excitement, conflicting orders, pauses, spasmodic developments of +organisation, a vast ascending clamour and confusion. Before the Council +came out, toiling perspiring men, directed by a conflict of shouts, +carried forth hundreds of those who had perished in the hand-to-hand +conflict within those long passages and chambers.... + +Guards in black lined the way that the Council would come, and as far as +the eye could reach into the hazy blue twilight of the ruins, and +swarming now at every possible point in the captured Council House and +along the shattered cliff of its circumadjacent buildings, were +innumerable people, and their voices, even when they were not cheering, +were as the soughing of the sea upon a pebble beach. Ostrog had chosen a +huge commanding pile of crushed and overthrown masonry, and on this a +stage of timbers and metal girders was being hastily constructed. Its +essential parts were complete, but humming and clangorous machinery still +glared fitfully in the shadows beneath this temporary edifice. + +The stage had a small higher portion on which Graham stood with Ostrog +and Lincoln close beside him, a little in advance of a group of minor +officers. A broader lower stage surrounded this quarter-deck, and on this +were the black-uniformed guards of the revolt armed with the little green +weapons whose very names Graham still did not know. Those standing about +him perceived that his eyes wandered perpetually from the swarming people +in the twilight ruins about him to the darkling mass of the White Council +House, whence the Trustees would presently come, and to the gaunt cliffs +of ruin that encircled him, and so back to the people. The voices of the +crowd swelled to a deafening tumult. + +He saw the Councillors first afar off in the glare of one of the +temporary lights that marked their path, a little group of white figures +in a black archway. In the Council House they had been in darkness. He +watched them approaching, drawing nearer past first this blazing +electric star and then that; the minatory roar of the crowd over whom +their power had lasted for a hundred and fifty years marched along beside +them. As they drew still nearer their faces came out weary, white, and +anxious. He saw them blinking up through the glare about him and Ostrog. +He contrasted their strange cold looks in the Hall of Atlas.... Presently +he could recognise several of them; the man who had rapped the table at +Howard, a burly man with a red beard, and one delicate-featured, short, +dark man with a peculiarly long skull. He noted that two were whispering +together and looking behind him at Ostrog. Next there came a tall, dark +and handsome man, walking downcast. Abruptly he glanced up, his eyes +touched Graham for a moment, and passed beyond him to Ostrog. The way +that had been made for them was so contrived that they had to march past +and curve about before they came to the sloping path of planks that +ascended to the stage where their surrender was to be made. + +"The Master, the Master! God and the Master," shouted the people. "To +hell with the Council!" Graham looked at their multitudes, receding +beyond counting into a shouting haze, and then at Ostrog beside him, +white and steadfast and still. His eye went again to the little group of +White Councillors. And then he looked up at the familiar quiet stars +overhead. The marvellous element in his fate was suddenly vivid. Could +that be his indeed, that little life in his memory two hundred years gone +by--and this as well? + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +FROM THE CROW'S NEST + + +And so after strange delays and through an avenue of doubt and battle, +this man from the nineteenth century came at last to his position at the +head of that complex world. + +At first when he rose from the long deep sleep that followed his rescue +and the surrender of the Council, he did not recognise his surroundings. +By an effort he gained a clue in his mind, and all that had happened came +back to him, at first with a quality of insincerity like a story heard, +like something read out of a book. And even before his memories were +clear, the exultation of his escape, the wonder of his prominence were +back in his mind. He was owner of the world; Master of the Earth. This +new great age was in the completest sense his. He no longer hoped to +discover his experiences a dream; he became anxious now to convince +himself that they were real. + +An obsequious valet assisted him to dress under the direction of a +dignified chief attendant, a little man whose face proclaimed him +Japanese, albeit he spoke English like an Englishman. From the latter he +learnt something of the state of affairs. Already the revolution was an +accepted fact; already business was being resumed throughout the city. +Abroad the downfall of the Council had been received for the most part +with delight. Nowhere was the Council popular, and the thousand cities +of Western America, after two hundred years still jealous of New York, +London, and the East, had risen almost unanimously two days before at the +news of Graham's imprisonment. Paris was fighting within itself. The rest +of the world hung in suspense. + +While he was breaking his fast, the sound of a telephone bell jetted from +a corner, and his chief attendant called his attention to the voice of +Ostrog making polite enquiries. Graham interrupted his refreshment to +reply. Very shortly Lincoln arrived, and Graham at once expressed a +strong desire to talk to people and to be shown more of the new life that +was opening before him. Lincoln informed him that in three hours' time a +representative gathering of officials and their wives would be held in +the state apartments of the wind-vane Chief. Graham's desire to traverse +the ways of the city was, however, at present impossible, because of the +enormous excitement of the people. It was, however, quite possible for +him to take a bird's-eye view of the city from the crow's nest of the +wind-vane keeper. To this accordingly Graham was conducted by his +attendant. Lincoln; with a graceful compliment to the attendant, +apologised for not accompanying them, on account of the present pressure +of administrative work. + +Higher even than the most gigantic, wind-wheels hung this crow's nest, a +clear thousand feet above the roofs, a little disc-shaped speck on a +spear of metallic filigree, cable stayed. To its summit Graham was drawn +in a little wire-hung cradle. Halfway down the frail-seeming stem was a +light gallery about which hung a cluster of tubes--minute they looked +from above--rotating slowly on the ring of its outer rail. These were the +specula, _en rapport_ with the wind-vane keeper's mirrors, in one of +which Ostrog had shown him the coming of his rule. His Japanese attendant +ascended before him and they spent nearly an hour asking and answering +questions. + +It was a day full of the promise and quality of spring. The touch of the +wind warmed. The sky was an intense blue and the vast expanse of London +shone dazzling under the morning sun. The air was clear of smoke and +haze, sweet as the air of a mountain glen. + +Save for the irregular oval of ruins about the House of the Council and +the black flag of the surrender that fluttered there, the mighty city +seen from above showed few signs of the swift revolution that had, to his +imagination, in one night and one day, changed the destinies of the +world. A multitude of people still swarmed over these ruins, and the huge +openwork stagings in the distance from which started in times of peace +the service of aeroplanes to the various great cities of Europe and +America, were also black with the victors. Across a narrow way of +planking raised on trestles that crossed the ruins a crowd of workmen +were busy restoring the connection between the cables and wires of the +Council House and the rest of the city, preparatory to the transfer +thither of Ostrog's headquarters from the Wind-Vane buildings. + +For the rest the luminous expanse was undisturbed. So vast was its +serenity in comparison with the areas of disturbance, that presently +Graham, looking beyond them, could almost forget the thousands of men +lying out of sight in the artificial glare within the quasi-subterranean +labyrinth, dead or dying of the overnight wounds, forget the improvised +wards with the hosts of surgeons, nurses, and bearers feverishly busy, +forget, indeed, all the wonder, consternation and novelty under the +electric lights. Down there in the hidden ways of the anthill he knew +that the revolution triumphed, that black everywhere carried the day, +black favours, black banners, black festoons across the streets. And out +here, under the fresh sunlight, beyond the crater of the fight, as if +nothing had happened to the earth, the forest of wind vanes that had +grown from one or two while the Council had ruled, roared peacefully upon +their incessant duty. + +Far away, spiked, jagged and indented by the wind vanes, the Surrey Hills +rose blue and faint; to the north and nearer, the sharp contours of +Highgate and Muswell Hill were similarly jagged. And all over the +countryside, he knew, on every crest and hill, where once the hedges had +interlaced, and cottages, churches, inns, and farm houses had nestled +among their trees, wind-wheels similar to those he saw and bearing like +them vast advertisements, gaunt and distinctive symbols of the new age, +cast their whirling shadows and stored incessantly the energy that flowed +away incessantly through all the arteries of the city. And underneath +these wandered the countless flocks and herds of the British Food Trust, +his property, with their lonely guards and keepers. + +Not a familiar outline anywhere broke the cluster of gigantic shapes +below. St. Paul's he knew survived, and many of the old buildings in +Westminster, embedded out of sight, arched over and covered in among the +giant growths of this great age. The Thames, too, made no fall and gleam +of silver to break the wilderness of the city; the thirsty water mains +drank up every drop of its waters before they reached the walls. Its bed +and estuary, scoured and sunken, was now a canal of sea water, and a race +of grimy bargemen brought the heavy materials of trade from the Pool +thereby beneath the very feet of the workers. Faint and dim in the +eastward between earth and sky hung the clustering masts of the colossal +shipping in the Pool. For all the heavy traffic, for which there was no +need of haste, came in gigantic sailing ships from the ends of the earth, +and the heavy goods for which there was urgency in mechanical ships of a +smaller swifter sort. + +And to the south over the hills came vast aqueducts with sea water for +the sewers, and in three separate directions ran pallid lines--the roads, +stippled with moving grey specks. On the first occasion that offered he +was determined to go out and see these roads. That would come after the +flying ship he was presently to try. His attendant officer described them +as a pair of gently curving surfaces a hundred yards wide, each one for +the traffic going in one direction, and made of a substance called +Eadhamite--an artificial substance, so far as he could gather, resembling +toughened glass. Along this shot a strange traffic of narrow rubber-shod +vehicles, great single wheels, two and four wheeled vehicles, sweeping +along at velocities of from one to six miles a minute. Railroads had +vanished; a few embankments remained as rust-crowned trenches here and +there. Some few formed the cores of Eadhamite ways. + +Among the first things to strike his attention had been the great fleets +of advertisement balloons and kites that receded in irregular vistas +northward and southward along the lines of the aeroplane journeys. No +great aeroplanes were to be seen. Their passages had ceased, and only one +little-seeming monoplane circled high in the blue distance above the +Surrey Hills, an unimpressive soaring speck. + +A thing Graham had already learnt, and which he found very hard to +imagine, was that nearly all the towns in the country, and almost all the +villages, had disappeared. Here and there only, he understood, some +gigantic hotel-like edifice stood amid square miles of some single +cultivation and preserved the name of a town--as Bournemouth, Wareham, or +Swanage. Yet the officer had speedily convinced him how inevitable such a +change had been. The old order had dotted the country with farmhouses, +and every two or three miles was the ruling landlord's estate, and the +place of the inn and cobbler, the grocer's shop and church--the village. +Every eight miles or so was the country town, where lawyer, corn +merchant, wool-stapler, saddler, veterinary surgeon, doctor, draper, +milliner and so forth lived. Every eight miles--simply because that eight +mile marketing journey, four there and back, was as much as was +comfortable for the farmer. But directly the railways came into play, and +after them the light railways, and all the swift new motor cars that had +replaced waggons and horses, and so soon as the high roads began to be +made of wood, and rubber, and Eadhamite, and all sorts of elastic durable +substances--the necessity of having such frequent market towns +disappeared. And the big towns grew. They drew the worker with the +gravitational force of seemingly endless work, the employer with their +suggestion of an infinite ocean of labour. + +And as the standard of comfort rose, as the complexity of the mechanism +of living increased, life in the country had become more and more costly, +or narrow and impossible. The disappearance of vicar and squire, the +extinction of the general practitioner by the city specialist; had robbed +the village of its last touch of culture. After telephone, kinematograph +and phonograph had replaced newspaper, book, schoolmaster, and letter, to +live outside the range of the electric cables was to live an isolated +savage. In the country were neither means of being clothed nor fed +(according to the refined conceptions of the time), no efficient doctors +for an emergency, no company and no pursuits. + +Moreover, mechanical appliances in agriculture made one engineer the +equivalent of thirty labourers. So, inverting the condition of the city +clerk in the days when London was scarce inhabitable because of the coaly +foulness of its air, the labourers now came to the city and its life and +delights at night to leave it again in the morning. The city had +swallowed up humanity; man had entered upon a new stage in his +development. First had come the nomad, the hunter, then had followed the +agriculturist of the agricultural state, whose towns and cities and ports +were but the headquarters and markets of the countryside. And now, +logical consequence of an epoch of invention, was this huge new +aggregation of men. + +Such things as these, simple statements of fact though they were to +contemporary men, strained Graham's imagination to picture. And when he +glanced "over beyond there" at the strange things that existed on the +Continent, it failed him altogether. + +He had a vision of city beyond city; cities on great plains, cities +beside great rivers, vast cities along the sea margin, cities girdled by +snowy mountains. Over a great part of the earth the English tongue was +spoken; taken together with its Spanish American and Hindoo and Negro and +"Pidgin" dialects, it was the everyday-language of two-thirds of +humanity. On the Continent, save as remote and curious survivals, three +other languages alone held sway--German, which reached to Antioch and +Genoa and jostled Spanish-English at Cadiz; a Gallicised Russian which +met the Indian English in Persia and Kurdistan and the "Pidgin" English +in Pekin; and French still clear and brilliant, the language of lucidity, +which shared the Mediterranean with the Indian English and German and +reached through a negro dialect to the Congo. + +And everywhere now through the city-set earth, save in the administered +"black belt" territories of the tropics, the same cosmopolitan social +organisation prevailed, and everywhere from Pole to Equator his property +and his responsibilities extended. The whole world was civilised; the +whole world dwelt in cities; the whole world was his property.... + +Out of the dim south-west, glittering and strange, voluptuous, and in +some way terrible, shone those Pleasure Cities of which the +kinematograph-phonograph and the old man in the street had spoken. +Strange places reminiscent of the legendary Sybaris, cities of art +and beauty, mercenary art and mercenary beauty, sterile wonderful +cities of motion and music, whither repaired all who profited by the +fierce, inglorious, economic struggle that went on in the glaring +labyrinth below. + +Fierce he knew it was. How fierce he could judge from the fact that these +latter-day people referred back to the England of the nineteenth century +as the figure of an idyllic easy-going life. He turned his eyes to the +scene immediately before him again, trying to conceive the big factories +of that intricate maze.... + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +PROMINENT PEOPLE + + +The state apartments of the Wind Vane Keeper would have astonished Graham +had he entered them fresh from his nineteenth century life, but already +he was growing accustomed to the scale of the new time. He came out +through one of the now familiar sliding panels upon a plateau of landing +at the head of a flight of very broad and gentle steps, with men and +women far more brilliantly dressed than any he had hitherto seen, +ascending and descending. From this position he looked down a vista of +subtle and varied ornament in lustreless white and mauve and purple, +spanned by bridges that seemed wrought of porcelain and filigree, and +terminating far off in a cloudy mystery of perforated screens. + +Glancing upward, he saw tier above tier of ascending galleries with faces +looking down upon him. The air was full of the babble of innumerable +voices and of a music that descended from above, a gay and exhilarating +music whose source he did not discover. + +The central aisle was thick with people, but by no means uncomfortably +crowded; altogether that assembly must have numbered many thousands. They +were brilliantly, even fantastically dressed, the men as fancifully as +the women, for the sobering influence of the Puritan conception of +dignity upon masculine dress had long since passed away. The hair of the +men, too, though it was rarely worn long, was commonly curled in a +manner that suggested the barber, and baldness had vanished from the +earth. Frizzy straight-cut masses that would have charmed Rossetti +abounded, and one gentleman, who was pointed out to Graham under the +mysterious title of an "amorist," wore his hair in two becoming plaits _à +la_ Marguerite. The pigtail was in evidence; it would seem that citizens +of Chinese extraction were no longer ashamed of their race. There was +little uniformity of fashion apparent in the forms of clothing worn. The +more shapely men displayed their symmetry in trunk hose, and here were +puffs and slashes, and there a cloak and there a robe. The fashions of +the days of Leo the Tenth were perhaps the prevailing influence, but the +aesthetic conceptions of the far east were also patent. Masculine +embonpoint, which, in Victorian times, would have been subjected to the +buttoned perils, the ruthless exaggeration of tight-legged tight-armed +evening dress, now formed but the basis of a wealth of dignity and +drooping folds. Graceful slenderness abounded also. To Graham, a +typically stiff man from a typically stiff period, not only did these men +seem altogether too graceful in person, but altogether too expressive in +their vividly expressive faces. They gesticulated, they expressed +surprise, interest, amusement, above all, they expressed the emotions +excited in their minds by the ladies about them with astonishing +frankness. Even at the first glance it was evident that women were in a +great majority. + +The ladies in the company of these gentlemen displayed in dress, bearing +and manner alike, less emphasis and more intricacy. Some affected a +classical simplicity of robing and subtlety of fold, after the fashion of +the First French Empire, and flashed conquering arms and shoulders as +Graham passed. Others had closely-fitting dresses without seam or belt at +the waist, sometimes with long folds falling from the shoulders. The +delightful confidences of evening dress had not been diminished by the +passage of two centuries. + +Everyone's movements seemed graceful. Graham remarked to Lincoln that he +saw men as Raphael's cartoons walking, and Lincoln told him that the +attainment of an appropriate set of gestures was part of every rich +person's education. The Master's entry was greeted with a sort of +tittering applause, but these people showed their distinguished manners +by not crowding upon him nor annoying him by any persistent scrutiny, as +he descended the steps towards the floor of the aisle. + +He had already learnt from Lincoln that these were the leaders of +existing London society; almost every person there that night was either +a powerful official or the immediate connexion of a powerful official. +Many had returned from the European Pleasure Cities expressly to welcome +him. The aeronautic authorities, whose defection had played a part in the +overthrow of the Council only second to Graham's, were very prominent, +and so, too, was the Wind Vane Control. Amongst others there were several +of the more prominent officers of the Food Department; the controller of +the European Piggeries had a particularly melancholy and interesting +countenance and a daintily cynical manner. A bishop in full canonicals +passed athwart Graham's vision, conversing with a gentleman dressed +exactly like the traditional Chaucer, including even the laurel wreath. + +"Who is that?" he asked almost involuntarily. + +"The Bishop of London," said Lincoln. + +"No--the other, I mean." + +"Poet Laureate." + +"You still--?" + +"He doesn't make poetry, of course. He's a cousin of Wotton--one of the +Councillors. But he's one of the Red Rose Royalists--a delightful +club--and they keep up the tradition of these things." + +"Asano told me there was a King." + +"The King doesn't belong. They had to expel him. It's the Stuart blood, I +suppose; but really--" + +"Too much?" + +"Far too much." + +Graham did not quite follow all this, but it seemed part of the general +inversion of the new age. He bowed condescendingly to his first +introduction. It was evident that subtle distinctions of class prevailed +even in this assembly, that only to a small proportion of the guests, to +an inner group, did Lincoln consider it appropriate to introduce him. +This first introduction was the Master Aeronaut, a man whose sun-tanned +face contrasted oddly with the delicate complexions about him. Just at +present his critical defection from the Council made him a very important +person indeed. + +His manner contrasted very favourably, according to Graham's ideas, with +the general bearing. He offered a few commonplace remarks, assurances of +loyalty and frank inquiries about the Master's health. His manner was +breezy, his accent lacked the easy staccato of latter-day English. He +made it admirably clear to Graham that he was a bluff "aerial dog"--he +used that phrase--that there was no nonsense about him, that he was a +thoroughly manly fellow and old-fashioned at that, that he didn't profess +to know much, and that what he did not know was not worth knowing. He +made a curt bow, ostentatiously free from obsequiousness, and passed. + +"I am glad to see that type endures," said Graham. + +"Phonographs and kinematographs," said Lincoln, a little spitefully. "He +has studied from the life." Graham glanced at the burly form again. It +was oddly reminiscent. + +"As a matter of fact we bought him," said Lincoln. "Partly. And partly he +was afraid of Ostrog. Everything rested with him." + +He turned sharply to introduce the Surveyor-General of the Public +Schools. This person was a willowy figure in a blue-grey academic gown, +he beamed down upon Graham through _pince-nez_ of a Victorian pattern, +and illustrated his remarks by gestures of a beautifully manicured hand. +Graham was immediately interested in this gentleman's functions, and +asked him a number of singularly direct questions. The Surveyor-General +seemed quietly amused at the Master's fundamental bluntness. He was a +little vague as to the monopoly of education his Company possessed; it +was done by contract with the syndicate that ran the numerous London +Municipalities, but he waxed enthusiastic over educational progress +since the Victorian times. "We have conquered Cram," he said, +"completely conquered Cram--there is not an examination left in the +world. Aren't you glad?" + +"How do you get the work done?" asked Graham. + +"We make it attractive--as attractive as possible. And if it does not +attract then--we let it go. We cover an immense field." + +He proceeded to details, and they had a lengthy conversation. Graham +learnt that University Extension still existed in a modified form. "There +is a certain type of girl, for example," said the Surveyor-General, +dilating with a sense of his usefulness, "with a perfect passion for +severe studies--when they are not too difficult you know. We cater for +them by the thousand. At this moment," he said with a Napoleonic touch, +"nearly five hundred phonographs are lecturing in different parts of +London on the influence exercised by Plato and Swift on the love affairs +of Shelley, Hazlitt, and Burns. And afterwards they write essays on the +lectures, and the names in order of merit are put in conspicuous places. +You see how your little germ has grown? The illiterate middle-class of +your days has quite passed away." + +"About the public elementary schools," said Graham. "Do you +control them?" + +The Surveyor-General did, "entirely." Now, Graham, in his later +democratic days, had taken a keen interest in these and his questioning +quickened. Certain casual phrases that had fallen from the old man with +whom he had talked in the darkness recurred to him. The Surveyor-General, +in effect, endorsed the old man's words. "We try and make the elementary +schools very pleasant for the little children. They will have to work so +soon. Just a few simple principles--obedience--industry." + +"You teach them very little?" + +"Why should we? It only leads to trouble and discontent. We amuse them. +Even as it is--there are troubles--agitations. Where the labourers get +the ideas, one cannot tell. They tell one another. There are socialistic +dreams--anarchy even! Agitators _will_ get to work among them. I take +it--I have always taken it--that my foremost duty is to fight against +popular discontent. Why should people be made unhappy?" + +"I wonder," said Graham thoughtfully. "But there are a great many things +I want to know." + +Lincoln, who had stood watching Graham's face throughout the +conversation, intervened. "There are others," he said in an undertone. + +The Surveyor-General of schools gesticulated himself away. "Perhaps," +said Lincoln, intercepting a casual glance, "you would like to know some +of these ladies?" + +The daughter of the Manager of the Piggeries was a particularly charming +little person with red hair and animated blue eyes. Lincoln left him +awhile to converse with her, and she displayed herself as quite an +enthusiast for the "dear old days," as she called them, that had seen the +beginning of his trance. As she talked she smiled, and her eyes smiled in +a manner that demanded reciprocity. + +"I have tried," she said, "countless times--to imagine those old romantic +days. And to you--they are memories. How strange and crowded the world +must seem to you! I have seen photographs and pictures of the past, the +little isolated houses built of bricks made out of burnt mud and all +black with soot from your fires, the railway bridges, the simple +advertisements, the solemn savage Puritanical men in strange black coats +and those tall hats of theirs, iron railway trains on iron bridges +overhead, horses and cattle, and even dogs running half wild about the +streets. And suddenly, you have come into this!" + +"Into this," said Graham. + +"Out of your life--out of all that was familiar." + +"The old life was not a happy one," said Graham. "I do not regret that." + +She looked at him quickly. There was a brief pause. She sighed +encouragingly. "No?" + +"No," said Graham. "It was a little life--and unmeaning. But this--We +thought the world complex and crowded and civilised enough. Yet I +see--although in this world I am barely four days old--looking back on my +own time, that it was a queer, barbaric time--the mere beginning of this +new order. The mere beginning of this new order. You will find it hard to +understand how little I know." + +"You may ask me what you like," she said, smiling at him. + +"Then tell me who these people are. I'm still very much in the dark about +them. It's puzzling. Are there any Generals?" + +"Men in hats and feathers?" + +"Of course not. No. I suppose they are the men who control the great +public businesses. Who is that distinguished looking man?" + +"That? He's a most important officer. That is Morden. He is managing +director of the Antibilious Pill Department. I have heard that his +workers sometimes turn out a myriad myriad pills a day in the twenty-four +hours. Fancy a myriad myriad!" + +"A myriad myriad. No wonder he looks proud," said Graham. "Pills! What a +wonderful time it is! That man in purple?" + +"He is not quite one of the inner circle, you know. But we like him. He +is really clever and very amusing. He is one of the heads of the Medical +Faculty of our London University. All medical men, you know, wear that +purple. But, of course, people who are paid by fees for _doing_ +something--" She smiled away the social pretensions of all such people. + +"Are any of your great artists or authors here?" + +"No authors. They are mostly such queer people--and so preoccupied about +themselves. And they quarrel so dreadfully! They will fight, some of +them, for precedence on staircases! Dreadful, isn't it? But I think +Wraysbury, the fashionable capillotomist, is here. From Capri." + +"Capillotomist," said Graham. "Ah! I remember. An artist! Why not?" + +"We have to cultivate him," she said apologetically. "Our heads are in +his hands." She smiled. + +Graham hesitated at the invited compliment, but his glance was +expressive. "Have the arts grown with the rest of civilised things?" he +said. "Who are your great painters?" + +She looked at him doubtfully. Then laughed. "For a moment," she said, "I +thought you meant--" She laughed again. "You mean, of course, those good +men you used to think so much of because they could cover great spaces of +canvas with oil-colours? Great oblongs. And people used to put the things +in gilt frames and hang them up in rows in their square rooms. We haven't +any. People grew tired of that sort of thing." + +"But what did you think I meant?" + +She put a finger significantly on a cheek whose glow was above suspicion, +and smiled and looked very arch and pretty and inviting. "And here," and +she indicated her eyelid. + +Graham had an adventurous moment. Then a grotesque memory of a picture he +had somewhere seen of Uncle Toby and the widow flashed across his mind. +An archaic shame came upon him. He became acutely aware that he was +visible to a great number of interested people. "I see," he remarked +inadequately. He turned awkwardly away from her fascinating facility. He +looked about him to meet a number of eyes that immediately occupied +themselves with other things. Possibly he coloured a little. "Who is that +talking with the lady in saffron?" he asked, avoiding her eyes. + +The person in question he learnt was one of the great organisers of the +American theatres just fresh from a gigantic production at Mexico. His +face reminded Graham of a bust of Caligula. Another striking looking man +was the Black Labour Master. The phrase at the time made no deep +impression, but afterwards it recurred;--the Black Labour Master? The +little lady in no degree embarrassed, pointed out to him a charming +little woman as one of the subsidiary wives of the Anglican Bishop of +London. She added encomiums on the episcopal courage--hitherto there had +been a rule of clerical monogamy--"neither a natural nor an expedient +condition of things. Why should the natural development of the affections +be dwarfed and restricted because a man is a priest?" + +"And, bye the bye," she added, "are you an Anglican?" Graham was on the +verge of hesitating inquiries about the status of a "subsidiary wife," +apparently an euphemistic phrase, when Lincoln's return broke off this +very suggestive and interesting conversation. They crossed the aisle to +where a tall man in crimson, and two charming persons in Burmese costume +(as it seemed to him) awaited him diffidently. From their civilities he +passed to other presentations. + +In a little while his multitudinous impressions began to organise +themselves into a general effect. At first the glitter of the gathering +had raised all the democrat in Graham; he had felt hostile and satirical. +But it is not in human nature to resist an atmosphere of courteous +regard. Soon the music, the light, the play of colours, the shining arms +and shoulders about him, the touch of hands, the transient interest of +smiling faces, the frothing sound of skilfully modulated voices, the +atmosphere of compliment, interest and respect, had woven together into a +fabric of indisputable pleasure. Graham for a time forgot his spacious +resolutions. He gave way insensibly to the intoxication of the position +that was conceded him, his manner became more convincingly regal, his +feet walked assuredly, the black robe fell with a bolder fold and pride +ennobled his voice. After all, this was a brilliant interesting world. + +He looked up and saw passing across a bridge of porcelain and looking +down upon him, a face that was almost immediately hidden, the face of the +girl he had seen overnight in the little room beyond the theatre after +his escape from the Council. And she was watching him. + +For the moment he did not remember when he had seen her, and then came a +vague memory of the stirring emotions of their first encounter. But the +dancing web of melody about him kept the air of that great marching song +from his memory. + +The lady to whom he talked repeated her remark, and Graham recalled +himself to the quasi-regal flirtation upon which he was engaged. + +Yet, unaccountably, a vague restlessness, a feeling that grew to +dissatisfaction, came into his mind. He was troubled as if by some half +forgotten duty, by the sense of things important slipping from him amidst +this light and brilliance. The attraction that these ladies who crowded +about him were beginning to exercise ceased. He no longer gave vague and +clumsy responses to the subtly amorous advances that he was now assured +were being made to him, and his eyes wandered for another sight of the +girl of the first revolt. + +Where, precisely, had he seen her?... + +Graham was in one of the upper galleries in conversation with a +bright-eyed lady on the subject of Eadhamite--the subject was his choice +and not hers. He had interrupted her warm assurances of personal devotion +with a matter-of-fact inquiry. He found her, as he had already found +several other latter-day women that night, less well informed than +charming. Suddenly, struggling against the eddying drift of nearer +melody, the song of the Revolt, the great song he had heard in the Hall, +hoarse and massive, came beating down to him. + +Ah! Now he remembered! + +He glanced up startled, and perceived above him an _oeil de boeuf_ +through which this song had come, and beyond, the upper courses of cable, +the blue haze, and the pendant fabric of the lights of the public ways. +He heard the song break into a tumult of voices and cease. He perceived +quite clearly the drone and tumult of the moving platforms and a murmur +of many people. He had a vague persuasion that he could not account for, +a sort of instinctive feeling that outside in the ways a huge crowd must +be watching this place in which their Master amused himself. + +Though the song had stopped so abruptly, though the special music of +this gathering reasserted itself, the _motif_ of the marching song, once +it had begun, lingered in his mind. + +The bright-eyed lady was still struggling with the mysteries of Eadhamite +when he perceived the girl he had seen in the theatre again. She was +coming now along the gallery towards him; he saw her first before she saw +him. She was dressed in a faintly luminous grey, her dark hair about her +brows was like a cloud, and as he saw her the cold light from the +circular opening into the ways fell upon her downcast face. + +The lady in trouble about the Eadhamite saw the change in his expression, +and grasped her opportunity to escape. "Would you care to know that girl, +Sire?" she asked boldly. "She is Helen Wotton--a niece of Ostrog's. She +knows a great many serious things. She is one of the most serious persons +alive. I am sure you will like her." + +In another moment Graham was talking to the girl, and the bright-eyed +lady had fluttered away. + +"I remember you quite well," said Graham. "You were in that little room. +When all the people were singing and beating time with their feet. Before +I walked across the Hall." + +Her momentary embarrassment passed. She looked up at him, and her face +was steady. "It was wonderful," she said, hesitated, and spoke with a +sudden effort. "All those people would have died for you, Sire. Countless +people did die for you that night." + +Her face glowed. She glanced swiftly aside to see that no other heard +her words. + +Lincoln appeared some way off along the gallery, making his way through +the press towards them. She saw him and turned to Graham strangely +eager, with a swift change to confidence and intimacy. "Sire," she said +quickly, "I cannot tell you now and here. But the common people are very +unhappy; they are oppressed--they are misgoverned. Do not forget the +people, who faced death--death that you might live." + +"I know nothing--" began Graham. + +"I cannot tell you now." + +Lincoln's face appeared close to them. He bowed an apology to the girl. + +"You find the new world amusing, Sire?" asked Lincoln, with smiling +deference, and indicating the space and splendour of the gathering by one +comprehensive gesture. "At any rate, you find it changed." + +"Yes," said Graham, "changed. And yet, after all, not so greatly +changed." + +"Wait till you are in the air," said Lincoln. "The wind has fallen; even +now an aeroplane awaits you." + +The girl's attitude awaited dismissal. + +Graham glanced at her face, was on the verge of a question, found a +warning in her expression, bowed to her and turned to accompany Lincoln. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE MONOPLANE + + +The Flying Stages of London were collected together in an irregular +crescent on the southern side of the river. They formed three groups of +two each and retained the names of ancient suburban hills or villages. +They were named in order, Roehampton, Wimbledon Park, Streatham, Norwood, +Blackheath, and Shooter's Hill. They were uniform structures rising high +above the general roof surfaces. Each was about four thousand yards long +and a thousand broad, and constructed of the compound of aluminum and +iron that had replaced iron in architecture. Their higher tiers formed an +openwork of girders through which lifts and staircases ascended. The +upper surface was a uniform expanse, with portions--the starting +carriers--that could be raised and were then able to run on very slightly +inclined rails to the end of the fabric. + +Graham went to the flying stages by the public ways. He was accompanied +by Asano, his Japanese attendant. Lincoln was called away by Ostrog, who +was busy with his administrative concerns. A strong guard of the +Wind-Vane police awaited the Master outside the Wind-Vane offices, and +they cleared a space for him on the upper moving platform. His passage to +the flying stages was unexpected, nevertheless a considerable crowd +gathered and followed him to his destination. As he went along, he could +hear the people shouting his name, and saw numberless men and women and +children in blue come swarming up the staircases in the central path, +gesticulating and shouting. He could not hear what they shouted. He was +struck again by the evident existence of a vulgar dialect among the poor +of the city. When at last he descended, his guards were immediately +surrounded by a dense excited crowd. Afterwards it occurred to him that +some had attempted to reach him with petitions. His guards cleared a +passage for him with difficulty. + +He found a monoplane in charge of an aeronaut awaiting him on the +westward stage. Seen close this mechanism was no longer small. As it lay +on its launching carrier upon the wide expanse of the flying stage, its +aluminum body skeleton was as big as the hull of a twenty-ton yacht. Its +lateral supporting sails braced and stayed with metal nerves almost like +the nerves of a bee's wing, and made of some sort of glassy artificial +membrane, cast their shadow over many hundreds of square yards. The +chairs for the engineer and his passenger hung free to swing by a complex +tackle, within the protecting ribs of the frame and well abaft the +middle. The passenger's chair was protected by a wind-guard and guarded +about with metallic rods carrying air cushions. It could, if desired, be +completely closed in, but Graham was anxious for novel experiences, and +desired that it should be left open. The aeronaut sat behind a glass that +sheltered his face. The passenger could secure himself firmly in his +seat, and this was almost unavoidable on landing, or he could move along +by means of a little rail and rod to a locker at the stem of the machine, +where his personal luggage, his wraps and restoratives were placed, and +which also with the seats, served as a makeweight to the parts of the +central engine that projected to the propeller at the stern. + +The flying stage about him was empty save for Asano and their suite of +attendants. Directed by the aeronaut he placed himself in his seat. Asano +stepped through the bars of the hull, and stood below on the stage waving +his hand. He seemed to slide along the stage to the right and vanish. + +The engine was humming loudly, the propeller spinning, and for a second +the stage and the buildings beyond were gliding swiftly and horizontally +past Graham's eye; then these things seemed to tilt up abruptly. He +gripped the little rods on either side of him instinctively. He felt +himself moving upward, heard the air whistle over the top of the wind +screen. The propeller screw moved round with powerful rhythmic +impulses--one, two, three, pause; one, two, three--which the engineer +controlled very delicately. The machine began a quivering vibration that +continued throughout the flight, and the roof areas seemed running away +to starboard very quickly and growing rapidly smaller. He looked from +the face of the engineer through the ribs of the machine. Looking +sideways, there was nothing very startling in what he saw--a rapid +funicular railway might have given the same sensations. He recognised +the Council House and the Highgate Ridge. And then he looked straight +down between his feet. + +For a moment physical terror possessed him, a passionate sense of +insecurity. He held tight. For a second or so he could not lift his eyes. +Some hundred feet or more sheer below him was one of the big wind-vanes +of south-west London, and beyond it the southernmost flying stage crowded +with little black dots. These things seemed to be falling away from him. +For a second he had an impulse to pursue the earth. He set his teeth, he +lifted his eyes by a muscular effort, and the moment of panic passed. + +He remained for a space with his teeth set hard, his eyes staring into +the sky. Throb, throb, throb--beat, went the engine; throb, throb, +throb--beat. He gripped his bars tightly, glanced at the aeronaut, and +saw a smile upon his sun-tanned face. He smiled in return--perhaps a +little artificially. "A little strange at first," he shouted before he +recalled his dignity. But he dared not look down again for some time. He +stared over the aeronaut's head to where a rim of vague blue horizon +crept up the sky. For a little while he could not banish the thought of +possible accidents from his mind. Throb, throb, throb--beat; suppose some +trivial screw went wrong in that supporting engine! Suppose--! He made a +grim effort to dismiss all such suppositions. After a while they did at +least abandon the foreground of his thoughts. And up he went steadily, +higher and higher into the clear air. + +Once the mental shock of moving unsupported through the air was over, +his sensations ceased to be unpleasant, became very speedily +pleasurable. He had been warned of air sickness. But he found the +pulsating movement of the monoplane as it drove up the faint south-west +breeze was very little in excess of the pitching of a boat head on to +broad rollers in a moderate gale, and he was constitutionally a good +sailor. And the keenness of the more rarefied air into which they +ascended produced a sense of lightness and exhilaration. He looked up +and saw the blue sky above fretted with cirrus clouds. His eye came +cautiously down through the ribs and bars to a shining flight of white +birds that hung in the lower sky. For a space he watched these. Then +going lower and less apprehensively, he saw the slender figure of the +Wind-Vane keeper's crow's nest shining golden in the sunlight and +growing smaller every moment. As his eye fell with more confidence now, +there came a blue line of hills, and then London, already to leeward, an +intricate space of roofing. Its near edge came sharp and clear, and +banished his last apprehensions in a shock of surprise. For the boundary +of London was like a wall, like a cliff, a steep fall of three or four +hundred feet, a frontage broken only by terraces here and there, a +complex decorative façade. + +That gradual passage of town into country through an extensive sponge of +suburbs, which was so characteristic a feature of the great cities of the +nineteenth century, existed no longer. Nothing remained of it here but a +waste of ruins, variegated and dense with thickets of the heterogeneous +growths that had once adorned the gardens of the belt, interspersed among +levelled brown patches of sown ground, and verdant stretches of winter +greens. The latter even spread among the vestiges of houses. But for the +most part the reefs and skerries of ruins, the wreckage of suburban +villas, stood among their streets and roads, queer islands amidst the +levelled expanses of green and brown, abandoned indeed by the inhabitants +years since, but too substantial, it seemed, to be cleared out of the way +of the wholesale horticultural mechanisms of the time. + +The vegetation of this waste undulated and frothed amidst the countless +cells of crumbling house walls, and broke along the foot of the city wall +in a surf of bramble and holly and ivy and teazle and tall grasses. Here +and there gaudy pleasure palaces towered amidst the puny remains of +Victorian times, and cable ways slanted to them from the city. That +winter day they seemed deserted. Deserted, too, were the artificial +gardens among the ruins. The city limits were indeed as sharply defined +as in the ancient days when the gates were shut at nightfall and the +robber foeman prowled to the very walls. A huge semi-circular throat +poured out a vigorous traffic upon the Eadhamite Bath Road. So the first +prospect of the world beyond the city flashed on Graham, and dwindled. +And when at last he could look vertically downward again, he saw below +him the vegetable fields of the Thames valley--innumerable minute oblongs +of ruddy brown, intersected by shining threads, the sewage ditches. + +His exhilaration increased rapidly, became a sort of intoxication. He +found himself drawing deep breaths of air, laughing aloud, desiring to +shout. After a time that desire became too strong for him, and he +shouted. They curved about towards the south. They drove with a slight +list to leeward, and with a slow alternation of movement, first a short, +sharp ascent and then a long downward glide that was very swift and +pleasing. During these downward glides the propeller was inactive +altogether. These ascents gave Graham a glorious sense of successful +effort; the descents through the rarefied air were beyond all experience. +He wanted never to leave the upper air again. + +For a time he was intent upon the landscape that ran swiftly northward +beneath him. Its minute, clear detail pleased him exceedingly. He was +impressed by the ruin of the houses that had once dotted the country, by +the vast treeless expanse of country from which all farms and villages +had gone, save for crumbling ruins. He had known the thing was so, but +seeing it so was an altogether different matter. He tried to make out +familiar places within the hollow basin of the world below, but at first +he could distinguish no data now that the Thames valley was left behind. +Soon, however, they were driving over a sharp chalk hill that he +recognised as the Guildford Hog's Back, because of the familiar outline +of the gorge at its eastward end, and because of the ruins of the town +that rose steeply on either lip of this gorge. And from that he made out +other points, Leith Hill, the sandy wastes of Aldershot, and so forth. +Save where the broad Eadhamite Portsmouth Road, thickly dotted with +rushing shapes, followed the course of the old railway, the gorge of the +wey was choked with thickets. + +The whole expanse of the Downs escarpment, so far as the grey haze +permitted him to see, was set with wind-wheels to which the largest of +the city was but a younger brother. They stirred with a stately motion +before the south-west wind. And here and there were patches dotted with +the sheep of the British Food Trust, and here and there a mounted +shepherd made a spot of black. Then rushing under the stern of the +monoplane came the Wealden Heights, the line of Hindhead, Pitch Hill, and +Leith Hill, with a second row of wind-wheels that seemed striving to rob +the downland whirlers of their share of breeze. The purple heather was +speckled with yellow gorse, and on the further side a drove of black oxen +stampeded before a couple of mounted men. Swiftly these swept behind, and +dwindled and lost colour, and became scarce moving specks that were +swallowed up in haze. + +And when these had vanished in the distance Graham heard a peewit +wailing close at hand. He perceived he was now above the South Downs, and +staring over his shoulder saw the battlements of Portsmouth Landing Stage +towering over the ridge of Portsdown Hill. In another moment there came +into sight a spread of shipping like floating cities, the little white +cliffs of the Needles dwarfed and sunlit, and the grey and glittering +waters of the narrow sea. They seemed to leap the Solent in a moment, and +in a few seconds the Isle of Wight was running past, and then beneath him +spread a wider and wider extent of sea, here purple with the shadow of a +cloud, here grey, here a burnished mirror, and here a spread of cloudy +greenish blue. The Isle of Wight grew smaller and smaller. In a few more +minutes a strip of grey haze detached itself from other strips that were +clouds, descended out of the sky and became a coast-line--sunlit and +pleasant--the coast of northern France. It rose, it took colour, became +definite and detailed, and the counterpart of the Downland of England was +speeding by below. + +In a little time, as it seemed, Paris came above the horizon, and hung +there for a space, and sank out of sight again as the monoplane circled +about to the north. But he perceived the Eiffel Tower still standing, and +beside it a huge dome surmounted by a pin-point Colossus. And he +perceived, too, though he did not understand it at the time, a slanting +drift of smoke. The aeronaut said something about "trouble in the +under-ways," that Graham did not heed. But he marked the minarets and +towers and slender masses that streamed skyward above the city +wind-vanes, and knew that in the matter of grace at least Paris still +kept in front of her larger rival. And even as he looked a pale blue +shape ascended very swiftly from the city like a dead leaf driving up +before a gale. It curved round and soared towards them, growing rapidly +larger and larger. The aeronaut was saying something. "What?" said +Graham, loth to take his eyes from this. "London aeroplane, Sire," bawled +the aeronaut, pointing. + +They rose and curved about northward as it drew nearer. Nearer it came +and nearer, larger and larger. The throb, throb, throb--beat, of the +monoplane's flight, that had seemed so potent, and so swift, suddenly +appeared slow by comparison with this tremendous rush. How great the +monster seemed, how swift and steady! It passed quite closely beneath +them, driving along silently, a vast spread of wire-netted translucent +wings, a thing alive. Graham had a momentary glimpse of the rows and rows +of wrapped-up passengers, slung in their little cradles behind +wind-screens, of a white-clothed engineer crawling against the gale along +a ladder way, of spouting engines beating together, of the whirling wind +screw, and of a wide waste of wing. He exulted in the sight. And in an +instant the thing had passed. + +It rose slightly and their own little wings swayed in the rush of its +flight. It fell and grew smaller. Scarcely had they moved, as it seemed, +before it was again only a flat blue thing that dwindled in the sky. This +was the aeroplane that went to and fro between London and Paris. In fair +weather and in peaceful times it came and went four times a day. + +They beat across the Channel, slowly as it seemed now to Graham's +enlarged ideas, and Beachy Head rose greyly to the left of them. + +"Land," called the aeronaut, his voice small against the whistling of +the air over the wind-screen. + +"Not yet," bawled Graham, laughing. "Not land yet. I want to learn more +of this machine." + +"I meant--" said the aeronaut. + +"I want to learn more of this machine," repeated Graham. + +"I'm coming to you," he said, and had flung himself free of his chair and +taken a step along the guarded rail between them. He stopped for a +moment, and his colour changed and his hands tightened. Another step and +he was clinging close to the aeronaut. He felt a weight on his shoulder, +the pressure of the air. His hat was a whirling speck behind. The wind +came in gusts over his wind-screen and blew his hair in streamers past +his cheek. The aeronaut made some hasty adjustments for the shifting of +the centres of gravity and pressure. + +"I want to have these things explained," said Graham. "What do you do +when you move that engine forward?" + +The aeronaut hesitated. Then he answered, "They are complex, Sire." + +"I don't mind," shouted Graham. "I don't mind." + +There was a moment's pause. "Aeronautics is the secret--the privilege--" + +"I know. But I'm the Master, and I mean to know." He laughed, full of +this novel realisation of power that was his gift from the upper air. + +The monoplane curved about, and the keen fresh wind cut across Graham's +face and his garment lugged at his body as the stem pointed round to the +west. The two men looked into each other's eyes. + +"Sire, there are rules--" + +"Not where I am concerned," said Graham, "You seem to forget." + +The aeronaut scrutinised his face "No," he said. "I do not forget, Sire. +But in all the earth--no man who is not a sworn aeronaut--has ever a +chance. They come as passengers--" + +"I have heard something of the sort. But I'm not going to argue these +points. Do you know why I have slept two hundred years? To fly!" + +"Sire," said the aeronaut, "the rules--if I break the rules--" + +Graham waved the penalties aside. + +"Then if you will watch me--" + +"No," said Graham, swaying and gripping tight as the machine lifted its +nose again for an ascent. "That's not my game. I want to do it myself. +Do it myself if I smash for it! No! I will. See I am going to clamber by +this--to come and share your seat. Steady! I mean to fly of my own +accord if I smash at the end of it. I will have something to pay for my +sleep. Of all other things--. In my past it was my dream to fly. +Now--keep your balance." + +"A dozen spies are watching me, Sire!" + +Graham's temper was at end. Perhaps he chose it should be. He swore. +He swung himself round the intervening mass of levers and the +monoplane swayed. + +"Am I Master of the earth?" he said. "Or is your Society? Now. Take your +hands off those levers, and hold my wrists. Yes--so. And now, how do we +turn her nose down to the glide?" + +"Sire," said the aeronaut. + +"What is it?" + +"You will protect me?" + +"Lord! Yes! If I have to burn London. Now!" + +And with that promise Graham bought his first lesson in aerial +navigation. "It's clearly to your advantage, this journey," he said with +a loud laugh--for the air was like strong wine--"to teach me quickly and +well. Do I pull this? Ah! So! Hullo!" + +"Back, Sire! Back!" + +"Back--right. One--two--three--good God! Ah! Up she goes! But this +is living!" + +And now the machine began to dance the strangest figures in the air. Now +it would sweep round a spiral of scarcely a hundred yards diameter, now +rush up into the air and swoop down again, steeply, swiftly, falling like +a hawk, to recover in a rushing loop that swept it high again. In one of +these descents it seemed driving straight at the drifting park of +balloons in the southeast, and only curved about and cleared them by a +sudden recovery of dexterity. The extraordinary swiftness and smoothness +of the motion, the extraordinary effect of the rarefied air upon his +constitution, threw Graham into a careless fury. + +But at last a queer incident came to sober him, to send him flying down +once more to the crowded life below with all its dark insoluble riddles. +As he swooped, came a tap and something flying past, and a drop like a +drop of rain. Then as he went on down he saw something like a white rag +whirling down in his wake. "What was that?" he asked. "I did not see." + +The aeronaut glanced, and then clutched at the lever to recover, for they +were sweeping down. When the monoplane was rising again he drew a deep +breath and replied, "That," and he indicated the white thing still +fluttering down, "was a swan." + +"I never saw it," said Graham. + +The aeronaut made no answer, and Graham saw little drops upon his +forehead. + +They drove horizontally while Graham clambered back to the passenger's +place out of the lash of the wind. And then came a swift rush down, with +the wind-screw whirling to check their fall, and the flying stage growing +broad and dark before them. The sun, sinking over the chalk hills in the +west, fell with them, and left the sky a blaze of gold. + +Soon men could be seen as little specks. He heard a noise coming up to +meet him, a noise like the sound of waves upon a pebbly beach, and saw +that the roofs about the flying stage were dense with his people +rejoicing over his safe return. A black mass was crushed together under +the stage, a darkness stippled with innumerable faces, and quivering with +the minute oscillation of waved white handkerchiefs and waving hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THREE DAYS + + +Lincoln awaited Graham in an apartment beneath the flying stages. He +seemed curious to learn all that had happened, pleased to hear of the +extraordinary delight and interest which Graham took in flying. Graham +was in a mood of enthusiasm. "I must learn to fly," he cried. "I must +master that. I pity all poor souls who have died without this +opportunity. The sweet swift air! It is the most wonderful experience in +the world." + +"You will find our new times full of wonderful experiences," said +Lincoln. "I do not know what you will care to do now. We have music that +may seem novel." + +"For the present," said Graham, "flying holds me. Let me learn more of +that. Your aeronaut was saying there is some trades union objection to +one's learning." + +"There is, I believe," said Lincoln. "But for you--! If you would like to +occupy yourself with that, we can make you a sworn aeronaut to-morrow." + +Graham expressed his wishes vividly and talked of his sensations for +a while. "And as for affairs," he asked abruptly. "How are things +going on?" + +Lincoln waved affairs aside. "Ostrog will tell you that to-morrow," +he said. "Everything is settling down. The Revolution accomplishes +itself all over the world. Friction is inevitable here and there, of +course; but your rule is assured. You may rest secure with things in +Ostrog's hands." + +"Would it be possible for me to be made a sworn aeronaut, as you call it, +forthwith--before I sleep?" said Graham, pacing. "Then I could be at it +the very first thing to-morrow again...." + +"It would be possible," said Lincoln thoughtfully. "Quite possible. +Indeed, it shall be done." He laughed. "I came prepared to suggest +amusements, but you have found one for yourself. I will telephone to the +aeronautical offices from here and we will return to your apartments in +the Wind-Vane Control. By the time you have dined the aeronauts will be +able to come. You don't think that after you have dined you might +prefer--?" He paused. + +"Yes," said Graham. + +"We had prepared a show of dancers--they have been brought from the +Capri theatre." + +"I hate ballets," said Graham, shortly. "Always did. That other--. That's +not what I want to see. We had dancers in the old days. For the matter of +that, they had them in ancient Egypt. But flying--" + +"True," said Lincoln. "Though our dancers--" + +"They can afford to wait," said Graham; "they can afford to wait. I know. +I'm not a Latin. There's questions I want to ask some expert--about your +machinery. I'm keen. I want no distractions." + +"You have the world to choose from," said Lincoln; "whatever you want +is yours." + +Asano appeared, and under the escort of a strong guard they returned +through the city streets to Graham's apartments. Far larger crowds had +assembled to witness his return than his departure had gathered, and +the shouts and cheering of these masses of people sometimes drowned +Lincoln's answers to the endless questions Graham's aerial journey had +suggested. At first Graham had acknowledged the cheering and cries of +the crowd by bows and gestures, but Lincoln warned him that such a +recognition would be considered incorrect behaviour. Graham, already a +little wearied by rhythmic civilities, ignored his subjects for the +remainder of his public progress. + +Directly they arrived at his apartments Asano departed in search of +kinematographic renderings of machinery in motion, and Lincoln despatched +Graham's commands for models of machines and small machines to illustrate +the various mechanical advances of the last two centuries. The little +group of appliances for telegraphic communication attracted the Master so +strongly that his delightfully prepared dinner, served by a number of +charmingly dexterous girls, waited for a space. The habit of smoking had +almost ceased from the face of the earth, but when he expressed a wish +for that indulgence, enquiries were made and some excellent cigars were +discovered in Florida, and sent to him by pneumatic despatch while the +dinner was still in progress. Afterwards came the aeronauts, and a feast +of ingenious wonders in the hands of a latter-day engineer. For the time, +at any rate, the neat dexterity of counting and numbering machines, +building machines, spinning engines, patent doorways, explosive motors, +grain and water elevators, slaughter-house machines and harvesting +appliances, was more fascinating to Graham than any bayadère. "We were +savages," was his refrain, "we were savages. We were in the stone +age--compared with this.... And what else have you?" + +There came also practical psychologists with some very interesting +developments in the art of hypnotism. The names of Milne Bramwell, +Fechner, Liebault, William James, Myers and Gurney, he found, bore a +value now that would have astonished their contemporaries. Several +practical applications of psychology were now in general use; it had +largely superseded drugs, antiseptics and anesthetics in medicine; was +employed by almost all who had any need of mental concentration. A real +enlargement of human faculty seemed to have been effected in this +direction. The feats of "calculating boys," the wonders, as Graham had +been wont to regard them, of mesmerisers, were now within the range of +anyone who could afford the services of a skilled hypnotist. Long ago +the old examination methods in education had been destroyed by these +expedients. Instead of years of study, candidates had substituted a few +weeks of trances, and during the trances expert coaches had simply to +repeat all the points necessary for adequate answering, adding a +suggestion of the post-hypnotic recollection of these points. In process +mathematics particularly, this aid had been of singular service, and it +was now invariably invoked by such players of chess and games of manual +dexterity as were still to be found. In fact, all operations conducted +under finite rules, of a quasi-mechanical sort that is, were now +systematically relieved from the wanderings of imagination and emotion, +and brought to an unexampled pitch of accuracy. Little children of the +labouring classes, so soon as they were of sufficient age to be +hypnotised, were thus converted into beautifully punctual and +trustworthy machine minders, and released forthwith from the long, long +thoughts of youth. Aeronautical pupils, who gave way to giddiness, +could be relieved from their imaginary terrors. In every street were +hypnotists ready to print permanent memories upon the mind. If anyone +desired to remember a name, a series of numbers, a song or a speech, it +could be done by this method, and conversely memories could be effaced, +habits removed, and desires eradicated--a sort of psychic surgery was, +in fact, in general use. Indignities, humbling experiences, were thus +forgotten, widows would obliterate their previous husbands, angry lovers +release themselves from their slavery. To graft desires, however, was +still impossible, and the facts of thought transference were yet +unsystematised. The psychologists illustrated their expositions with +some astounding experiments in mnemonics made through the agency of a +troupe of pale-faced children in blue. + +Graham, like most of the people of his former time, distrusted the +hypnotist, or he might then and there have eased his mind of many painful +preoccupations. But in spite of Lincoln's assurances he held to the old +theory that to be hypnotised was in some way the surrender of his +personality, the abdication of his will. At the banquet of wonderful +experiences that was beginning, he wanted very keenly to remain +absolutely himself. + +The next day, and another day, and yet another day passed in such +interests as these. Each day Graham spent many hours in the glorious +entertainment of flying. On the third, he soared across middle France, +and within sight of the snow-clad Alps. These vigorous exercises gave him +restful sleep; he recovered almost wholly from the spiritless anemia of +his first awakening. And whenever he was not in the air, and awake, +Lincoln was assiduous in the cause of his amusement; all that was novel +and curious in contemporary invention was brought to him, until at last +his appetite for novelty was well-nigh glutted. One might fill a dozen +inconsecutive volumes with the strange things they exhibited. Each +afternoon he held his court for an hour or so. He found his interest in +his contemporaries becoming personal and intimate. At first he had been +alert chiefly for unfamiliarity and peculiarity; any foppishness in their +dress, any discordance with his preconceptions of nobility in their +status and manners had jarred upon him, and it was remarkable to him how +soon that strangeness and the faint hostility that arose from it, +disappeared; how soon he came to appreciate the true perspective of his +position, and see the old Victorian days remote and quaint. He found +himself particularly amused by the red-haired daughter of the Manager of +the European Piggeries. On the second day after dinner he made the +acquaintance of a latter-day dancing girl, and found her an astonishing +artist. And after that, more hypnotic wonders. On the third day Lincoln +was moved to suggest that the Master should repair to a Pleasure City, +but this Graham declined, nor would he accept the services of the +hypnotists in his aeronautical experiments. The link of locality held him +to London; he found a delight in topographical identifications that he +would have missed abroad. "Here--or a hundred feet below here," he could +say, "I used to eat my midday cutlets during my London University days. +Underneath here was Waterloo and the tiresome hunt for confusing trains. +Often have I stood waiting down there, bag in hand, and stared up into +the sky above the forest of signals, little thinking I should walk some +day a hundred yards in the air. And now in that very sky that was once a +grey smoke canopy, I circle in a monoplane." + +During those three days Graham was so occupied with these distractions +that the vast political movements in progress outside his quarters had +but a small share of his attention. Those about him told him little. +Daily came Ostrog, the Boss, his Grand Vizier, his mayor of the palace, +to report in vague terms the steady establishment of his rule; "a little +trouble" soon to be settled in this city, "a slight disturbance" in that. +The song of the social revolt came to him no more; he never learned that +it had been forbidden in the municipal limits; and all the great emotions +of the crow's nest slumbered in his mind. + +But on the second and third of the three days he found himself, in spite +of his interest in the daughter of the Pig Manager, or it may be by +reason of the thoughts her conversation suggested, remembering the girl +Helen Wotton, who had spoken to him so oddly at the Wind-Vane Keeper's +gathering. The impression, she had made was a deep one, albeit the +incessant surprise of novel circumstances had kept him from brooding upon +it for a space. But now her memory was coming to its own. He wondered +what she had meant by those broken half-forgotten sentences; the picture +of her eyes and the earnest passion of her face became more vivid as his +mechanical interests faded. Her slender beauty came compellingly between +him and certain immediate temptations of ignoble passion. But he did not +see her again until three full days were past. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +GRAHAM REMEMBERS + + +She came upon him at last in a little gallery that ran from the Wind-Vane +Offices toward his state apartments. The gallery was long and narrow, +with a series of recesses, each with an arched fenestration that looked +upon a court of palms. He came upon her suddenly in one of these +recesses. She was seated. She turned her head at the sound of his +footsteps and started at the sight of him. Every touch of colour vanished +from her face. She rose instantly, made a step toward him as if to +address him, and hesitated. He stopped and stood still, expectant. Then +he perceived that a nervous tumult silenced her, perceived, too, that she +must have sought speech with him to be waiting for him in this place. + +He felt a regal impulse to assist her. "I have wanted to see you," he +said. "A few days ago you wanted to tell me something--you wanted to tell +me of the people. What was it you had to tell me?" + +She looked at him with troubled eyes. + +"You said the people were unhappy?" + +For a moment she was silent still. + +"It must have seemed strange to you," she said abruptly. + +"It did. And yet--" + +"It was an impulse." + +"Well?" + +"That is all." + +She looked at him with a face of hesitation. She spoke with an effort. +"You forget," she said, drawing a deep breath. + +"What?" + +"The people--" + +"Do you mean--?" + +"You forget the people." + +He looked interrogative. + +"Yes. I know you are surprised. For you do not understand what you are. +You do not know the things that are happening." + +"Well?" + +"You do not understand." + +"Not clearly, perhaps. But--tell me." + +She turned to him with sudden resolution. "It is so hard to explain. I +have meant to, I have wanted to. And now--I cannot. I am not ready with +words. But about you--there is something. It is wonder. Your sleep--your +awakening. These things are miracles. To me at least--and to all the +common people. You who lived and suffered and died, you who were a +common citizen, wake again, live again, to find yourself Master almost +of the earth." + +"Master of the earth," he said. "So they tell me. But try and imagine how +little I know of it." + +"Cities--Trusts--the Labour Department--" + +"Principalities, powers, dominions--the power and the glory. Yes, I have +heard them shout. I know. I am Master. King, if you wish. With Ostrog, +the Boss--" + +He paused. + +She turned upon him and surveyed his face with a curious scrutiny. +"Well?" + +He smiled. "To take the responsibility." + +"That is what we have begun to fear." For a moment she said no more. +"No," she said slowly. "_You_ will take the responsibility. You will take +the responsibility. The people look to you." + +She spoke softly. "Listen! For at least half the years of your sleep--in +every generation--multitudes of people, in every generation greater +multitudes of people, have prayed that you might awake--_prayed_." + +Graham moved to speak and did not. + +She hesitated, and a faint colour crept back to her cheek. "Do you know +that you have been to myriads--King Arthur, Barbarossa--the King who +would come in his own good time and put the world right for them?" + +"I suppose the imagination of the people--" + +"Have you not heard our proverb, 'When the Sleeper wakes'? While you lay +insensible and motionless there--thousands came. Thousands. Every first +of the month you lay in state with a white robe upon you and the people +filed by you. When I was a little girl I saw you like that, with your +face white and calm." + +She turned her face from him and looked steadfastly at the painted +wall before her. Her voice fell. "When I was a little girl I used to +look at your face.... It seemed to me fixed and waiting, like the +patience of God." + +"That is what we thought of you," she said. "That is how you +seemed to us." + +She turned shining eyes to him, her voice was clear and strong. "In the +city, in the earth, a myriad myriad men and women are waiting to see what +you will do, full of strange incredible expectations." + +"Yes?" + +"Ostrog--no one--can take that responsibility." + +Graham looked at her in surprise, at her face lit with emotion. She +seemed at first to have spoken with an effort, and to have fired herself +by speaking. + +"Do you think," she said, "that you who have lived that little life so +far away in the past, you who have fallen into and risen out of this +miracle of sleep--do you think that the wonder and reverence and hope of +half the world has gathered about you only that you may live another +little life?... That you may shift the responsibility to any other man?" + +"I know how great this kingship of mine is," he said haltingly. "I know +how great it seems. But is it real? It is incredible--dreamlike. Is it +real, or is it only a great delusion?" + +"It is real," she said; "if you dare." + +"After all, like all kingship, my kingship is Belief. It is an illusion +in the minds of men." + +"If you dare!" she said. + +"But--" + +"Countless men," she said, "and while it is in their minds--they +will obey." + +"But I know nothing. That is what I had in mind. I know nothing. And +these others--the Councillors, Ostrog. They are wiser, cooler, they know +so much, every detail. And, indeed, what are these miseries of which you +speak? What am I to know? Do you mean--" + +He stopped blankly. + +"I am still hardly more than a girl," she said. "But to me the world +seems full of wretchedness. The world has altered since your day, altered +very strangely. I have prayed that I might see you and tell you these +things. The world has changed. As if a canker had seized it--and robbed +life of--everything worth having." + +She turned a flushed face upon him, moving suddenly. "Your days were the +days of freedom. Yes--I have thought. I have been made to think, for my +life--has not been happy. Men are no longer free--no greater, no better +than the men of your time. That is not all. This city--is a prison. Every +city now is a prison. Mammon grips the key in his hand. Myriads, +countless myriads, toil from the cradle to the grave. Is that right? Is +that to be--for ever? Yes, far worse than in your time. All about us, +beneath us, sorrow and pain. All the shallow delight of such life as you +find about you, is separated by just a little from a life of wretchedness +beyond any telling. Yes, the poor know it--they know they suffer. These +countless multitudes who faced death for you two nights since--! You owe +your life to them." + +"Yes," said Graham, slowly. "Yes. I owe my life to them." + +"You come," she said, "from the days when this new tyranny of the cities +was scarcely beginning. It is a tyranny--a tyranny. In your days the +feudal war lords had gone, and the new lordship of wealth had still to +come. Half the men in the world still lived out upon the free +countryside. The cities had still to devour them. I have heard the +stories out of the old books--there was nobility! Common men led lives of +love and faithfulness then--they did a thousand things. And you--you come +from that time." + +"It was not--. But never mind. How is it now--?" + +"Gain and the Pleasure Cities! Or slavery--unthanked, unhonoured, +slavery." + +"Slavery!" he said. + +"Slavery." + +"You don't mean to say that human beings are chattels." + +"Worse. That is what I want you to know, what I want you to see. I know +you do not know. They will keep things from you, they will take you +presently to a Pleasure City. But you have noticed men and women and +children in pale blue canvas, with thin yellow faces and dull eyes?" + +"Everywhere." + +"Speaking a horrible dialect, coarse and weak." + +"I have heard it." + +"They are the slaves--your slaves. They are the slaves of the Labour +Department you own." + +"The Labour Department! In some way--that is familiar. Ah! now I +remember. I saw it when I was wandering about the city, after the +lights returned, great fronts of buildings coloured pale blue. Do you +really mean--?" + +"Yes. How can I explain it to you? Of course the blue uniform struck you. +Nearly a third of our people wear it--more assume it now every day. This +Labour Department has grown imperceptibly." + +"What _is_ this Labour Department?" asked Graham. + +"In the old times, how did you manage with starving people?" + +"There was the workhouse--which the parishes maintained." + +"Workhouse! Yes--there was something. In our history lessons. I remember +now. The Labour Department ousted the workhouse. It grew--partly--out of +something--you, perhaps, may remember it--an emotional religious +organisation called the Salvation Army--that became a business company. +In the first place it was almost a charity. To save people from workhouse +rigours. There had been a great agitation against the workhouse. Now I +come to think of it, it was one of the earliest properties your Trustees +acquired. They bought the Salvation Army and reconstructed it as this. +The idea in the first place was to organise the labour of starving +homeless people." + +"Yes." + +"Nowadays there are no workhouses, no refuges and charities, nothing but +that Department. Its offices are everywhere. That blue is its colour. And +any man, woman or child who comes to be hungry and weary and with neither +home nor friend nor resort, must go to the Department in the end--or seek +some way of death. The Euthanasy is beyond their means--for the poor +there is no easy death. And at any hour in the day or night there is +food, shelter and a blue uniform for all comers--that is the first +condition of the Department's incorporation--and in return for a day's +shelter the Department extracts a day's work, and then returns the +visitor's proper clothing and sends him or her out again." + +"Yes?" + +"Perhaps that does not seem so terrible to you. In your time men starved +in your streets. That was bad. But they died--_men_. These people in +blue--. The proverb runs: 'Blue canvas once and ever.' The Department +trades in their labour, and it has taken care to assure itself of the +supply. People come to it starving and helpless--they eat and sleep for a +night and day, they work for a day, and at the end of the day they go +out again. If they have worked well they have a penny or so--enough for a +theatre or a cheap dancing place, or a kinematograph story, or a dinner +or a bet. They wander about after that is spent. Begging is prevented by +the police of the ways. Besides, no one gives. They come back again the +next day or the day after--brought back by the same incapacity that +brought them first. At last their proper clothing wears out, or their +rags get so shabby that they are ashamed. Then they must work for months +to get fresh. If they want fresh. A great number of children are born +under the Department's care. The mother owes them a month thereafter--the +children they cherish and educate until they are fourteen, and they pay +two years' service. You may be sure these children are educated for the +blue canvas. And so it is the Department works." + +"And none are destitute in the city?" + +"None. They are either in blue canvas or in prison. We have abolished +destitution. It is engraved upon the Department's checks." + +"If they will not work?" + +"Most people will work at that pitch, and the Department has powers. +There are stages of unpleasantness in the work--stoppage of food--and a +man or woman who has refused to work once is known by a thumb-marking +system in the Department's offices all over the world. Besides, who can +leave the city poor? To go to Paris costs two Lions. And for +insubordination there are the prisons--dark and miserable--out of sight +below. There are prisons now for many things." + +"And a third of the people wear this blue canvas?" + +"More than a third. Toilers, living without pride or delight or hope, +with the stories of Pleasure Cities ringing in their ears, mocking their +shameful lives, their privations and hardships. Too poor even for the +Euthanasy, the rich man's refuge from life. Dumb, crippled millions, +countless millions, all the world about, ignorant of anything but +limitations and unsatisfied desires. They are born, they are thwarted and +they die. That is the state to which we have come." + +For a space Graham sat downcast. + +"But there has been a revolution," he said. "All these things will be +changed. Ostrog--" + +"That is our hope. That is the hope of the world. But Ostrog will not do +it. He is a politician. To him it seems things must be like this. He +does not mind. He takes it for granted. All the rich, all the +influential, all who are happy, come at last to take these miseries for +granted. They use the people in their politics, they live in ease by +their degradation. But you--you who come from a happier age--it is to +you the people look. To you." + +He looked at her face. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He felt +a rush of emotion. For a moment he forgot this city, he forgot the +race, and all those vague remote voices, in the immediate humanity of +her beauty. + +"But what am I to do?" he said with his eyes upon her. + +"Rule," she answered, bending towards him and speaking in a low tone. +"Rule the world as it has never been ruled, for the good and happiness of +men. For you might rule it--you could rule it. + +"The people are stirring. All over the world the people are stirring. It +wants but a word--but a word from you--to bring them all together. Even +the middle sort of people are restless--unhappy. + +"They are not telling you the things that are happening. The people will +not go back to their drudgery--they refuse to be disarmed. Ostrog has +awakened something greater than he dreamt of--he has awakened hopes." + +His heart was beating fast. He tried to seem judicial, to weigh +considerations. + +"They only want their leader," she said. + +"And then?" + +"You could do what you would;--the world is yours." + +He sat, no longer regarding her. Presently he spoke. "The old dreams, and +the thing I have dreamt, liberty, happiness. Are they dreams? Could one +man--_one man_--?" His voice sank and ceased. + +"Not one man, but all men--give them only a leader to speak the desire of +their hearts." + +He shook his head, and for a time there was silence. + +He looked up suddenly, and their eyes met. "I have not your faith," he +said, "I have not your youth. I am here with power that mocks me. No--let +me speak. I want to do--not right--I have not the strength for that--but +something rather right than wrong. It will bring no millennium, but I am +resolved now, that I will rule. What you have said has awakened me... You +are right. Ostrog must know his place. And I will learn--.... One thing I +promise you. This Labour slavery shall end." + +"And you will rule?" + +"Yes. Provided--. There is one thing." + +"Yes?" + +"That you will help me." + +"_I_--a girl!" + +"Yes. Does it not occur to you I am absolutely alone?" + +She started and for an instant her eyes had pity. "Need you ask whether I +will help you?" she said. + +There came a tense silence, and then the beating of a clock striking the +hour. Graham rose. + +"Even now," he said, "Ostrog will be waiting." He hesitated, facing her. +"When I have asked him certain questions--. There is much I do not know. +It may be, that I will go to see with my own eyes the things of which you +have spoken. And when I return--?" + +"I shall know of your going and coming. I will wait for you here again." + +They regarded one another steadfastly, questioningly, and then he turned +from her towards the Wind-Vane office. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +OSTROG'S POINT OF VIEW + + +Graham found Ostrog waiting to give a formal account of his day's +stewardship. On previous occasions he had passed over this ceremony as +speedily as possible, in order to resume his aerial experiences, but now +he began to ask quick short questions. He was very anxious to take up his +empire forthwith. Ostrog brought flattering reports of the development of +affairs abroad. In Paris and Berlin, Graham perceived that he was saying, +there had been trouble, not organised resistance indeed, but +insubordinate proceedings. "After all these years," said Ostrog, when +Graham pressed enquiries; "the Commune has lifted its head again. That is +the real nature of the struggle, to be explicit." But order had been +restored in these cities. Graham, the more deliberately judicial for the +stirring emotions he felt, asked if there had been any fighting. "A +little," said Ostrog. "In one quarter only. But the Senegalese division +of our African agricultural police--the Consolidated African Companies +have a very well drilled police--was ready, and so were the aeroplanes. +We expected a little trouble in the continental cities, and in America. +But things are very quiet in America. They are satisfied with the +overthrow of the Council. For the time." + +"Why should you expect trouble?" asked Graham abruptly. + +"There is a lot of discontent--social discontent." + +"The Labour Department?" + +"You are learning," said Ostrog with a touch of surprise. "Yes. It is +chiefly the discontent with the Labour Department. It was that discontent +supplied the motive force of this overthrow--that and your awakening." + +"Yes?" + +Ostrog smiled. He became explicit. "We had to stir up their discontent, +we had to revive the old ideals of universal happiness--all men +equal--all men happy--no luxury that everyone may not share--ideas that +have slumbered for two hundred years. You know that? We had to revive +these ideals, impossible as they are--in order to overthrow the Council. +And now--" + +"Well?" + +"Our revolution is accomplished, and the Council is overthrown, and +people whom we have stirred up--remain surging. There was scarcely enough +fighting.... We made promises, of course. It is extraordinary how +violently and rapidly this vague out-of-date humanitarianism has revived +and spread. We who sowed the seed even, have been astonished. In Paris, +as I say--we have had to call in a little external help." + +"And here?" + +"There is trouble. Multitudes will not go back to work. There is a +general strike. Half the factories are empty and the people are swarming +in the ways. They are talking of a Commune. Men in silk and satin have +been insulted in the streets. The blue canvas is expecting all sorts of +things from you.... Of course there is no need for you to trouble. We are +setting the Babble Machines to work with counter suggestions in the +cause of law and order. We must keep the grip tight; that is all." + +Graham thought. He perceived a way of asserting himself. But he spoke +with restraint. + +"Even to the pitch of bringing a negro police," he said. + +"They are useful," said Ostrog. "They are fine loyal brutes, with no wash +of ideas in their heads--such as our rabble has. The Council should have +had them as police of the ways, and things might have been different. Of +course, there is nothing to fear except rioting and wreckage. You can +manage your own wings now, and you can soar away to Capri if there is any +smoke or fuss. We have the pull of all the great things; the aeronauts +are privileged and rich, the closest trades union in the world, and so +are the engineers of the wind-vanes. We have the air, and the mastery of +the air is the mastery of the earth. No one of any ability is organising +against us. They have no leaders--only the sectional leaders of the +secret society we organised before your very opportune awakening. Mere +busybodies and sentimentalists they are and bitterly jealous of each +other. None of them is man enough for a central figure. The only trouble +will be a disorganised upheaval. To be frank--that may happen. But it +won't interrupt your aeronautics. The days when the People could make +revolutions are past." + +"I suppose they are," said Graham. "I suppose they are." He mused. "This +world of yours has been full of surprises to me. In the old days we +dreamt of a wonderful democratic life, of a time when all men would be +equal and happy." + +Ostrog looked at him steadfastly. "The day of democracy is past," he +said. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crécy, it ended +when marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win the +battles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategic +railways became the means of power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealth +now is power as it never was power before--it commands earth and sea and +sky. All power is for those who can handle wealth. On your behalf.... You +must accept facts, and these are facts. The world for the Crowd! The +Crowd as Ruler! Even in your days that creed had been tried and +condemned. To-day it has only one believer--a multiplex, silly one--the +man in the Crowd." + +Graham did not answer immediately. He stood lost in sombre +preoccupations. + +"No," said Ostrog. "The day of the common man is past. On the open +countryside one man is as good as another, or nearly as good. The earlier +aristocracy had a precarious tenure of strength and audacity. They were +tempered--tempered. There were insurrections, duels, riots. The first +real aristocracy, the first permanent aristocracy, came in with castles +and armour, and vanished before the musket and bow. But this is the +second aristocracy. The real one. Those days of gunpowder and democracy +were only an eddy in the stream. The common man now is a helpless unit. +In these days we have this great machine of the city, and an organisation +complex beyond his understanding." + +"Yet," said Graham, "there is something resists, something you are +holding down--something that stirs and presses." + +"You will see," said Ostrog, with a forced smile that would brush these +difficult questions aside. "I have not roused the force to destroy +myself--trust me." + +"I wonder," said Graham. + +Ostrog stared. + +"_Must_ the world go this way?" said Graham with his emotions at the +speaking point. "Must it indeed go in this way? Have all our hopes +been vain?" + +"What do you mean?" said Ostrog. "Hopes?" + +"I come from a democratic age. And I find an aristocratic tyranny!" + +"Well,--but you are the chief tyrant." + +Graham shook his head. + +"Well," said Ostrog, "take the general question. It is the way that +change has always travelled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of the best--the +suffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to better things." + +"But aristocracy! those people I met--" + +"Oh! not _those_!" said Ostrog. "But for the most part they go to their +death. Vice and pleasure! They have no children. That sort of stuff will +die out. If the world keeps to one road, that is, if there is no turning +back. An easy road to excess, convenient Euthanasia for the pleasure +seekers singed in the flame, that is the way to improve the race!" + +"Pleasant extinction," said Graham. "Yet--." He thought for an instant. +"There is that other thing--the Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Will +that die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its suffering is a +force that even you--" + +Ostrog moved impatiently, and when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenly +than before. + +"Don't trouble about these things," he said. "Everything will be +settled in a few days now. The Crowd is a huge foolish beast. What if +it does not die out? Even if it does not die, it can still be tamed and +driven. I have no sympathy with servile men. You heard those people +shouting and singing two nights ago. They were _taught_ that song. If +you had taken any man there in cold blood and asked why he shouted, he +could not have told you. They think they are shouting for you, that +they are loyal and devoted to you. Just then they were ready to +slaughter the Council. To-day--they are already murmuring against those +who have overthrown the Council." + +"No, no," said Graham. "They shouted because their lives were dreary, +without joy or pride, and because in me--in me--they hoped." + +"And what was their hope? What is their hope? What right have they to +hope? They work ill and they want the reward of those who work well. The +hope of mankind--what is it? That some day the Over-man may come, that +some day the inferior, the weak and the bestial may be subdued or +eliminated. Subdued if not eliminated. The world is no place for the bad, +the stupid, the enervated. Their duty--it's a fine duty too!--is to die. +The death of the failure! That is the path by which the beast rose to +manhood, by which man goes on to higher things." + +Ostrog took a pace, seemed to think, and turned on Graham. "I can imagine +how this great world state of ours seems to a Victorian Englishman. You +regret all the old forms of representative government--their spectres +still haunt the world, the voting councils, and parliaments and all that +eighteenth century tomfoolery. You feel moved against our Pleasure +Cities. I might have thought of that,--had I not been busy. But you will +learn better. The people are mad with envy--they would be in sympathy +with you. Even in the streets now, they clamour to destroy the Pleasure +Cities. But the Pleasure Cities are the excretory organs of the State, +attractive places that year after year draw together all that is weak and +vicious, all that is lascivious and lazy, all the easy roguery of the +world, to a graceful destruction. They go there, they have their time, +they die childless, all the pretty silly lascivious women die childless, +and mankind is the better. If the people were sane they would not envy +the rich their way of death. And you would emancipate the silly brainless +workers that we have enslaved, and try to make their lives easy and +pleasant again. Just as they have sunk to what they are fit for." He +smiled a smile that irritated Graham oddly. "You will learn better. I +know those ideas; in my boyhood I read your Shelley and dreamt of +Liberty. There is no liberty, save wisdom and self-control. Liberty is +within--not without. It is each man's own affair. Suppose--which is +impossible--that these swarming yelping fools in blue get the upper hand +of us, what then? They will only fall to other masters. So long as there +are sheep Nature will insist on beasts of prey. It would mean but a few +hundred years' delay. The coming of the aristocrat is fatal and assured. +The end will be the Over-man--for all the mad protests of humanity. Let +them revolt, let them win and kill me and my like. Others will +arise--other masters. The end will be the same." + +"I wonder," said Graham doggedly. + +For a moment he stood downcast. + +"But I must see these things for myself," he said, suddenly assuming a +tone of confident mastery. "Only by seeing can I understand. I must +learn. That is what I want to tell you, Ostrog. I do not want to be King +in a Pleasure City; that is not my pleasure. I have spent enough time +with aeronautics--and those other things. I must learn how people live +now, how the common life has developed. Then I shall understand these +things better. I must learn how common people live--the labour people +more especially--how they work, marry, bear children, die--" + +"You get that from our realistic novelists," suggested Ostrog, suddenly +preoccupied. + +"I want reality," said Graham. + +"There are difficulties," said Ostrog, and thought. "On the whole--" + +"I did not expect--" + +"I had thought--. And yet perhaps--. You say you want to go through the +ways of the city and see the common people." + +Suddenly he came to some conclusion. "You would need to go disguised," he +said. "The city is intensely excited, and the discovery of your presence +among them might create a fearful tumult. Still this wish of yours to go +into this city--this idea of yours--. Yes, now I think the thing over, it +seems to me not altogether--. It can be contrived. If you would really +find an interest in that! You are, of course, Master. You can go soon if +you like. A disguise Asano will be able to manage. He would go with you. +After all it is not a bad idea of yours." + +"You will not want to consult me in any matter?" asked Graham suddenly, +struck by an odd suspicion. + +"Oh, dear no! No! I think you may trust affairs to me for a time, at any +rate," said Ostrog, smiling. "Even if we differ--" + +Graham glanced at him sharply. + +"There is no fighting likely to happen soon?" he asked abruptly. + +"Certainly not." + +"I have been thinking about these negroes. I don't believe the people +intend any hostility to me, and, after all, I am the Master. I do not +want any negroes brought to London. It is an archaic prejudice perhaps, +but I have peculiar feelings about Europeans and the subject races. Even +about Paris--" + +Ostrog stood watching him from under his drooping brows. "I am not +bringing negroes to London," he said slowly. "But if--" + +"You are not to bring armed negroes to London, whatever happens," said +Graham. "In that matter I am quite decided." + +Ostrog resolved not to speak, and bowed deferentially. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +IN THE CITY WAYS + + +And that night, unknown and unsuspected, Graham, dressed in the costume +of an inferior wind-vane official keeping holiday, and accompanied by +Asano in Labour Department canvas, surveyed the city through which he had +wandered when it was veiled in darkness. But now he saw it lit and +waking, a whirlpool of life. In spite of the surging and swaying of the +forces of revolution, in spite of the unusual discontent, the mutterings +of the greater struggle of which the first revolt was but the prelude, +the myriad streams of commerce still flowed wide and strong. He knew now +something of the dimensions and quality of the new age, but he was not +prepared for the infinite surprise of the detailed view, for the torrent +of colour and vivid impressions that poured past him. + +This was his first real contact with the people of these latter days. He +realised that all that had gone before, saving his glimpses of the public +theatres and markets, had had its element of seclusion, had been a +movement within the comparatively narrow political quarter, that all his +previous experiences had revolved immediately about the question of his +own position. But here was the city at the busiest hours of night, the +people to a large extent returned to their own immediate interests, the +resumption of the real informal life, the common habits of the new time. + +They emerged at first into a street whose opposite ways were crowded +with the blue canvas liveries. This swarm Graham saw was a portion of a +procession--it was odd to see a procession parading the city _seated_. +They carried banners of coarse black stuff with red letters. "No +disarmament," said the banners, for the most part in crudely daubed +letters and with variant spelling, and "Why should we disarm?" "No +disarming." "No disarming." Banner after banner went by, a stream of +banners flowing past, and at last at the end, the song of the revolt and +a noisy band of strange instruments. "They all ought to be at work," said +Asano. "They have had no food these two days, or they have stolen it." + +Presently Asano made a detour to avoid the congested crowd that gaped +upon the occasional passage of dead bodies from hospital to a mortuary, +the gleanings after death's harvest of the first revolt. + +That night few people were sleeping, everyone was abroad. A vast +excitement, perpetual crowds perpetually changing, surrounded Graham; his +mind was confused and darkened by an incessant tumult, by the cries and +enigmatical fragments of the social struggle that was as yet only +beginning. Everywhere festoons and banners of black and strange +decorations, intensified the quality of his popularity. Everywhere he +caught snatches of that crude thick dialect that served the illiterate +class, the class, that is, beyond the reach of phonograph culture, in +their commonplace intercourse. Everywhere this trouble of disarmament was +in the air, with a quality of immediate stress of which he had no inkling +during his seclusion in the Wind-Vane quarter. He perceived that as soon +as he returned he must discuss this with Ostrog, this and the greater +issues of which it was the expression, in a far more conclusive way than +he had so far done. Perpetually that night, even in the earlier hours of +their wanderings about the city, the spirit of unrest and revolt swamped +his attention, to the exclusion of countless strange things he might +otherwise have observed. + +This preoccupation made his impressions fragmentary. Yet amidst so much +that was strange and vivid, no subject, however personal and insistent, +could exert undivided sway. There were spaces when the revolutionary +movement passed clean out of his mind, was drawn aside like a curtain +from before some startling new aspect of the time. Helen had swayed his +mind to this intense earnestness of enquiry, but there came times when +she, even, receded beyond his conscious thoughts. At one moment, for +example, he found they were traversing the religious quarter, for the +easy transit about the city afforded by the moving ways rendered sporadic +churches and chapels no longer necessary--and his attention was vividly +arrested by the façade of one of the Christian sects. + +They were travelling seated on one of the swift upper ways, the place +leapt upon them at a bend and advanced rapidly towards them. It was +covered with inscriptions from top to base, in vivid white and blue, save +where a vast and glaring kinematograph transparency presented a realistic +New Testament scene, and where a vast festoon of black to show that the +popular religion followed the popular politics, hung across the +lettering. Graham had already become familiar with the phonotype writing +and these inscriptions arrested him, being to his sense for the most part +almost incredible blasphemy. Among the less offensive were "Salvation on +the First Floor and turn to the Right." "Put your Money on your Maker." +"The Sharpest Conversion in London, Expert Operators! Look Slippy!" "What +Christ would say to the Sleeper;--Join the Up-to-date Saints!" "Be a +Christian--without hindrance to your present Occupation." "All the +Brightest Bishops on the Bench to-night and Prices as Usual." "Brisk +Blessings for Busy Business Men." + +"But this is appalling!" said Graham, as that deafening scream of +mercantile piety towered above them. + +"What is appalling?" asked his little officer, apparently seeking vainly +for anything unusual in this shrieking enamel. + +"_This_! Surely the essence of religion is reverence." + +"Oh _that_!" Asano looked at Graham. "Does it shock you?" he said in the +tone of one who makes a discovery. "I suppose it would, of course. I had +forgotten. Nowadays the competition for attention is so keen, and people +simply haven't the leisure to attend to their souls, you know, as they +used to do." He smiled. "In the old days you had quiet Sabbaths and the +countryside. Though somewhere I've read of Sunday afternoons that--" + +"But _that_," said Graham, glancing back at the receding blue and white. +"That is surely not the only--" + +"There are hundreds of different ways. But, of course, if a sect doesn't +_tell_ it doesn't pay. Worship has moved with the times. There are high +class sects with quieter ways--costly incense and personal attentions +and all that. These people are extremely popular and prosperous. They +pay several dozen lions for those apartments to the Council--to you, I +should say." + +Graham still felt a difficulty with the coinage, and this mention of a +dozen lions brought him abruptly to that matter. In a moment the +screaming temples and their swarming touts were forgotten in this new +interest. A turn of a phrase suggested, and an answer confirmed the idea +that gold and silver were both demonetised, that stamped gold which had +begun its reign amidst the merchants of Phoenicia was at last dethroned. +The change had been graduated but swift, brought about by an extension of +the system of cheques that had even in his previous life already +practically superseded gold in all the larger business transactions. The +common traffic of the city, the common currency indeed of all the world, +was conducted by means of the little brown, green and pink council +cheques for small amounts, printed with a blank payee. Asano had several +with him, and at the first opportunity he supplied the gaps in his set. +They were printed not on tearable paper, but on a semi-transparent fabric +of silken flexibility, interwoven with silk. Across them all sprawled a +facsimile of Graham's signature, his first encounter with the curves and +turns of that familiar autograph for two hundred and three years. + +Some intermediary experiences made no impression sufficiently vivid to +prevent the matter of the disarmament claiming his thoughts again; a +blurred picture of a Theosophist temple that promised MIRACLES in +enormous letters of unsteady fire was least submerged perhaps, but then +came the view of the dining hall in Northumberland Avenue. That +interested him very greatly. + +By the energy and thought of Asano he was able to view this place from a +little screened gallery reserved for the attendants of the tables. The +building was pervaded by a distant muffled hooting, piping and bawling, +of which he did not at first understand the import, but which recalled a +certain mysterious leathery voice he had heard after the resumption of +the lights on the night of his solitary wandering. + +He had grown accustomed to vastness and great numbers of people, +nevertheless this spectacle held him for a long time. It was as he +watched the table service more immediately beneath, and interspersed +with many questions and answers concerning details, that the +realisation of the full significance of the feast of several thousand +people came to him. + +It was his constant surprise to find that points that one might have +expected to strike vividly at the very outset never occurred to him until +some trivial detail suddenly shaped as a riddle and pointed to the +obvious thing he had overlooked. He discovered only now that this +continuity of the city, this exclusion of weather, these vast halls and +ways, involved the disappearance of the household; that the typical +Victorian "Home," the little brick cell containing kitchen and scullery, +living rooms and bedrooms, had, save for the ruins that diversified the +countryside, vanished as surely as the wattle hut. But now he saw what +had indeed been manifest from the first, that London, regarded as a +living place, was no longer an aggregation of houses but a prodigious +hotel, an hotel with a thousand classes of accommodation, thousands of +dining halls, chapels, theatres, markets and places of assembly, a +synthesis of enterprises, of which he chiefly was the owner. People had +their sleeping rooms, with, it might be, antechambers, rooms that were +always sanitary at least whatever the degree of comfort and privacy, and +for the rest they lived much as many people had lived in the new-made +giant hotels of the Victorian days, eating, reading, thinking, playing, +conversing, all in places of public resort, going to their work in the +industrial quarters of the city or doing business in their offices in the +trading section. + +He perceived at once how necessarily this state of affairs had developed +from the Victorian city. The fundamental reason for the modern city had +ever been the economy of co-operation. The chief thing to prevent the +merging of the separate households in his own generation was simply the +still imperfect civilisation of the people, the strong barbaric pride, +passions, and prejudices, the jealousies, rivalries, and violence of the +middle and lower classes, which had necessitated the entire separation of +contiguous households. But the change, the taming of the people, had been +in rapid progress even then. In his brief thirty years of previous life +he had seen an enormous extension of the habit of consuming meals from +home, the casually patronised horse-box coffee-house had given place to +the open and crowded Aerated Bread Shop for instance, women's clubs had +had their beginning, and an immense development of reading rooms, lounges +and libraries had witnessed to the growth of social confidence. These +promises had by this time attained to their complete fulfilment. The +locked and barred household had passed away. + +These people below him belonged, he learnt, to the lower middle class, +the class just above the blue labourers, a class so accustomed in the +Victorian period to feed with every precaution of privacy that its +members, when occasion confronted them with a public meal, would usually +hide their embarrassment under horseplay or a markedly militant +demeanour. But these gaily, if lightly dressed people below, albeit +vivacious, hurried and uncommunicative, were dexterously mannered and +certainly quite at their ease with regard to one another. + +He noted a slight significant thing; the table, as far as he could see, +was and remained delightfully neat, there was nothing to parallel the +confusion, the broadcast crumbs, the splashes of viand and condiment, the +overturned drink and displaced ornaments, which would have marked the +stormy progress of the Victorian meal. The table furniture was very +different. There were no ornaments, no flowers, and the table was without +a cloth, being made, he learnt, of a solid substance having the texture +and appearance of damask. He discerned that this damask substance was +patterned with gracefully designed trade advertisements. + +In a sort of recess before each diner was a complex apparatus of +porcelain and metal. There was one plate of white porcelain, and by means +of taps for hot and cold volatile fluids the diner washed this himself +between the courses; he also washed his elegant white metal knife and +fork and spoon as occasion required. + +Soup and the chemical wine that was the common drink were delivered by +similar taps, and the remaining covers travelled automatically in +tastefully arranged dishes down the table along silver rails. The diner +stopped these and helped himself at his discretion. They appeared at a +little door at one end of the table, and vanished at the other. That turn +of democratic sentiment in decay, that ugly pride of menial souls, which +renders equals loth to wait on one another, was very strong he found +among these people. He was so preoccupied with these details that it was +only as he was leaving the place that he remarked the huge advertisement +dioramas that marched majestically along the upper walls and proclaimed +the most remarkable commodities. + +Beyond this place they came into a crowded hall, and he discovered the +cause of the noise that had perplexed him. They paused at a turnstile at +which a payment was made. + +Graham's attention was immediately arrested by a violent, loud hoot, +followed by a vast leathery voice. "The Master is sleeping peacefully," +it vociferated. "He is in excellent health. He is going to devote the +rest of his life to aeronautics. He says women are more beautiful than +ever. Galloop! Wow! Our wonderful civilisation astonishes him beyond +measure. Beyond all measure. Galloop. He puts great trust in Boss +Ostrog, absolute confidence in Boss Ostrog. Ostrog is to be his chief +minister; is authorised to remove or reinstate public officers--all +patronage will be in his hands. All patronage in the hands of Boss +Ostrog! The Councillors have been sent back to their own prison above +the Council House." + +Graham stopped at the first sentence, and, looking up, beheld a foolish +trumpet face from which this was brayed. This was the General +Intelligence Machine. For a space it seemed to be gathering breath, and a +regular throbbing from its cylindrical body was audible. Then it +trumpeted "Galloop, Galloop," and broke out again. + +"Paris is now pacified. All resistance is over. Galloop! The black police +hold every position of importance in the city. They fought with great +bravery, singing songs written in praise of their ancestors by the poet +Kipling. Once or twice they got out of hand, and tortured and mutilated +wounded and captured insurgents, men and women. Moral--don't go +rebelling. Haha! Galloop, Galloop! They are lively fellows. Lively brave +fellows. Let this be a lesson to the disorderly banderlog of this city. +Yah! Banderlog! Filth of the earth! Galloop, Galloop!" + +The voice ceased. There was a confused murmur of disapproval among the +crowd. "Damned niggers." A man began to harangue near them. "Is this the +Master's doing, brothers? Is this the Master's doing?" + +"Black police!" said Graham. "What is that? You don't mean--" + +Asano touched his arm and gave him a warning look, and forthwith another +of these mechanisms screamed deafeningly and gave tongue in a shrill +voice. "Yahaha, Yahah, Yap! Hear a live paper yelp! Live paper. Yaha! +Shocking outrage in Paris. Yahahah! The Parisians exasperated by the +black police to the pitch of assassination. Dreadful reprisals. Savage +times come again. Blood! Blood! Yaha!" The nearer Babble Machine hooted +stupendously, "Galloop, Galloop," drowned the end of the sentence, and +proceeded in a rather flatter note than before with novel comments on the +horrors of disorder. "Law and order must be maintained," said the nearer +Babble Machine. + +"But," began Graham. + +"Don't ask questions here," said Asano, "or you will be involved in an +argument." + +"Then let us go on," said Graham, "for I want to know more of this." + +As he and his companion pushed their way through the excited crowd that +swarmed beneath these voices, towards the exit, Graham conceived more +clearly the proportion and features of this room. Altogether, great and +small, there must have been nearly a thousand of these erections, +piping, hooting, bawling and gabbling in that great space, each with its +crowd of excited listeners, the majority of them men dressed in blue +canvas. There were all sizes of machines, from the little gossiping +mechanisms that chuckled out mechanical sarcasm in odd corners, through +a number of grades to such fifty-foot giants as that which had first +hooted over Graham. + +This place was unusually crowded, because of the intense public interest +in the course of affairs in Paris. Evidently the struggle had been much +more savage than Ostrog had represented it. All the mechanisms were +discoursing upon that topic, and the repetition of the people made the +huge hive buzz with such phrases as "Lynched policemen," "Women burnt +alive," "Fuzzy Wuzzy." "But does the Master allow such things?" asked a +man near him. "Is _this_ the beginning of the Master's rule?" + +Is _this_ the beginning of the Master's rule? For a long time after he +had left the place, the hooting, whistling and braying of the machines +pursued him; "Galloop, Galloop," "Yahahah, Yaha, Yap! Yaha!" Is _this_ +the beginning of the Master's rule? + +Directly they were out upon the ways he began to question Asano closely +on the nature of the Parisian struggle. "This disarmament! What was their +trouble? What does it all mean?" Asano seemed chiefly anxious to reassure +him that it was "all right." + +"But these outrages!" + +"You cannot have an omelette," said Asano, "without breaking eggs. It is +only the rough people. Only in one part of the city. All the rest is all +right. The Parisian labourers are the wildest in the world, except ours." + +"What! the Londoners?" + +"No, the Japanese. They have to be kept in order." + +"But burning women alive!" + +"A Commune!" said Asano. "They would rob you of your property. They would +do away with property and give the world over to mob rule. You are +Master, the world is yours. But there will be no Commune here. There is +no need for black police here. + +"And every consideration has been shown. It is their own negroes--French +speaking negroes. Senegal regiments, and Niger and Timbuctoo." + +"Regiments?" said Graham, "I thought there was only one--" + +"No," said Asano, and glanced at him. "There is more than one." + +Graham felt unpleasantly helpless. + +"I did not think," he began and stopped abruptly. He went off at a +tangent to ask for information about these Babble Machines. For the most +part, the crowd present had been shabbily or even raggedly dressed, and +Graham learnt that so far as the more prosperous classes were concerned, +in all the more comfortable private apartments of the city were fixed +Babble Machines that would speak directly a lever was pulled. The tenant +of the apartment could connect this with the cables of any of the great +News Syndicates that he preferred. When he learnt this presently, he +demanded the reason of their absence from his own suite of apartments. +Asano was embarrassed. "I never thought," he said. "Ostrog must have had +them removed." + +Graham stared. "How was I to know?" he exclaimed. + +"Perhaps he thought they would annoy you," said Asano. + +"They must be replaced directly I return," said Graham after an interval. + +He found a difficulty in understanding that this news room and the dining +hall were not great central places, that such establishments were +repeated almost beyond counting all over the city. But ever and again +during the night's expedition his ears would pick out from the tumult of +the ways the peculiar hooting of the organ of Boss Ostrog, "Galloop, +Galloop!" or the shrill "Yahaha, Yaha Yap!--Hear a live paper yelp!" of +its chief rival. + +Repeated, too, everywhere, were such _crèches_ as the one he now entered. +It was reached by a lift, and by a glass bridge that flung across the +dining hall and traversed the ways at a slight upward angle. To enter the +first section of the place necessitated the use of his solvent signature +under Asano's direction. They were immediately attended to by a man in a +violet robe and gold clasp, the insignia of practising medical men. He +perceived from this man's manner that his identity was known, and +proceeded to ask questions on the strange arrangements of the place +without reserve. + +On either side of the passage, which was silent and padded, as if to +deaden the footfall, were narrow little doors, their size and arrangement +suggestive of the cells of a Victorian prison. But the upper portion of +each door was of the same greenish transparent stuff that had enclosed +him at his awakening, and within, dimly seen, lay, in every case, a very +young baby in a little nest of wadding. Elaborate apparatus watched the +atmosphere and rang a bell far away in the central office at the +slightest departure from the optimum of temperature and moisture. A +system of such _crèches_ had almost entirely replaced the hazardous +adventures of the old-world nursing. The attendant presently called +Graham's attention to the wet nurses, a vista of mechanical figures, with +arms, shoulders, and breasts of astonishingly realistic modelling, +articulation, and texture, but mere brass tripods below, and having in +the place of features a flat disc bearing advertisements likely to be of +interest to mothers. + +Of all the strange things that Graham came upon that night, none jarred +more upon his habits of thought than this place. The spectacle of the +little pink creatures, their feeble limbs swaying uncertainly in vague +first movements, left alone, without embrace or endearment, was wholly +repugnant to him. The attendant doctor was of a different opinion. His +statistical evidence showed beyond dispute that in the Victorian times +the most dangerous passage of life was the arms of the mother, that there +human mortality had ever been most terrible. On the other hand this +_crèche_ company, the International Crèche Syndicate, lost not one-half +per cent, of the million babies or so that formed its peculiar care. But +Graham's prejudice was too strong even for those figures. + +Along one of the many passages of the place they presently came upon a +young couple in the usual blue canvas peering through the transparency +and laughing hysterically at the bald head of their first-born. Graham's +face must have showed his estimate of them, for their merriment ceased +and they looked abashed. But this little incident accentuated his sudden +realisation of the gulf between his habits of thought and the ways of the +new age. He passed on to the crawling rooms and the Kindergarten, +perplexed and distressed. He found the endless long playrooms were empty! +the latter-day children at least still spent their nights in sleep. As +they went through these, the little officer pointed out the nature of the +toys, developments of those devised by that inspired sentimentalist +Froebel. There were nurses here, but much was done by machines that sang +and danced and dandled. + +Graham was still not clear upon many points. "But so many orphans," he +said perplexed, reverting to a first misconception, and learnt again that +they were not orphans. + +So soon as they had left the _crèche_ he began to speak of the horror the +babies in their incubating cases had caused him. "Is motherhood gone?" he +said. "Was it a cant? Surely it was an instinct. This seems so +unnatural--abominable almost." + +"Along here we shall come to the dancing place," said Asano by way of +reply. "It is sure to be crowded. In spite of all the political unrest it +will be crowded. The women take no great interest in politics--except a +few here and there. You will see the mothers--most young women in London +are mothers. In that class it is considered a creditable thing to have +one child--a proof of animation. Few middle class people have more than +one. With the Labour Department it is different. As for motherhood! They +still take an immense pride in the children. They come here to look at +them quite often." + +"Then do you mean that the population of the World--?" + +"Is falling? Yes. Except among the people under the Labour Department. In +spite of scientific discipline they are reckless--" + +The air was suddenly dancing with music, and down a way they approached +obliquely, set with gorgeous pillars as it seemed of clear amethyst, +flowed a concourse of gay people and a tumult of merry cries and +laughter. He saw curled heads, wreathed brows, and a happy intricate +flutter of gamboge pass triumphant across the picture. + +"You will see," said Asano with a faint smile. "The world has changed. In +a moment you will see the mothers of the new age. Come this way. We shall +see those yonder again very soon." + +They ascended a certain height in a swift lift, and changed to a slower +one. As they went on the music grew upon them, until it was near and full +and splendid, and, moving with its glorious intricacies they could +distinguish the beat of innumerable dancing feet. They made a payment at +a turnstile, and emerged upon the wide gallery that overlooked the +dancing place, and upon the full enchantment of sound and sight. + +"Here," said Asano, "are the fathers and mothers of the little +ones you saw." + +The hall was not so richly decorated as that of the Atlas, but saving +that, it was, for its size, the most splendid Graham had seen. The +beautiful white-limbed figures that supported the galleries reminded him +once more of the restored magnificence of sculpture; they seemed to +writhe in engaging attitudes, their faces laughed. The source of the +music that filled the place was hidden, and the whole vast shining floor +was thick with dancing couples. "Look at them," said the little officer, +"see how much they show of motherhood." + +The gallery they stood upon ran along the upper edge of a huge screen +that cut the dancing hall on one side from a sort of outer hall that +showed through broad arches the incessant onward rush of the city ways. +In this outer hall was a great crowd of less brilliantly dressed people, +as numerous almost as those who danced within, the great majority wearing +the blue uniform of the Labour Department that was now so familiar to +Graham. Too poor to pass the turnstiles to the festival, they were yet +unable to keep away from the sound of its seductions. Some of them even +had cleared spaces, and were dancing also, fluttering their rags in the +air. Some shouted as they danced, jests and odd allusions Graham did not +understand. Once someone began whistling the refrain of the revolutionary +song, but it seemed as though that beginning was promptly suppressed. The +corner was dark and Graham could not see. He turned to the hall again. +Above the caryatids were marble busts of men whom that age esteemed great +moral emancipators and pioneers; for the most part their names were +strange to Graham, though he recognised Grant Allen, Le Gallienne, +Nietzsche, Shelley and Goodwin. Great black festoons and eloquent +sentiments reinforced the huge inscription that partially defaced the +upper end of the dancing place, and asserted that "The Festival of the +Awakening" was in progress. + +"Myriads are taking holiday or staying from work because of that, quite +apart from the labourers who refuse to go back," said Asano. "These +people are always ready for holidays." + +Graham walked to the parapet and stood leaning over, looking down at the +dancers. Save for two or three remote whispering couples, who had stolen +apart, he and his guide had the gallery to themselves. A warm breath of +scent and vitality came up to him. Both men and women below were lightly +clad, bare-armed, open-necked, as the universal warmth of the city +permitted. The hair of the men was often a mass of effeminate curls, +their chins were always shaven, and many of them had flushed or coloured +cheeks. Many of the women were very pretty, and all were dressed with +elaborate coquetry. As they swept by beneath, he saw ecstatic faces with +eyes half closed in pleasure. + +"What sort of people are these?" he asked abruptly. + +"Workers--prosperous workers. What you would have called the middle +class. Independent tradesmen with little separate businesses have +vanished long ago, but there are store servers, managers, engineers of a +hundred sorts. To-night is a holiday of course, and every dancing place +in the city will be crowded, and every place of worship." + +"But--the women?" + +"The same. There's a thousand forms of work for women now. But you had +the beginning of the independent working-woman in your days. Most women +are independent now. Most of these are married more or less--there are a +number of methods of contract--and that gives them more money, and +enables them to enjoy themselves." + +"I see," said Graham, looking at the flushed faces, the flash and swirl +of movement, and still thinking of that nightmare of pink helpless limbs. +"And these are--mothers." + +"Most of them." + +"The more I see of these things the more complex I find your problems. +This, for instance, is a surprise. That news from Paris was a surprise." + +In a little while he spoke again: + +"These are mothers. Presently, I suppose, I shall get into the modern way +of seeing things. I have old habits of mind clinging about me--habits +based, I suppose, on needs that are over and done with. Of course, in our +time, a woman was supposed not only to bear children, but to cherish +them, to devote herself to them, to educate them--all the essentials of +moral and mental education a child owed its mother. Or went without. +Quite a number, I admit, went without. Nowadays, clearly, there is no +more need for such care than if they were butterflies. I see that! Only +there was an ideal--that figure of a grave, patient woman, silently and +serenely mistress of a home, mother and maker of men--to love her was a +sort of worship--" + +He stopped and repeated, "A sort of worship." + +"Ideals change," said the little man, "as needs change." + +Graham awoke from an instant reverie and Asano repeated his words. +Graham's mind returned to the thing at hand. + +"Of course I see the perfect reasonableness of this. Restraint, +soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish act, they are necessities +of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is man's tribute to +unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature now for all practical +purposes--his political affairs are managed by Bosses with a black +police--and life is joyous." + +He looked at the dancers again. "Joyous," he said. + +"There are weary moments," said the little officer, reflectively. + +"They all look young. Down there I should be visibly the oldest man. And +in my own time I should have passed as middle-aged." + +"They are young. There are few old people in this class in the +work cities." + +"How is that?" + +"Old people's lives are not so pleasant as they used to be, unless they +are rich to hire lovers and helpers. And we have an institution called +Euthanasy." + +"Ah! that Euthanasy!" said Graham. "The easy death?" + +"The easy death. It is the last pleasure. The Euthanasy Company does it +well. People will pay the sum--it is a costly thing--long beforehand, go +off to some pleasure city and return impoverished and weary, very weary." + +"There is a lot left for me to understand," said Graham after a pause. +"Yet I see the logic of it all. Our array of angry virtues and sour +restraints was the consequence of danger and insecurity. The Stoic, the +Puritan, even in my time, were vanishing types. In the old days man was +armed against Pain, now he is eager for Pleasure. There lies the +difference. Civilisation has driven pain and danger so far off--for +well-to-do people. And only well-to-do people matter now. I have been +asleep two hundred years." + +For a minute they leant on the balustrading, following the intricate +evolution of the dance. Indeed the scene was very beautiful. + +"Before God," said Graham, suddenly, "I would rather be a wounded +sentinel freezing in the snow than one of these painted fools!" + +"In the snow," said Asano, "one might think differently." + +"I am uncivilised," said Graham, not heeding him. "That is the trouble. I +am primitive--Paleolithic. _Their_ fountain of rage and fear and anger is +sealed and closed, the habits of a lifetime make them cheerful and easy +and delightful. You must bear with my nineteenth century shocks and +disgusts. These people, you say, are skilled workers and so forth. And +while these dance, men are fighting--men are dying in Paris to keep the +world--that they may dance." + +Asano smiled faintly. "For that matter, men are dying in London," he +said. + +There was a moment's silence. + +"Where do these sleep?" asked Graham. + +"Above and below--an intricate warren." + +"And where do they work? This is--the domestic life." + +"You will see little work to-night. Half the workers are out or under +arms. Half these people are keeping holiday. But we will go to the work +places if you wish it." + +For a time Graham watched the dancers, then suddenly turned away. "I want +to see the workers. I have seen enough of these," he said. + +Asano led the way along the gallery across the dancing hall. Presently +they came to a transverse passage that brought a breath of fresher, +colder air. + +Asano glanced at this passage as they went past, stopped, went back to +it, and turned to Graham with a smile. "Here, Sire," he said, "is +something--will be familiar to you at least--and yet--. But I will not +tell you. Come!" + +He led the way along a closed passage that presently became cold. The +reverberation of their feet told that this passage was a bridge. They +came into a circular gallery that was glazed in from the outer weather, +and so reached a circular chamber which seemed familiar, though Graham +could not recall distinctly when he had entered it before. In this was a +ladder--the first ladder he had seen since his awakening--up which they +went, and came into a high, dark, cold place in which was another almost +vertical ladder. This they ascended, Graham still perplexed. + +But at the top he understood, and recognised the metallic bars to which +he clung. He was in the cage under the ball of St. Paul's. The dome rose +but a little way above the general contour of the city, into the still +twilight, and sloped away, shining greasily under a few distant lights, +into a circumambient ditch of darkness. + +Out between the bars he looked upon the wind-clear northern sky and saw +the starry constellations all unchanged. Capella hung in the west, Vega +was rising, and the seven glittering points of the Great Bear swept +overhead in their stately circle about the Pole. + +He saw these stars in a clear gap of sky. To the east and south the great +circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the heavens, so +that the glare about the Council House was hidden. To the southwest hung +Orion, showing like a pallid ghost through a tracery of iron-work and +interlacing shapes above a dazzling coruscation of lights. A bellowing +and siren screaming that came from the flying stages warned the world +that one of the aeroplanes was ready to start. He remained for a space +gazing towards the glaring stage. Then his eyes went back to the +northward constellations. + +For a long time he was silent. "This," he said at last, smiling in the +shadow, "seems the strangest thing of all. To stand in the dome of St. +Paul's and look once more upon these familiar, silent stars!" + +Thence Graham was taken by Asano along devious ways to the great gambling +and business quarters where the bulk of the fortunes in the city were +lost and made. It impressed him as a well-nigh interminable series of +very high halls, surrounded by tiers upon tiers of galleries into which +opened thousands of offices, and traversed by a complicated multitude of +bridges, footways, aerial motor rails, and trapeze and cable leaps. And +here more than anywhere the note of vehement vitality, of uncontrollable, +hasty activity, rose high. Everywhere was violent advertisement, until +his brain swam at the tumult of light and colour. And Babble Machines of +a peculiarly rancid tone were abundant and filled the air with strenuous +squealing and an idiotic slang. "Skin your eyes and slide," "Gewhoop, +Bonanza," "Gollipers come and hark!" + +The place seemed to him to be dense with people either profoundly +agitated or swelling with obscure cunning, yet he learnt that the place +was comparatively empty, that the great political convulsion of the last +few days had reduced transactions to an unprecedented minimum. In one +huge place were long avenues of roulette tables, each with an excited, +undignified crowd about it; in another a yelping Babel of white-faced +women and red-necked leathery-lunged men bought and sold the shares of an +absolutely fictitious business undertaking which, every five minutes, +paid a dividend of ten per cent, and cancelled a certain proportion of +its shares by means of a lottery wheel. + +These business activities were prosecuted with an energy that readily +passed into violence, and Graham approaching a dense crowd found at its +centre a couple of prominent merchants in violent controversy with teeth +and nails on some delicate point of business etiquette. Something still +remained in life to be fought for. Further he had a shock at a vehement +announcement in phonetic letters of scarlet flame, each twice the height +of a man, that "WE ASSURE THE PROPRAIET'R. WE ASSURE THE PROPRAIET'R." + +"Who's the proprietor?" he asked. + +"You." + +"But what do they assure me?" he asked. "What do they assure me?" + +"Didn't you have assurance?" + +Graham thought. "Insurance?" + +"Yes--Insurance. I remember that was the older word. They are insuring +your life. Dozands of people are taking out policies, myriads of lions +are being put on you. And further on other people are buying annuities. +They do that on everybody who is at all prominent. Look there!" + +A crowd of people surged and roared, and Graham saw a vast black screen +suddenly illuminated in still larger letters of burning purple. "Anuetes +on the Propraiet'r--x 5 pr. G." The people began to boo and shout at +this, a number of hard breathing, wild-eyed men came running past, +clawing with hooked fingers at the air. There was a furious crush about a +little doorway. + +Asano did a brief, inaccurate calculation. "Seventeen per cent, per +annum is their annuity on you. They would not pay so much per cent, if +they could see you now, Sire. But they do not know. Your own annuities +used to be a very safe investment, but now you are sheer gambling, of +course. This is probably a desperate bid. I doubt if people will get +their money." + +The crowd of would-be annuitants grew so thick about them that for some +time they could move neither forward nor backward. Graham noticed what +appeared to him to be a high proportion of women among the speculators, +and was reminded again of the economic independence of their sex. They +seemed remarkably well able to take care of themselves in the crowd, +using their elbows with particular skill, as he learnt to his cost. One +curly-headed person caught in the pressure for a space, looked +steadfastly at him several times, almost as if she recognised him, and +then, edging deliberately towards him, touched his hand with her arm in a +scarcely accidental manner, and made it plain by a look as ancient as +Chaldea that he had found favour in her eyes. And then a lank, +grey-bearded man, perspiring copiously in a noble passion of self-help, +blind to all earthly things save that glaring bait, thrust between them +in a cataclysmal rush towards that alluring "X 5 pr. G." + +"I want to get out of this," said Graham to Asano. "This is not what I +came to see. Show me the workers. I want to see the people in blue. These +parasitic lunatics--" + +He found himself wedged into a straggling mass of people. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE UNDER-SIDE + + +From the Business Quarter they presently passed by the running ways into +a remote quarter of the city, where the bulk of the manufactures was +done. On their way the platforms crossed the Thames twice, and passed in +a broad viaduct across one of the great roads that entered the city from +the North. In both cases his impression was swift and in both very vivid. +The river was a broad wrinkled glitter of black sea water, overarched by +buildings, and vanishing either way into a blackness starred with +receding lights. A string of black barges passed seaward, manned by +blue-clad men. The road was a long and very broad and high tunnel, along +which big-wheeled machines drove noiselessly and swiftly. Here, too, the +distinctive blue of the Labour Department was in abundance. The +smoothness of the double tracks, the largeness and the lightness of the +big pneumatic wheels in proportion to the vehicular body, struck Graham +most vividly. One lank and very high carriage with longitudinal metallic +rods hung with the dripping carcasses of many hundred sheep arrested his +attention unduly. Abruptly the edge of the archway cut and blotted out +the picture. + +Presently they left the way and descended by a lift and traversed a +passage that sloped downward, and so came to a descending lift again. The +appearance of things changed. Even the pretence of architectural +ornament disappeared, the lights diminished in number and size, the +architecture became more and more massive in proportion to the spaces as +the factory quarters were reached. And in the dusty biscuit-making place +of the potters, among the felspar mills, in the furnace rooms of the +metal workers, among the incandescent lakes of crude Eadhamite, the blue +canvas clothing was on man, woman and child. + +Many of these great and dusty galleries were silent avenues of machinery, +endless raked out ashen furnaces testified to the revolutionary +dislocation, but wherever there was work it was being done by slow-moving +workers in blue canvas. The only people not in blue canvas were the +overlookers of the work-places and the orange-clad Labour Police. And +fresh from the flushed faces of the dancing halls, the voluntary vigours +of the business quarter, Graham could note the pinched faces, the feeble +muscles, and weary eyes of many of the latter-day workers. Such as he saw +at work were noticeably inferior in physique to the few gaily dressed +managers and forewomen who were directing their labours. The burly +labourers of the old Victorian times had followed that dray horse and all +such living force producers, to extinction; the place of his costly +muscles was taken by some dexterous machine. The latter-day labourer, +male as well as female, was essentially a machine-minder and feeder, a +servant and attendant, or an artist under direction. + +The women, in comparison with those Graham remembered, were as a class +distinctly plain and flat-chested. Two hundred years of emancipation +from the moral restraints of Puritanical religion, two hundred years of +city life, had done their work in eliminating the strain of feminine +beauty and vigour from the blue canvas myriads. To be brilliant +physically or mentally, to be in any way attractive or exceptional, had +been and was still a certain way of emancipation to the drudge, a line +of escape to the Pleasure City and its splendours and delights, and at +last to the Euthanasy and peace. To be steadfast against such +inducements was scarcely to be expected of meanly nourished souls. In +the young cities of Graham's former life, the newly aggregated labouring +mass had been a diverse multitude, still stirred by the tradition of +personal honour and a high morality; now it was differentiating into an +instinct class, with a moral and physical difference of its own--even +with a dialect of its own. + +They penetrated downward, ever downward, towards the working places. +Presently they passed underneath one of the streets of the moving ways, +and saw its platforms running on their rails far overhead, and chinks of +white lights between the transverse slits. The factories that were not +working were sparsely lighted; to Graham they and their shrouded aisles +of giant machines seemed plunged in gloom, and even where work was going +on the illumination was far less brilliant than upon the public ways. + +Beyond the blazing lakes of Eadhamite he came to the warren of the +jewellers, and, with some difficulty and by using his signature, obtained +admission to these galleries. They were high and dark, and rather cold. +In the first a few men were making ornaments of gold filigree, each man +at a little bench by himself, and with a little shaded light. The long +vista of light patches, with the nimble fingers brightly lit and moving +among the gleaming yellow coils, and the intent face like the face of a +ghost, in each shadow, had the oddest effect. + +The work was beautifully executed, but without any strength of modelling +or drawing, for the most part intricate grotesques or the ringing of the +changes on a geometrical _motif_. These workers wore a peculiar white +uniform without pockets or sleeves. They assumed this on coming to work, +but at night they were stripped and examined before they left the +premises of the Department. In spite of every precaution, the Labour +policeman told them in a depressed tone, the Department was not +infrequently robbed. + +Beyond was a gallery of women busied in cutting and setting slabs of +artificial ruby, and next these were men and women working together upon +the slabs of copper net that formed the basis of _cloisonné_ tiles. Many +of these workers had lips and nostrils a livid white, due to a disease +caused by a peculiar purple enamel that chanced to be much in fashion. +Asano apologised to Graham for this offensive sight, but excused himself +on the score of the convenience of this route. "This is what I wanted to +see," said Graham; "this is what I wanted to see," trying to avoid a +start at a particularly striking disfigurement. + +"She might have done better with herself than that," said Asano. + +Graham made some indignant comments. + +"But, Sire, we simply could not stand that stuff without the purple," +said Asano. "In your days people could stand such crudities, they were +nearer the barbaric by two hundred years." + +They continued along one of the lower galleries of this _cloisonné_ +factory, and came to a little bridge that spanned a vault. Looking over +the parapet, Graham saw that beneath was a wharf under yet more +tremendous archings than any he had seen. Three barges, smothered in +floury dust, were being unloaded of their cargoes of powdered felspar by +a multitude of coughing men, each guiding a little truck; the dust filled +the place with a choking mist, and turned the electric glare yellow. The +vague shadows of these workers gesticulated about their feet, and rushed +to and fro against a long stretch of white-washed wall. Every now and +then one would stop to cough. + +A shadowy, huge mass of masonry rising out of the inky water, brought to +Graham's mind the thought of the multitude of ways and galleries and +lifts that rose floor above floor overhead between him and the sky. The +men worked in silence under the supervision of two of the Labour Police; +their feet made a hollow thunder on the planks along which they went to +and fro. And as he looked at this scene, some hidden voice in the +darkness began to sing. + +"Stop that!" shouted one of the policemen, but the order was disobeyed, +and first one and then all the white-stained men who were working there +had taken up the beating refrain, singing it defiantly--the Song of the +Revolt. The feet upon the planks thundered now to the rhythm of the song, +tramp, tramp, tramp. The policeman who had shouted glanced at his fellow, +and Graham saw him shrug his shoulders. He made no further effort to stop +the singing. + +And so they went through these factories and places of toil, seeing many +painful and grim things. That walk left on Graham's mind a maze of +memories, fluctuating pictures of swathed halls, and crowded vaults seen +through clouds of dust, of intricate machines, the racing threads of +looms, the heavy beat of stamping machinery, the roar and rattle of belt +and armature, of ill-lit subterranean aisles of sleeping places, +illimitable vistas of pin-point lights. Here was the smell of tanning, +and here the reek of a brewery, and here unprecedented reeks. Everywhere +were pillars and cross archings of such a massiveness as Graham had never +before seen, thick Titans of greasy, shining brickwork crushed beneath +the vast weight of that complex city world, even as these anemic millions +were crushed by its complexity. And everywhere were pale features, lean +limbs, disfigurement and degradation. + +Once and again, and again a third time, Graham heard the song of the +revolt during his long, unpleasant research in these places, and once he +saw a confused struggle down a passage, and learnt that a number of these +serfs had seized their bread before their work was done. Graham was +ascending towards the ways again when he saw a number of blue-clad +children running down a transverse passage, and presently perceived the +reason of their panic in a company of the Labour Police armed with clubs, +trotting towards some unknown disturbance. And then came a remote +disorder. But for the most part this remnant that worked, worked +hopelessly. All the spirit that was left in fallen humanity was above in +the streets that night, calling for the Master, and valiantly and noisily +keeping its arms. + +They emerged from these wanderings and stood blinking in the bright light +of the middle passage of the platforms again. They became aware of the +remote hooting and yelping of the machines of one of the General +Intelligence Offices, and suddenly came men running, and along the +platforms and about the ways everywhere was a shouting and crying. Then a +woman with a face of mute white terror, and another who gasped and +shrieked as she ran. + +"What has happened now?" said Graham, puzzled, for he could not +understand their thick speech. Then he heard it in English and perceived +that the thing that everyone was shouting, that men yelled to one +another, that women took up screaming, that was passing like the first +breeze of a thunderstorm, chill and sudden through the city, was this: +"Ostrog has ordered the Black Police to London. The Black Police are +coming from South Africa.... The Black Police. The Black Police." + +Asano's face was white and astonished; he hesitated, looked at Graham's +face, and told him the thing he already knew. "But how can they know?" +asked Asano. + +Graham heard someone shouting. "Stop all work. Stop all work," and a +swarthy hunchback, ridiculously gay in green and gold, came leaping down +the platforms toward him, bawling again and again in good English, "This +is Ostrog's doing, Ostrog the Knave! The Master is betrayed." His voice +was hoarse and a thin foam dropped from his ugly shouting mouth. He +yelled an unspeakable horror that the Black Police had done in Paris, and +so passed shrieking, "Ostrog the Knave!" + +For a moment Graham stood still, for it had come upon him again that +these things were a dream. He looked up at the great cliff of buildings +on either side, vanishing into blue haze at last above the lights, and +down to the roaring tiers of platforms, and the shouting, running people +who were gesticulating past. "The Master is betrayed!" they cried. "The +Master is betrayed!" + +Suddenly the situation shaped itself in his mind real and urgent. His +heart began to beat fast and strong. + +"It has come," he said. "I might have known. The hour has come." + +He thought swiftly. "What am I to do?" + +"Go back to the Council House," said Asano. + +"Why should I not appeal--? The people are here." + +"You will lose time. They will doubt if it is you. But they will mass +about the Council House. There you will find their leaders. Your strength +is there--with them." + +"Suppose this is only a rumour?" + +"It sounds true," said Asano. + +"Let us have the facts," said Graham. + +Asano shrugged his shoulders. "We had better get towards the Council +House," he cried. "That is where they will swarm. Even now the ruins may +be impassable." + +Graham regarded him doubtfully and followed him. + +They went up the stepped platforms to the swiftest one, and there Asano +accosted a labourer. The answers to his questions were in the thick, +vulgar speech. + +"What did he say?" asked Graham. + +"He knows little, but he told me that the Black Police would have arrived +here before the people knew--had not someone in the Wind-Vane Offices +learnt. He said a girl." + +"A girl? Not--?" + +"He said a girl--he did not know who she was. Who came out from the +Council House crying aloud, and told the men at work among the ruins." + +And then another thing was shouted, something that turned an aimless +tumult into determinate movements, it came like a wind along the +street. "To your wards, to your wards. Every man get arms. Every man to +his ward!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE STRUGGLE IN THE COUNCIL HOUSE + + +As Asano and Graham hurried along to the ruins about the Council House, +they saw everywhere the excitement of the people rising. "To your wards! +To your wards!" Everywhere men and women in blue were hurrying from +unknown subterranean employments, up the staircases of the middle path; +at one place Graham saw an arsenal of the revolutionary committee +besieged by a crowd of shouting men, at another a couple of men in the +hated yellow uniform of the Labour Police, pursued by a gathering crowd, +fled precipitately along the swift way that went in the opposite +direction. + +The cries of "To your wards!" became at last a continuous shouting as +they drew near the Government quarter. Many of the shouts were +unintelligible. "Ostrog has betrayed us," one man bawled in a hoarse +voice, again and again, dinning that refrain into Graham's ear until it +haunted him. This person stayed close beside Graham and Asano on the +swift way, shouting to the people who swarmed on the lower platforms as +he rushed past them. His cry about Ostrog alternated with some +incomprehensible orders. Presently he went leaping down and disappeared. + +Graham's mind was filled with the din. His plans were vague and unformed. +He had one picture of some commanding position from which he could +address the multitudes, another of meeting Ostrog face to face. He was +full of rage, of tense muscular excitement, his hands gripped, his lips +were pressed together. + +The way to the Council House across the ruins was impassable, but Asano +met that difficulty and took Graham into the premises of the central +post-office. The post-office was nominally at work, but the blue-clothed +porters moved sluggishly or had stopped to stare through the arches of +their galleries at the shouting men who were going by outside. "Every man +to his ward! Every man to his ward!" Here, by Asano's advice, Graham +revealed his identity. + +They crossed to the Council House by a cable cradle. Already in the brief +interval since the capitulation of the Councillors a great change had +been wrought in the appearance of the ruins. The spurting cascades of the +ruptured sea-water mains had been captured and tamed, and huge temporary +pipes ran overhead along a flimsy looking fabric of girders. The sky was +laced with restored cables and wires that served the Council House, and a +mass of new fabric with cranes and other building machines going to and +fro upon it projected to the left of the white pile. + +The moving ways that ran across this area had been restored, albeit for +once running under the open sky. These were the ways that Graham had seen +from the little balcony in the hour of his awakening, not nine days +since, and the hall of his Trance had been on the further side, where now +shapeless piles of smashed and shattered masonry were heaped together. + +It was already high day and the sun was shining brightly. Out of their +tall caverns of blue electric light came the swift ways crowded with +multitudes of people, who poured off them and gathered ever denser over +the wreckage and confusion of the ruins. The air was full of their +shouting, and they were pressing and swaying towards the central +building. For the most part that shouting mass consisted of shapeless +swarms, but here and there Graham could see that a rude discipline +struggled to establish itself. And every voice clamoured for order in the +chaos. "To your wards! Every man to his ward!" + +The cable carried them into a hall which Graham recognised as the +ante-chamber to the Hall of the Atlas, about the gallery of which he had +walked days ago with Howard to show himself to the Vanished Council, an +hour from his awakening. Now the place was empty except for two cable +attendants. These men seemed hugely astonished to recognise the Sleeper +in the man who swung down from the cross seat. + +"Where is Ostrog?" he demanded. "I must see Ostrog forthwith. He has +disobeyed me. I have come back to take things out of his hands." Without +waiting for Asano, he went straight across the place, ascended the steps +at the further end, and, pulling the curtain aside, found himself facing +the perpetually labouring Titan. + +The hall was empty. Its appearance had changed very greatly since his +first sight of it. It had suffered serious injury in the violent +struggle of the first outbreak. On the right hand side of the great +figure the upper half of the wall had been torn away for nearly two +hundred feet of its length, and a sheet of the same glassy film that had +enclosed Graham at his awakening had been drawn across the gap. This +deadened, but did not altogether exclude the roar of the people outside. +"Wards! Wards! Wards!" they seemed to be saying. Through it there were +visible the beams and supports of metal scaffoldings that rose and fell +according to the requirements of a great crowd of workmen. An idle +building machine, with lank arms of red painted metal stretched gauntly +across this green tinted picture. On it were still a number of workmen +staring at the crowd below. For a moment he stood regarding these +things, and Asano overtook him. + +"Ostrog," said Asano, "will be in the small offices beyond there." The +little man looked livid now and his eyes searched Graham's face. + +They had scarcely advanced ten paces from the curtain before a little +panel to the left of the Atlas rolled up, and Ostrog, accompanied by +Lincoln and followed by two black and yellow clad negroes, appeared +crossing the remote corner of the hall, towards a second panel that was +raised and open. "Ostrog," shouted Graham, and at the sound of his voice +the little party turned astonished. + +Ostrog said something to Lincoln and advanced alone. + +Graham was the first to speak. His voice was loud and dictatorial. "What +is this I hear?" he asked. "Are you bringing negroes here--to keep the +people down?" + +"It is none too soon," said Ostrog. "They have been getting out of hand +more and more, since the revolt. I under-estimated--" + +"Do you mean that these infernal negroes are on the way?" + +"On the way. As it is, you have seen the people--outside?" + +"No wonder! But--after what was said. You have taken too much on +yourself, Ostrog." + +Ostrog said nothing, but drew nearer. + +"These negroes must not come to London," said Graham. "I am Master and +they shall not come." + +Ostrog glanced at Lincoln, who at once came towards them with his two +attendants close behind him. "Why not?" asked Ostrog. + +"White men must be mastered by white men. Besides--" + +"The negroes are only an instrument." + +"But that is not the question. I am the Master. I mean to be the Master. +And I tell you these negroes shall not come." + +"The people--" + +"I believe in the people." + +"Because you are an anachronism. You are a man out of the Past--an +accident. You are Owner perhaps of the world. Nominally--legally. But you +are not Master. You do not know enough to be Master." + +He glanced at Lincoln again. "I know now what you think--I can guess +something of what you mean to do. Even now it is not too late to warn +you. You dream of human equality--of some sort of socialistic order--you +have all those worn-out dreams of the nineteenth century fresh and vivid +in your mind, and you would rule this age that you do not understand." + +"Listen!" said Graham. "You can hear it--a sound like the sea. Not +voices--but a voice. Do _you_ altogether understand?" + +"We taught them that," said Ostrog. + +"Perhaps. Can you teach them to forget it? But enough of this! These +negroes must not come." + +There was a pause and Ostrog looked him in the eyes. + +"They will," he said. + +"I forbid it," said Graham. + +"They have started." + +"I will not have it." + +"No," said Ostrog. "Sorry as I am to follow the method of the +Council--. For your own good--you must not side with--Disorder. And now +that you are here--. It was kind of you to come here." + +Lincoln laid his hand on Graham's shoulder. Abruptly Graham realised the +enormity of his blunder in coming to the Council House. He turned +towards the curtains that separated the hall from the ante-chamber. The +clutching hand of Asano intervened. In another moment Lincoln had +grasped Graham's cloak. + +He turned and struck at Lincoln's face, and incontinently a negro had him +by collar and arm. He wrenched himself away, his sleeve tore noisily, and +he stumbled back, to be tripped by the other attendant. Then he struck +the ground heavily and he was staring at the distant ceiling of the hall. + +He shouted, rolled over, struggling fiercely, clutched an attendant's leg +and threw him headlong, and struggled to his feet. + +Lincoln appeared before him, went down heavily again with a blow under +the point of the jaw and lay still. Graham made two strides, stumbled. +And then Ostrog's arm was round his neck, he was pulled over backward, +fell heavily, and his arms were pinned to the ground. After a few violent +efforts he ceased to struggle and lay staring at Ostrog's heaving throat. + +"You--are--a prisoner," panted Ostrog, exulting. "You--were rather a +fool--to come back." + +Graham turned his head about and perceived through the irregular green +window in the walls of the hall the men who had been working the building +cranes gesticulating excitedly to the people below them. They had seen! + +Ostrog followed his eyes and started. He shouted something to Lincoln, +but Lincoln did not move. A bullet smashed among the mouldings above the +Atlas. The two sheets of transparent matter that had been stretched +across this gap were rent, the edges of the torn aperture darkened, +curved, ran rapidly towards the framework, and in a moment the Council +chamber stood open to the air. A chilly gust blew in by the gap, bringing +with it a war of voices from the ruinous spaces without, an elvish +babblement, "Save the Master!" "What are they doing to the Master?" "The +Master is betrayed!" + +And then he realised that Ostrog's attention was distracted, that +Ostrog's grip had relaxed, and, wrenching his arms free, he struggled to +his knees. In another moment he had thrust Ostrog back, and he was on one +foot, his hand gripping Ostrog's throat, and Ostrog's hands clutching the +silk about his neck. + +But now men were coming towards them from the dais--men whose intentions +he misunderstood. He had a glimpse of someone running in the distance +towards the curtains of the antechamber, and then Ostrog had slipped from +him and these newcomers were upon him. To his infinite astonishment, they +seized him. They obeyed the shouts of Ostrog. + +He was lugged a dozen yards before he realised that they were not +friends--that they were dragging him towards the open panel. When he saw +this he pulled back, he tried to fling himself down, he shouted for help +with all his strength. And this time there were answering cries. + +The grip upon his neck relaxed, and behold! in the lower corner of the +rent upon the wall, first one and then a number of little black figures +appeared shouting and waving arms. They came leaping down from the gap +into the light gallery that had led to the Silent Rooms. They ran along +it, so near were they that Graham could see the weapons in their hands. +Then Ostrog was shouting in his ear to the men who held him, and once +more he was struggling with all his strength against their endeavours to +thrust him towards the opening that yawned to receive him. "They can't +come down," panted Ostrog. "They daren't fire. It's all right. We'll save +him from them yet." + +For long minutes as it seemed to Graham that inglorious struggle +continued. His clothes were rent in a dozen places, he was covered in +dust, one hand had been trodden upon. He could hear the shouts of his +supporters, and once he heard shots. He could feel his strength giving +way, feel his efforts wild and aimless. But no help came, and surely, +irresistibly, that black, yawning opening came nearer. + +The pressure upon him relaxed and he struggled up. He saw Ostrog's grey +head receding and perceived that he was no longer held. He turned about +and came full into a man in black. One of the green weapons cracked close +to him, a drift of pungent smoke came into his face, and a steel blade +flashed. The huge chamber span about him. + +He saw a man in pale blue stabbing one of the black and yellow attendants +not three yards from his face. Then hands were upon him again. + +He was being pulled in two directions now. It seemed as though people +were shouting to him. He wanted to understand and could not. Someone was +clutching about his thighs, he was being hoisted in spite of his vigorous +efforts. He understood suddenly, he ceased to struggle. He was lifted up +on men's shoulders and carried away from that devouring panel. Ten +thousand throats were cheering. + +He saw men in blue and black hurrying after the retreating Ostrogites +and firing. Lifted up, he saw now across the whole expanse of the hall +beneath the Atlas image, saw that he was being carried towards the +raised platform in the centre of the place. The far end of the hall was +already full of people running towards him. They were looking at him +and cheering. + +He became aware that a bodyguard surrounded him. Active men about him +shouted vague orders. He saw close at hand the black moustached man in +yellow who had been among those who had greeted him in the public +theatre, shouting directions. The hall was already densely packed with +swaying people, the little metal gallery sagged with a shouting load, the +curtains at the end had been torn away, and the antechamber was revealed +densely crowded. He could scarcely make the man near him hear for the +tumult about them. "Where has Ostrog gone?" he asked. + +The man he questioned pointed over the heads towards the lower panels +about the hall on the side opposite the gap. They stood open, and armed +men, blue clad with black sashes, were running through them and vanishing +into the chambers and passages beyond. It seemed to Graham that a sound +of firing drifted through the riot. He was carried in a staggering curve +across the great hall towards an opening beneath the gap. + +He perceived men working with a sort of rude discipline to keep the crowd +off him, to make a space clear about him. He passed out of the hall, and +saw a crude, new wall rising blankly before him topped by blue sky. He +was swung down to his feet; someone gripped his arm and guided him. He +found the man in yellow close at hand. They were taking him up a narrow +stairway of brick, and close at hand rose the great red painted masses, +the cranes and levers and the still engines of the big building machine. + +He was at the top of the steps. He was hurried across a narrow railed +footway, and suddenly with a vast shouting the amphitheatre of ruins +opened again before him. "The Master is with us! The Master! The Master!" +The shout swept athwart the lake of faces like a wave, broke against the +distant cliff of ruins, and came back in a welter of cries. "The Master +is on our side!" + +Graham perceived that he was no longer encompassed by people, that he was +standing upon a little temporary platform of white metal, part of a +flimsy seeming scaffolding that laced about the great mass of the Council +House. Over all the huge expanse of the ruins swayed and eddied the +shouting people; and here and there the black banners of the +revolutionary societies ducked and swayed and formed rare nuclei of +organisation in the chaos. Up the steep stairs of wall and scaffolding by +which his rescuers had reached the opening in the Atlas Chamber clung a +solid crowd, and little energetic black figures clinging to pillars and +projections were strenuous to induce these congested, masses to stir. +Behind him, at a higher point on the scaffolding, a number of men +struggled upwards with the flapping folds of a huge black standard. +Through the yawning gap in the walls below him he could look down upon +the packed attentive multitudes in the Hall of the Atlas. The distant +flying stages to the south came out bright and vivid, brought nearer as +it seemed by an unusual translucency of the air. A solitary monoplane +beat up from the central stage as if to meet the coming aeroplanes. + +"What has become of Ostrog?" asked Graham, and even as he spoke he saw +that all eyes were turned from him towards the crest of the Council House +building. He looked also in this direction of universal attention. For a +moment he saw nothing but the jagged corner of a wall, hard and clear +against the sky. Then in the shadow he perceived the interior of a room +and recognised with a start the green and white decorations of his former +prison. And coming quickly across this opened room and up to the very +verge of the cliff of the ruins came a little white clad figure followed +by two other smaller seeming figures in black and yellow. He heard the +man beside him exclaim "Ostrog," and turned to ask a question. But he +never did, because of the startled exclamation of another of those who +were with him and a lank finger suddenly pointing. He looked, and behold! +the monoplane that had been rising from the flying stage when last he had +looked in that direction, was driving towards them. The swift steady +flight was still novel enough to hold his attention. + +Nearer it came, growing rapidly larger and larger, until it had swept +over the further edge of the ruins and into view of the dense multitudes +below. It drooped across the space and rose and passed overhead, rising +to clear the mass of the Council House, a filmy translucent shape with +the solitary aeronaut peering down through its ribs. It vanished beyond +the skyline of the ruins. + +Graham transferred his attention to Ostrog. He was signalling with his +hands, and his attendants were busy breaking down the wall beside him. In +another moment the monoplane came into view again, a little thing far +away, coming round in a wide curve and going slower. + +Then suddenly the man in yellow shouted: "What are they doing? What are +the people doing? Why is Ostrog left there? Why is he not captured? They +will lift him--the monoplane will lift him! Ah!" + +The exclamation was echoed by a shout from the ruins. The rattling sound +of the green weapons drifted across the intervening gulf to Graham, and, +looking down, he saw a number of black and yellow uniforms running along +one of the galleries that lay open to the air below the promontory upon +which Ostrog stood. They fired as they ran at men unseen, and then +emerged a number of pale blue figures in pursuit. These minute fighting +figures had the oddest effect; they seemed as they ran like little model +soldiers in a toy. This queer appearance of a house cut open gave that +struggle amidst furniture and passages a quality of unreality. It was +perhaps two hundred yards away from him, and very nearly fifty above the +heads in the ruins below. The black and yellow men ran into an open +archway, and turned and fired a volley. One of the blue pursuers striding +forward close to the edge, flung up his arms, staggered sideways, seemed +to Graham's sense to hang over the edge for several seconds, and fell +headlong down. Graham saw him strike a projecting corner, fly out, head +over heels, head over heels, and vanish behind the red arm of the +building machine. + +And then a shadow came between Graham and the sun. He looked up and the +sky was clear, but he knew the little monoplane had passed. Ostrog had +vanished. The man in yellow thrust before him, zealous and perspiring, +pointing and blatant. + +"They are grounding!" cried the man in yellow. "They are grounding. Tell +the people to fire at him. Tell them to fire at him!" + +Graham could not understand. He heard loud voices repeating these +enigmatical orders. + +Suddenly he saw the prow of the monoplane come gliding over the edge of +the ruins and stop with a jerk. In a moment Graham understood that the +thing had grounded in order that Ostrog might escape by it. He saw a blue +haze climbing out of the gulf, perceived that the people below him were +now firing up at the projecting stem. + +A man beside him cheered hoarsely, and he saw that the blue rebels had +gained the archway that had been contested by the men in black and +yellow a moment before, and were running in a continual stream along the +open passage. + +And suddenly the monoplane slipped over the edge of the Council House and +fell like a diving swallow. It dropped, tilting at an angle of forty-five +degrees, so steeply that it seemed to Graham, it seemed perhaps to most +of those below, that it could not possibly rise again. + +It fell so closely past him that he could see Ostrog clutching the guides +of the seat, with his grey hair streaming; see the white-faced aeronaut +wrenching over the lever that turned the machine upward. He heard the +apprehensive vague cry of innumerable men below. + +Graham clutched the railing before him and gasped. The second seemed an +age. The lower vane of the monoplane passed within an ace of touching the +people, who yelled and screamed and trampled one another below. + +And then it rose. + +For a moment it looked as if it could not possibly clear the opposite +cliff, and then that it could not possibly clear the wind-wheel that +rotated beyond. + +And behold! it was clear and soaring, still heeling sideways, upward, +upward into the wind-swept sky. + +The suspense of the moment gave place to a fury of exasperation as the +swarming people realised that Ostrog had escaped them. With belated +activity they renewed their fire, until the rattling wove into a roar, +until the whole area became dim and blue and the air pungent with the +thin smoke of their weapons. + +Too late! The flying machine dwindled smaller and smaller, and curved +about and swept gracefully downward to the flying stage from which it had +so lately risen. Ostrog had escaped. + +For a while a confused babblement arose from the ruins, and then the +universal attention came back to Graham, perched high among the +scaffolding. He saw the faces of the people turned towards him, heard +their shouts at his rescue. From the throat of the ways came the song of +the revolt spreading like a breeze across that swaying sea of men. + +The little group of men about him shouted congratulations on his escape. +The man in yellow was close to him, with a set face and shining eyes. And +the song was rising, louder and louder; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. + +Slowly the realisation came of the full meaning of these things to him, +the perception of the swift change in his position. Ostrog, who had stood +beside him whenever he had faced that shouting multitude before, was +beyond there--the antagonist. There was no one to rule for him any +longer. Even the people about him, the leaders and organisers of the +multitude, looked to see what he would do, looked to him to act, awaited +his orders. He was king indeed. His puppet reign was at an end. + +He was very intent to do the thing that was expected of him. His nerves +and muscles were quivering, his mind was perhaps a little confused, but +he felt neither fear nor anger. His hand that had been trodden upon +throbbed and was hot. He was a little nervous about his bearing. He knew +he was not afraid, but he was anxious not to seem afraid. In his former +life he had often been more excited in playing games of skill. He was +desirous of immediate action, he knew he must not think too much in +detail of the huge complexity of the struggle about him lest be should be +paralysed by the sense of its intricacy. + +Over there those square blue shapes, the flying stages, meant Ostrog; +against Ostrog, who was so clear and definite and decisive, he who was so +vague and undecided, was fighting for the whole future of the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +GRAHAM SPEAKS HIS WORD + + +For a time the Master of the Earth was not even master of his own mind. +Even his will seemed a will not his own, his own acts surprised him and +were but a part of the confusion of strange experiences that poured +across his being. These things were definite, the negroes were coming, +Helen Wotton had warned the people of their coming, and he was Master of +the Earth. Each of these facts seemed struggling for complete possession +of his thoughts. They protruded from a background of swarming halls, +elevated passages, rooms jammed with ward leaders in council, +kinematograph and telephone rooms, and windows looking out on a seething +sea of marching men. The men in yellow, and men whom he fancied were +called Ward Leaders, were either propelling him forward or following him +obediently; it was hard to tell. Perhaps they were doing a little of +both. Perhaps some power unseen and unsuspected propelled them all. He +was aware that he was going to make a proclamation to the People of the +Earth, aware of certain grandiose phrases floating in his mind as the +thing he meant to say. Many little things happened, and then he found +himself with the man in yellow entering a little room where this +proclamation of his was to be made. + +This room was grotesquely latter-day in its appointments. In the centre +was a bright oval lit by shaded electric lights from above. The rest was +in shadow, and the double finely fitting doors through which he came from +the swarming Hall of the Atlas made the place very still. The dead thud +of these as they closed behind him, the sudden cessation of the tumult in +which he had been living for hours, the quivering circle of light, the +whispers and quick noiseless movements of vaguely visible attendants in +the shadows, had a strange effect upon Graham. The huge ears of a +phonographic mechanism gaped in a battery for his words, the black eyes +of great photographic cameras awaited his beginning, beyond metal rods +and coils glittered dimly, and something whirled about with a droning +hum. He walked into the centre of the light, and his shadow drew together +black and sharp to a little blot at his feet. + +The vague shape of the thing he meant to say was already in his mind. But +this silence, this isolation, the withdrawal from that contagious crowd, +this audience of gaping, glaring machines, had not been in his +anticipation. All his supports seemed withdrawn together; he seemed to +have dropped into this suddenly, suddenly to have discovered himself. In +a moment he was changed. He found that he now feared to be inadequate, he +feared to be theatrical, he feared the quality of his voice, the quality +of his wit; astonished, he turned to the man in yellow with a +propitiatory gesture. "For a moment," he said, "I must wait. I did not +think it would be like this. I must think of the thing I have to say." + +While he was still hesitating there came an agitated messenger with news +that the foremost aeroplanes were passing over Madrid. + +"What news of the flying stages?" he asked. + +"The people of the south-west wards are ready." + +"Ready!" + +He turned impatiently to the blank circles of the lenses again. + +"I suppose it must be a sort of speech. Would to God I knew certainly the +thing that should be said! Aeroplanes at Madrid! They must have started +before the main fleet. + +"Oh! what can it matter whether I speak well or ill?" he said, and felt +the light grow brighter. + +He had framed some vague sentence of democratic sentiment when suddenly +doubts overwhelmed him. His belief in his heroic quality and calling he +found had altogether lost its assured conviction. The picture of a +little strutting futility in a windy waste of incomprehensible +destinies replaced it. Abruptly it was perfectly clear to him that this +revolt against Ostrog was premature, foredoomed to failure, the impulse +of passionate inadequacy against inevitable things. He thought of that +swift flight of aeroplanes like the swoop of Fate towards him. He was +astonished that he could have seen things in any other light. In that +final emergency he debated, thrust debate resolutely aside, determined +at all costs to go through with the thing he had undertaken. And he +could find no word to begin. Even as he stood, awkward, hesitating, +with an indiscreet apology for his inability trembling on his lips, +came the noise of many people crying out, the running to and fro of +feet. "Wait," cried someone, and a door opened. Graham turned, and the +watching lights waned. + +Through the open doorway he saw a slight girlish figure approaching. His +heart leapt. It was Helen Wotton. The man in yellow came out of the +nearer shadows into the circle of light. + +"This is the girl who told us what Ostrog had done," he said. + +She came in very quietly, and stood still, as if she did not want to +interrupt Graham's eloquence.... But his doubts and questionings fled +before her presence. He remembered the things that he had meant to say. +He faced the cameras again and the light about him grew brighter. He +turned back to her. + +"You have helped me," he said lamely--"helped me very much.... This is +very difficult." + +He paused. He addressed himself to the unseen multitudes who stared upon +him through those grotesque black eyes. At first he spoke slowly. + +"Men and women of the new age," he said; "you have arisen to do battle +for the race!... There is no easy victory before us." + +He stopped to gather words. He wished passionately for the gift of +moving speech. + +"This night is a beginning," he said. "This battle that is coming, this +battle that rushes upon us to-night, is only a beginning. All your lives, +it may be, you must fight. Take no thought though I am beaten, though I +am utterly overthrown. I think I may be overthrown." + +He found the thing in his mind too vague for words. He paused +momentarily, and broke into vague exhortations, and then a rush of speech +came upon him. Much that he said was but the humanitarian commonplace of +a vanished age, but the conviction of his voice touched it to vitality. +He stated the case of the old days to the people of the new age, to the +girl at his side. + +"I come out of the past to you," he said, "with the memory of an age +that hoped. My age was an age of dreams--of beginnings, an age of noble +hopes; throughout the world we had made an end of slavery; throughout the +world we had spread the desire and anticipation that wars might cease, +that all men and women might live nobly, in freedom and peace.... So we +hoped in the days that are past. And what of those hopes? How is it with +man after two hundred years? + +"Great cities, vast powers, a collective greatness beyond our dreams. For +that we did not work, and that has come. But how is it with the little +lives that make up this greater life? How is it with the common lives? As +it has ever been--sorrow and labour, lives cramped and unfulfilled, lives +tempted by power, tempted by wealth, and gone to waste and folly. The old +faiths have faded and changed, the new faith--. Is there a new faith? + +"Charity and mercy," he floundered; "beauty and the love of beautiful +things--effort and devotion! Give yourselves as I would give myself--as +Christ gave Himself upon the Cross. It does not matter if you understand. +It does not matter if you seem to fail. You _know_--in the core of your +hearts you _know_. There is no promise, there is no security--nothing to +go upon but Faith. There is no faith but faith--faith which is +courage...." + +Things that he had long wished to believe, he found that he believed. He +spoke gustily, in broken incomplete sentences, but with all his heart and +strength, of this new faith within him. He spoke of the greatness of +self-abnegation, of his belief in an immortal life of Humanity in which +we live and move and have our being. His voice rose and fell, and the +recording appliances hummed as he spoke, dim attendants watched him out +of the shadow.... + +His sense of that silent spectator beside him sustained his sincerity. +For a few glorious moments he was carried away; he felt no doubt of his +heroic quality, no doubt of his heroic words, he had it all straight and +plain. His eloquence limped no longer. And at last he made an end to +speaking. "Here and now," he cried, "I make my will. All that is mine in +the world I give to the people of the world. All that is mine in the +world I give to the people of the world. To all of you. I give it to you, +and myself I give to you. And as God wills to-night, I will live for you, +or I will die." + +He ended. He found the light of his present exaltation reflected in the +face of the girl. Their eyes met; her eyes were swimming with tears of +enthusiasm. + +"I knew," she whispered. "Oh! Father of the World--_Sire_! I knew you +would say these things...." + +"I have said what I could," he answered lamely and grasped and clung to +her outstretched hands. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +WHILE THE AEROPLANES WERE COMING + + +The man in yellow was beside them. Neither had noted his coming. He was +saying that the south-west wards were marching. "I never expected it so +soon," he cried. "They have done wonders. You must send them a word to +help them on their way." + +Graham stared at him absent-mindedly. Then with a start he returned to +his previous preoccupation about the flying stages. + +"Yes," he said. "That is good, that is good." He weighed a message. "Tell +them;--well done South West." + +He turned his eyes to Helen Wotton again. His face expressed his struggle +between conflicting ideas. "We must capture the flying stages," he +explained. "Unless we can do that they will land negroes. At all costs we +must prevent that." + +He felt even as he spoke that this was not what had been in his mind +before the interruption. He saw a touch of surprise in her eyes. She +seemed about to speak and a shrill bell drowned her voice. + +It occurred to Graham that she expected him to lead these marching +people, that that was the thing he had to do. He made the offer abruptly. +He addressed the man in yellow, but he spoke to her. He saw her face +respond. "Here I am doing nothing," he said. + +"It is impossible," protested the man in yellow. "It is a fight in a +warren. Your place is here." + +He explained elaborately. He motioned towards the room where Graham must +wait, he insisted no other course was possible. "We must know where you +are," he said. "At any moment a crisis may arise needing your presence +and decision." + +A picture had drifted through his mind of such a vast dramatic struggle +as the masses in the ruins had suggested. But here was no spectacular +battle-field such as he imagined. Instead was seclusion--and suspense. It +was only as the afternoon wore on that he pieced together a truer picture +of the fight that was raging, inaudibly and invisibly, within four miles +of him, beneath the Roehampton stage. A strange and unprecedented contest +it was, a battle that was a hundred thousand little battles, a battle in +a sponge of ways and channels, fought out of sight of sky or sun under +the electric glare, fought out in a vast confusion by multitudes +untrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by +mindless labour and enervated by the tradition of two hundred years of +servile security against multitudes demoralised by lives of venial +privilege and sensual indulgence. They had no artillery, no +differentiation into this force or that; the only weapon on either side +was the little green metal carbine, whose secret manufacture and sudden +distribution in enormous quantities had been one of Ostrog's culminating +moves against the Council. Few had had any experience with this weapon, +many had never discharged one, many who carried it came unprovided with +ammunition; never was wilder firing in the history of warfare. It was a +battle of amateurs, a hideous experimental warfare, armed rioters +fighting armed rioters, armed rioters swept forward by the words and fury +of a song, by the tramping sympathy of their numbers, pouring in +countless myriads towards the smaller ways, the disabled lifts, the +galleries slippery with blood, the halls and passages choked with smoke, +beneath the flying stages, to learn there when retreat was hopeless the +ancient mysteries of warfare. And overhead save for a few sharpshooters +upon the roof spaces and for a few bands and threads of vapour that +multiplied and darkened towards the evening, the day was a clear +serenity. Ostrog it seems had no bombs at command and in all the earlier +phases of the battle the flying machines played no part. Not the smallest +cloud was there to break the empty brilliance of the sky. It seemed as +though it held itself vacant until the aeroplanes should come. + +Ever and again there was news of these, drawing nearer, from this Spanish +town and then that, and presently from France. But of the new guns that +Ostrog had made and which were known to be in the city came no news in +spite of Graham's urgency, nor any report of successes from the dense +felt of fighting strands about the flying stages. Section after section +of the Labour-Societies reported itself assembled, reported itself +marching, and vanished from knowledge into the labyrinth of that warfare. +What was happening there? Even the busy ward leaders did not know. In +spite of the opening and closing of doors, the hasty messengers, the +ringing of bells and the perpetual clitter-clack of recording implements, +Graham felt isolated, strangely inactive, inoperative. + +His isolation seemed at times the strangest, the most unexpected of all +the things that had happened since his awakening. It had something of +the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the +stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself, +and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces and bells +and broken mirror! + +Now the door would be closed and Graham and Helen were alone together; +they seemed sharply marked off then from all the unprecedented world +storm that rushed together without, vividly aware of one another, only +concerned with one another. Then the door would open again, messengers +would enter, or a sharp bell would stab their quiet privacy, and it was +like a window in a well built brightly lit house flung open suddenly to a +hurricane. The dark hurry and tumult, the stress and vehemence of the +battle rushed in and overwhelmed them. They were no longer persons but +mere spectators, mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion. They became +unreal even to themselves, miniatures of personality, indescribably +small, and the two antagonistic realities, the only realities in being +were first the city, that throbbed and roared yonder in a belated frenzy +of defence and secondly the aeroplanes hurling inexorably towards them +over the round shoulder of the world. + +There came a sudden stir outside, a running to and fro, and cries. The +girl stood up, speechless, incredulous. + +Metallic voices were shouting "Victory!" Yes it was "Victory!" + +Bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled and +dishevelled with excitement, "Victory," he cried, "victory! The people +are winning. Ostrog's people have collapsed." + +She rose. "Victory?" + +"What do you mean?" asked Graham. "Tell me! _What_?" + +"We have driven them out of the under galleries at Norwood, Streatham is +afire and burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours. _Ours_!--and we have +taken the monoplane that lay thereon." + +A shrill bell rang. An agitated grey-headed man appeared from the room of +the Ward Leaders. "It is all over," he cried. + +"What matters it now that we have Roehampton? The aeroplanes have been +sighted at Boulogne!" + +"The Channel!" said the man in yellow. He calculated swiftly. +"Half an hour." + +"They still have three of the flying stages," said the old man. + +"Those guns?" cried Graham. + +"We cannot mount them--in half an hour." + +"Do you mean they are found?" + +"Too late," said the old man. + +"If we could stop them another hour!" cried the man in yellow. + +"Nothing can stop them now," said the old man. "They have near a hundred +aeroplanes in the first fleet." + +"Another hour?" asked Graham. + +"To be so near!" said the Ward Leader. "Now that we have found +those guns. To be so near--. If once we could get them out upon the +roof spaces." + +"How long would that take?" asked Graham suddenly. + +"An hour--certainly." + +"Too late," cried the Ward Leader, "too late." + +"_Is_ it too late?" said Graham. "Even now--. An hour!" + +He had suddenly perceived a possibility. He tried to speak calmly, but +his face was white. "There is are chance. You said there was a +monoplane--?" + +"On the Roehampton stage, Sire." + +"Smashed?" + +"No. It is lying crossways to the carrier. It might be got upon the +guides--easily. But there is no aeronaut--." + +Graham glanced at the two men and then at Helen. He spoke after a long +pause. "_We_ have no aeronauts?" + +"None." + +He turned suddenly to Helen. His decision was made. "I must do it." + +"Do what?" + +"Go to this flying stage--to this machine." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I am an aeronaut. After all--. Those days for which you reproached me +were not altogether wasted." + +He turned to the old man in yellow. "Tell them to put it upon the +guides." + +The man in yellow hesitated. + +"What do you mean to do?" cried Helen. + +"This monoplane--it is a chance--." + +"You don't mean--?" + +"To fight--yes. To fight in the air. I have thought before--. A big +aeroplane is a clumsy thing. A resolute man--!" + +"But--never since flying began--" cried the man in yellow. + +"There has been no need. But now the time has come. Tell them now--send +them my message--to put it upon the guides. I see now something to do. I +see now why I am here!" + +The old man dumbly interrogated the man in yellow nodded, and +hurried out. + +Helen made a step towards Graham. Her face was white. "But, Sire!--How +can one fight? You will be killed." + +"Perhaps. Yet, not to do it--or to let some one else attempt it--." + +"You will be killed," she repeated. + +"I've said my word. Do you not see? It may save--London!" + +He stopped, he could speak no more, he swept the alternative aside by a +gesture, and they stood looking at one another. + +They were both clear that he must go. There was no step back from these +towering heroisms. + +Her eyes brimmed with tears. She came towards him with a curious movement +of her hands, as though she felt her way and could not see; she seized +his hand and kissed it. + +"To wake," she cried, "for this!" + +He held her clumsily for a moment, and kissed the hair of her bowed head, +and then thrust her away, and turned towards the man in yellow. + +He could not speak. The gesture of his arm said "Onward." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE COMING OF THE AEROPLANES + + +Two men in pale blue were lying in the irregular line that stretched +along the edge of the captured Roehampton stage from end to end, grasping +their carbines and peering into the shadows of the stage called Wimbledon +Park. Now and then they spoke to one another. They spoke the mutilated +English of their class and period. The fire of the Ostrogites had +dwindled and ceased, and few of the enemy had been seen for some time. +But the echoes of the fight that was going on now far below in the lower +galleries of that stage, came every now and then between the staccato of +shots from the popular side. One of these men was describing to the other +how he had seen a man down below there dodge behind a girder, and had +aimed at a guess and hit him cleanly as he dodged too far. "He's down +there still," said the marksman. "See that little patch. Yes. Between +those bars." + +A few yards behind them lay a dead stranger, face upward to the sky, with +the blue canvas of his jacket smouldering in a circle about the neat +bullet hole on his chest. Close beside him a wounded man, with a leg +swathed about, sat with an expressionless face and watched the progress +of that burning. Behind them, athwart the carrier lay the captured +monoplane. + +"I can't see him _now_," said the second man in a tone of provocation. + +The marksman became foul-mouthed and high-voiced in his earnest +endeavour to make things plain. And suddenly, interrupting him, came a +noisy shouting from the substage. + +"What's going on now?" he said, and raised himself on one arm to survey +the stairheads in the central groove of the stage. A number of blue +figures were coming up these, and swarming across the stage. + +"We don't want all these fools," said his friend. "They only crowd up and +spoil shots. What are they after?" + +"Ssh!--they're shouting something." + +The two men listened. The new-comers had crowded densely about the +machine. Three Ward Leaders, conspicuous by their black mantles and +badges, clambered into the body and appeared above it. The rank and file +flung themselves upon the vans, gripping hold of the edges, until the +entire outline of the thing was manned, in some places three deep. One of +the marksmen knelt up. "They're putting it on the carrier--that's what +they're after." + +He rose to his feet, his friend rose also. "What's the good?" said his +friend. "We've got no aeronauts." + +"That's what they're doing anyhow." He looked at his rifle, looked at the +struggling crowd, and suddenly turned to the wounded man. "Mind these, +mate," he said, handing his carbine and cartridge belt; and in a moment +he was running towards the monoplane. For a quarter of an hour he was +lugging, thrusting, shouting and heeding shouts, and then the thing was +done, and he stood with a multitude of others cheering their own +achievement. By this time he knew, what indeed everyone in the city knew, +that the Master, raw learner though he was, intended to fly this machine +himself, was coming even now to take control of it, would let no other +man attempt it. + +"He who takes the greatest danger, he who bears the heaviest burden, +that man is King," so the Master was reported to have spoken. And even as +this man cheered, and while the beads of sweat still chased one another +from the disorder of his hair, he heard the thunder of a greater tumult, +and in fitful snatches the beat and impulse of the revolutionary song. He +saw through a gap in the people that a thick stream of heads still poured +up the stairway. "The Master is coming," shouted voices, "the Master is +coming," and the crowd about him grew denser and denser. He began to +thrust himself towards the central groove. "The Master is coming!" "The +Sleeper, the Master!" "God and the Master!" roared the voices. + +And suddenly quite close to him were the black uniforms of the +revolutionary guard, and for the first and last time in his life he saw +Graham, saw him quite nearly. A tall, dark man in a flowing black robe he +was, with a white, resolute face and eyes fixed steadfastly before him; a +man who for all the little things about him had neither ears nor eyes nor +thoughts.... + +For all his days that man remembered the passing of Graham's bloodless +face. In a moment it had gone and he was fighting in the swaying crowd. A +lad weeping with terror thrust against him, pressing towards the +stairways, yelling "Clear for the start, you fools!" The bell that +cleared the flying stage became a loud unmelodious clanging. + +With that clanging in his ears Graham drew near the monoplane, marched +into the shadow of its tilting wing. He became aware that a number of +people about him were offering to accompany him, and waved their offers +aside. He wanted to think how one started the engine. The bell clanged +faster and faster, and the feet of the retreating people roared faster +and louder. The man in yellow was assisting him to mount through the ribs +of the body. He clambered into the aeronaut's place, fixing himself very +carefully and deliberately. What was it? The man in yellow was pointing +to two small flying machines driving upward in the southern sky. No doubt +they were looking for the coming aeroplanes. That--presently--the thing +to do now was to start. Things were being shouted at him, questions, +warnings. They bothered him. He wanted to think about the machine, to +recall every item of his previous experience. He waved the people from +him, saw the man in yellow dropping off through the ribs, saw the crowd +cleft down the line of the girders by his gesture. + +For a moment he was motionless, staring at the levers, the wheel by which +the engine shifted, and all the delicate appliances of which he knew so +little. His eye caught a spirit level with the bubble towards him, and he +remembered something, spent a dozen seconds in swinging the engine +forward until the bubble floated in the centre of the tube. He noted that +the people were not shouting, knew they watched his deliberation. A +bullet smashed on the bar above his head. Who fired? Was the line clear +of people? He stood up to see and sat down again. + +In another second the propeller was spinning and he was rushing down the +guides. He gripped the wheel and swung the engine back to lift the stem. +Then it was the people shouted. In a moment he was throbbing with the +quiver of the engine, and the shouts dwindled swiftly behind, rushed down +to silence. The wind whistled over the edges of the screen, and the world +sank away from him very swiftly. + +Throb, throb, throb--throb, throb, throb; up he drove. He fancied +himself free of all excitement, felt cool and deliberate. He lifted the +stem still more, opened one valve on his left wing and swept round and +up. He looked down with a steady head, and up. One of the Ostrogite +monoplanes was driving across his course, so that he drove obliquely +towards it and would pass below it at a steep angle. Its little +aeronauts were peering down at him. What did they mean to do? His mind +became active. One, he saw held a weapon pointing, seemed prepared to +fire. What did they think he meant to do? In a moment he understood +their tactics, and his resolution was taken. His momentary lethargy was +past. He opened two more valves to his left, swung round, end on to this +hostile machine, closed his valves, and shot straight at it, stem and +wind-screen shielding him from the shot. They tilted a little as if to +clear him. He flung up his stem. + +Throb, throb, throb--pause--throb, throb--he set his teeth, his face into +an involuntary grimace, and crash! He struck it! He struck upward beneath +the nearer wing. + +Very slowly the wing of his antagonist seemed to broaden as the impetus +of his blow turned it up. He saw the full breadth of it and then it slid +downward out of his sight. + +He felt his stem going down, his hands tightened on the levers, whirled +and rammed the engine back. He felt the jerk of a clearance, the nose of +the machine jerked upward steeply, and for a moment he seemed to be +lying on his back. The machine was reeling and staggering, it seemed to +be dancing on its screw. He made a huge effort, hung for a moment on the +levers, and slowly the engine came forward again. He was driving upward +but no longer so steeply. He gasped for a moment and flung himself at the +levers again. The wind whistled about him. One further effort and he was +almost level. He could breathe. He turned his head for the first time to +see what had become of his antagonists. Turned back to the levers for a +moment and looked again. For a moment he could have believed they were +annihilated. And then he saw between the two stages to the east was a +chasm, and down this something, a slender edge, fell swiftly and +vanished, as a sixpence falls down a crack. + +At first he did not understand, and then a wild joy possessed him. He +shouted at the top of his voice, an inarticulate shout, and drove higher +and higher up the sky. Throb, throb, throb, pause, throb, throb, throb. +"Where was the other?" he thought. "They too--." As he looked round the +empty heavens he had a momentary fear that this second machine had risen +above him, and then he saw it alighting on the Norwood stage. They had +meant shooting. To risk being rammed headlong two thousand feet in the +air was beyond their latter-day courage.... + +For a little while he circled, then swooped in a steep descent towards +the westward stage. Throb throb throb, throb throb throb. The twilight +was creeping on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had been +so dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves of +the moving ways and the translucent roofs and domes and the chasms +between the buildings were glowing softly now, lit by the tempered +radiance of the electric light that the glare of the day overpowered. The +three efficient stages that the Ostrogites held--for Wimbledon Park was +useless because of the fire from Roehampton, and Streatham was a +furnace--were glowing with guide lights for the coming aeroplanes. As he +swept over the Roehampton stage he saw the dark masses of the people +thereon. He heard a clap of frantic cheering, heard a bullet from the +Wimbledon Park stage tweet through the air, and went beating up above the +Surrey wastes. He felt a breath of wind from the southwest, and lifted +his westward wing as he had learnt to do, and so drove upward heeling +into the rare swift upper air. Whirr, whirr, whirr. + +Up he drove and up, to that pulsating rhythm, until the country beneath +was blue and indistinct, and London spread like a little map traced in +light, like the mere model of a city near the brim of the horizon. The +southwest was a sky of sapphire over the shadowy rim of the world, and +ever as he drove upward the multitude of stars increased. + +And behold! In the southward, low down and glittering swiftly nearer, +were two little patches of nebulous light. And then two more, and then a +glow of swiftly driving shapes. Presently he could count them. There were +four and twenty. The first fleet of aeroplanes had come! Beyond appeared +a yet greater glow. + +He swept round in a half circle, staring at this advancing fleet. It flew +in a wedge-like shape, a triangular flight of gigantic phosphorescent +shapes sweeping nearer through the lower air. He made a swift calculation +of their pace, and spun the little wheel that brought the engine forward. +He touched a lever and the throbbing effort of the engine ceased. He +began to fall, fell swifter and swifter. He aimed at the apex of the +wedge. He dropped like a stone through the whistling air. It seemed +scarce a second from that soaring moment before he struck the foremost +aeroplane. + +No man of all that black multitude saw the coming of his fate, no man +among them dreamt of the hawk that struck downward upon him out of the +sky. Those who were not limp in the agonies of air-sickness, were craning +their black necks and staring to see the filmy city that was rising out +of the haze, the rich and splendid city to which "Massa Boss" had brought +their obedient muscles. Bright teeth gleamed and the glossy faces shone. +They had heard of Paris. They knew they were to have lordly times among +the poor white trash. + +Suddenly Graham hit them. + +He had aimed at the body of the aeroplane, but at the very last instant a +better idea had flashed into his mind. He twisted about and struck near +the edge of the starboard wing with all his accumulated weight. He was +jerked back as he struck. His prow went gliding across its smooth expanse +towards the rim. He felt the forward rush of the huge fabric sweeping him +and his monoplane along with it, and for a moment that seemed an age he +could not tell what was happening. He heard a thousand throats yelling, +and perceived that his machine was balanced on the edge of the gigantic +float, and driving down, down; glanced over his shoulder and saw the +backbone of the aeroplane and the opposite float swaying up. He had a +vision through the ribs of sliding chairs, staring faces, and hands +clutching at the tilting guide bars. The fenestrations in the further +float flashed open as the aeronaut tried to right her. Beyond, he saw a +second aeroplane leaping steeply to escape the whirl of its heeling +fellow. The broad area of swaying wings seemed to jerk upward. He felt he +had dropped clear, that the monstrous fabric, clean overturned, hung like +a sloping wall above him. + +He did not clearly understand that he had struck the side float of the +aeroplane and slipped off, but he perceived that he was flying free on +the down glide and rapidly nearing earth. What had he done? His heart +throbbed like a noisy engine in his throat and for a perilous instant he +could not move his levers because of the paralysis of his hands. He +wrenched the levers to throw his engine back, fought for two seconds +against the weight of it, felt himself righting, driving horizontally, +set the engine beating again. + +He looked upward and saw two aeroplanes glide shouting far overhead, +looked back, and saw the main body of the fleet opening out and rushing +upward and outward; saw the one he had struck fall edgewise on and strike +like a gigantic knife-blade along the wind-wheels below it. + +He put down his stern and looked again. He drove up heedless of his +direction as he watched. He saw the wind-vanes give, saw the huge fabric +strike the earth, saw its downward vanes crumple with the weight of its +descent, and then the whole mass turned over and smashed, upside down, +upon the sloping wheels. Then from the heaving wreckage a thin tongue of +white fire licked up towards the zenith. He was aware of a huge mass +flying through the air towards him, and turned upwards just in time to +escape the charge--if it was a charge--of a second aeroplane. It whirled +by below, sucked him down a fathom, and nearly turned him over in the +gust of its close passage. + +He became aware of three others rushing towards him, aware of the urgent +necessity of beating above them. Aeroplanes were all about him, circling +wildly to avoid him, as it seemed. They drove past him, above, below, +eastward and westward. Far away to the westward was the sound of a +collision, and two falling flares. Far away to the southward a second +squadron was coming. Steadily he beat upward. Presently all the +aeroplanes were below him, but for a moment he doubted the height he had +of them, and did not swoop again. And then he came down upon a second +victim and all its load of soldiers saw him coming. The big machine +heeled and swayed as the fear-maddened men scrambled to the stern for +their weapons. A score of bullets sung through the air, and there flashed +a star in the thick glass wind-screen that protected him. The aeroplane +slowed and dropped to foil his stroke, and dropped too low. Just in time +he saw the wind-wheels of Bromley hill rushing up towards him, and spun +about and up as the aeroplane he had chased crashed among them. All its +voices wove into a felt of yelling. The great fabric seemed to be +standing on end for a second among the heeling and splintering vans, and +then it flew to pieces. Huge splinters came flying through the air, its +engines burst like shells. A hot rush of flame shot overhead into the +darkling sky. + +"_Two_!" he cried, with a bomb from overhead bursting as it fell, and +forthwith he was beating up again. A glorious exhilaration possessed him +now, a giant activity. His troubles about humanity, about his inadequacy, +were gone for ever. He was a man in battle rejoicing in his power. +Aeroplanes seemed radiating from him in every direction, intent only upon +avoiding him, the yelling of their packed passengers came in short gusts +as they swept by. He chose his third quarry, struck hastily and did but +turn it on edge. It escaped him, to smash against the tall cliff of +London wall. Flying from that impact he skimmed the darkling ground so +nearly he could see a frightened rabbit bolting up a slope. He jerked up +steeply, and found himself driving over south London with the air about +him vacant. To the right of him a wild riot of signal rockets from the +Ostrogites banged tumultuously in the sky. To the south the wreckage of +half a dozen air ships flamed, and east and west and north they fled +before him. They drove away to the east and north, and went about in the +south, for they could not pause in the air. In their present confusion +any attempt at evolution would have meant disastrous collisions. + +He passed two hundred feet or so above the Roehampton stage. It was black +with people and noisy with their frantic shouting. But why was the +Wimbledon Park stage black and cheering, too? The smoke and flame of +Streatham now hid the three further stages. He curved about and rose to +see them and the northern quarters. First came the square masses of +Shooter's Hill into sight, from behind the smoke, lit and orderly with +the aeroplane that had landed and its disembarking negroes. Then came +Blackheath, and then under the corner of the reek the Norwood stage. On +Blackheath no aeroplane had landed. Norwood was covered by a swarm of +little figures running to and fro in a passionate confusion. Why? +Abruptly he understood. The stubborn defence of the flying stages was +over, the people were pouring into the under-ways of these last +strongholds of Ostrog's usurpation. And then, from far away on the +northern border of the city, full of glorious import to him, came a +sound, a signal, a note of triumph, the leaden thud of a gun. His lips +fell apart, his face was disturbed with emotion. + +He drew an immense breath. "They win," he shouted to the empty air; "the +people win!" The sound of a second gun came like an answer. And then he +saw the monoplane on Blackheath was running down its guides to launch. It +lifted clean and rose. It shot up into the air, driving straight +southward and away from him. + +In an instant it came to him what this meant. It must needs be Ostrog +in flight. He shouted and dropped towards it. He had the momentum of +his elevation and fell slanting down the air and very swiftly. It rose +steeply at his approach. He allowed for its velocity and drove +straight upon it. + +It suddenly became a mere flat edge, and behold! he was past it, and +driving headlong down with all the force of his futile blow. + +He was furiously angry. He reeled the engine back along its shaft and +went circling up. He saw Ostrog's machine beating up a spiral before +him. He rose straight towards it, won above it by virtue of the impetus +of his swoop and by the advantage and weight of a man. He dropped +headlong--dropped and missed again! As he rushed past he saw the face of +Ostrog's aeronaut confident and cool and in Ostrog's attitude a wincing +resolution. Ostrog was looking steadfastly away from him--to the south. +He realized with a gleam of wrath how bungling his flight must be. Below +he saw the Croydon hills. He jerked upward and once more he gained on +his enemy. + +He glanced over his shoulder and his attention was arrested. The +eastward stage, the one on Shooter's Hill, appeared to lift; a flash +changing to a tall grey shape, a cowled figure of smoke and dust, jerked +into the air. For a moment this cowled figure stood motionless, dropping +huge masses of metal from its shoulders, and then it began to uncoil a +dense head of smoke. The people had blown it up, aeroplane and all! As +suddenly a second flash and grey shape sprang up from the Norwood stage. +And even as he stared at this came a dead report; and the air wave of the +first explosion struck him. He was flung up and sideways. + +For a moment his monoplane fell nearly edgewise with her nose down, and +seemed to hesitate whether to overset altogether. He stood on his +wind-shield, wrenching the wheel that swayed up over his head. And then +the shock of the second explosion took his machine sideways. + +He found himself clinging to one of the ribs of his machine, and the +air was blowing past him and _upward_. He seemed to be hanging quite +still in the air, with the wind blowing up past him. It occurred to him +that he was falling. Then he was sure that he was falling. He could not +look down. + +He found himself recapitulating with incredible swiftness all that had +happened since his awakening, the days of doubt, the days of Empire, and +at last the tumultuous discovery of Ostrog's calculated treachery. + +The vision had a quality of utter unreality. Who was he? Why was he +holding so tightly with his hands? Why could he not let go? In such +a fall as this countless dreams have ended. But in a moment he +would wake.... + +His thoughts ran swifter and swifter. He wondered if he should see Helen +again. It seemed so unreasonable that he should not see her again. It +_must_ be a dream! Yet surely he would meet her. She at least was real. +She was real. He would wake and meet her. + +Although he could not look at it, he was suddenly aware that the earth +was very near. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sleeper Awakes, by H.G. Wells + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12163 *** |