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The Sleeper Awakes
By
H. G. Wells
Contents
CHAPTER
IV - THE SOUND OF A TUMULT
CHAPTER
VI - THE HALL OF THE ATLAS
CHAPTER
VII - IN THE SILENT ROOMS
CHAPTER
VIII - THE ROOF SPACES
CHAPTER
X - THE BATTLE OF THE DARKNESS
CHAPTER
XI - THE OLD MAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING..
CHAPTER
XIII - THE END OF THE OLD ORDER
CHAPTER
XIV - FROM THE CROW'S NEST
CHAPTER
XVIII - GRAHAM REMEMBERS
CHAPTER
XIX - OSTROG'S POINT OF VIEW
CHAPTER
XXII - THE STRUGGLE IN THE COUNCIL HOUSE.
CHAPTER
XXIII - GRAHAM SPEAKS HIS WORD
CHAPTER
XXIV - WHILE THE AEROPLANES WERE COMING..
CHAPTER
XXV - THE COMING OF THE AEROPLANES.
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 on=
e 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 construct=
ion
of the story. Except for certain streaks of a slovenliness which seems to b=
e 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 interl=
ude,
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 st=
ory.
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 g=
ot
hold of it. But fortune was against me. I came back to England from Italy o=
nly
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 alre=
ady
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 t=
he relations
of Helen Wotton and Graham. Haste in art is almost always vulgarisation, an=
d 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 disarrangem=
ent,
to clear all that objectionable stuff out of the story, and so a little eas=
e my
conscience on the score of this ungainly lapse. I have also, with a few str=
okes
of the pen, eliminated certain dishonest and regrettable suggestions that t=
he
People beat Ostrog. My Graham dies, as all his kind must die, with no certa=
inty
of either victory or defeat.
Who will win--Ost=
rog
or the People? A thousand years hence that will still be just the open ques=
tion
we leave to-day.
H.G. WELLS.
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 ro=
ck.
The hands of this man hung limply over his knees, his eyes were red and sta=
ring
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 hel=
pful
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 ad=
vice
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 power=
ful
drugs."
"That makes =
it
difficult," said Isbister.
He stood helpless=
ly
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,&qu=
ot;
he said in a tone of commonplace gossip, "but in those cases I have kn=
own,
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?&q=
uot;
suggested Isbister diffidently, with a glance from his interlocutor's face =
of
wretchedness to the touring costume he wore.
"That is wha=
t 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 th=
is
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 l=
ike
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 desi=
re
even in my heart. One thing at last I set myself to do.
"I said, I w=
ill
do this, and to do it, to overcome the inertia of this dull body, I resorte=
d to
drugs. Great God, I've had enough of drugs! I don't know if you feel the he=
avy
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 c=
omes
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 s=
leep.
Men seem to live for sleep. How little of a man's day is his own--even at t=
he
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."<= o:p>
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 discover=
ed.
"Certainly you must sleep."
"My mind is
perfectly lucid. It was never clearer. But I know I am drawing towards the
vortex. Presently--"
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"You have se=
en
things go down an eddy? Out of the light of the day, out of this sweet worl=
d of
sanity--down--"
"But,"
expostulated Isbister.
The man threw out=
a
hand towards him, and his eyes were wild, and his voice suddenly high. &quo=
t;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 cl=
iff
like that at Lulworth Cove--as high, anyhow--and a little girl fell from to=
p to
bottom. And lives to-day--sound and well."
"But those r=
ocks
there?"
"One might l=
ie
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 c=
liff
for the matter of that), really, as an artist--" He laughed. "It'=
s so
damned amateurish."
"But the oth=
er
thing," said the sleepless man irritably, "the other thing. No man
can keep sane if night after night--"
"Have you be=
en
walking along this coast alone?"
"Yes."<= o:p>
"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 the=
se
rocks!" cried the seated man with a sudden force of gesture. "Loo=
k at
that sea that has shone and quivered there for ever! See the white spume ru=
sh
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 rejoi=
ce
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 spo=
ke
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 m=
ade
a gesture of impatient rejection. "You get a night's sleep," he s=
aid,
"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 th=
is
exhausted being was companionship. He flung himself down on the steeply slo=
ping
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 Isbist=
er'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 tow=
ards
Boscastle, alleging the view into Blackapit, he submitted quietly. Halfway =
up
he began talking to himself, and abruptly turned a ghastly face on his help=
er.
"What can be happening?" he asked with a gaunt illustrative hand.
"What can be happening? Spin, spin, spin, spin. It goes round and roun=
d,
round and round for evermore."
He stood with his
hand circling.
"It's all ri=
ght,
old chap," said Isbister with the air of an old friend. "Don't wo=
rry
yourself. Trust to me,"
The man dropped h=
is
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 stoo=
d by
the seat that looks into the dark mysteries of Blackapit, and then he sat d=
own.
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 phras=
es.
"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.&q=
uot;
He stopped feebly=
.
"Don't troub=
le,
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 awhi=
le
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 a=
nd
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. &qu=
ot;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 sou=
nd
in his throat.
Isbister moved ab=
out
the room with the nervousness of an inexperienced host, making little remar=
ks
that scarcely required answering. He crossed the room to his portfolio, pla=
ced
it on the table and noticed the mantel clock.
"I don't kno=
w if
you'd care to have supper with me," he said with an unlighted cigarett=
e in
his hand--his mind troubled with ideas of a furtive administration of chlor=
al.
"Only cold mutton, you know, but passing sweet. Welsh. And a tart, I
believe." He repeated this after momentary silence.
The seated man ma=
de
no answer. Isbister stopped, match in hand, regarding him.
The stillness
lengthened. The match went out, the cigarette was put down unlit. The man w=
as
certainly very still. Isbister took up the portfolio, opened it, put it dow=
n,
hesitated, seemed about to speak. "Perhaps," he whispered doubtfu=
lly.
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 child=
ren
going along the road stopped and regarded the artist curiously. A boatman
exchanged civilities with him. He felt that possibly his circumspect attitu=
de
and position looked peculiar and unaccountable. Smoking, perhaps, might seem
more natural. He drew pipe and pouch from his pocket, filled the pipe slowl=
y.
"I wonder,&q=
uot;
... 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 land=
lady
behind him, coming with his lamp lit from the kitchen. He turned, gesticula=
ting
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 j=
udge
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; be=
came
conviction. Astonishment seized him and became--dread!
No sound of breat=
hing
came from the seated figure!
He crept slowly a=
nd
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 a=
nd
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 brin=
g a
light at once," he said in the passage. "There is something wrong
with my friend."
He returned to th=
e 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 whit=
e 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=
span>
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 fr=
om
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, f=
or
reasons that will appear later, these attempts were discontinued. For a gre=
at
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 swel=
led
and risen to an abrupt climax of silence. Where was the man? Where is any m=
an when
insensibility takes hold of him?
"It seems on=
ly
yesterday," said Isbister. "I remember it all as though it happen=
ed
yesterday--clearer, perhaps, than if it had happened yesterday."
It was the Isbist=
er
of the last chapter, but he was no longer a young man. The hair that had be=
en
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 fall=
en
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 wit=
h a
shrunken face and a stubby beard, lean limbs and lank nails, and about it w=
as a
case of thin glass. This glass seemed to mark off the sleeper from the real=
ity
of life about him, he was a thing apart, a strange, isolated abnormality. T=
he
two men stood close to the glass, peering in.
"The thing g=
ave
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 ne=
ver
seen him since that time?" asked Warming.
"Often wante=
d to
come," said Isbister; "but business nowadays is too serious a thi=
ng
for much holiday keeping. I've been in America most of the time."
"If I rememb=
er
rightly," said Warming, "you were an artist?"
"Was. And th=
en 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 Cl=
iffs
at Dover are by my people."
"Good
posters," admitted the solicitor, "though I was sorry to see them
there."
"Last as lon=
g as
the cliffs, if necessary," exclaimed Isbister with satisfaction. "=
;The
world changes. When he fell asleep, twenty years ago, I was down at Boscast=
le
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 recolle=
ct
aright."
"You came ba=
ck
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 pre=
sent
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!--whe=
rever
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?&q=
uot;
"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 co=
uld
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 stra=
nge
state," said Warming.
"It's a sort=
of
complete absence," said Isbister. "Here's the body, empty. Not de=
ad 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,&quo=
t;
said Warming, with a flash of pain in his expression.
They peered throu=
gh
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 wa=
king
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 resorte=
d to
to postpone collapse; he pointed them out to Warming, who had been trying n=
ot
to see them.
"And while he
has been lying here," said Isbister, with the zest of a life freely sp=
ent,
"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 look=
ing
forward to leaving Harvard. There's a touch of grey in my hair. And this ma=
n,
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 beginn=
ing
to end."
"And these
Martians."
"I've
understood," said Isbister after a pause, "that he had some moder=
ate
property of his own?"
"That is
so," said Warming. He coughed primly. "As it happens--I have char=
ge
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 busine=
ss
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?"<= o:p>
"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 b=
een
a lot of change certainly," said Warming. "And, among other chang=
es,
I have changed. I am an old man."
Isbister hesitate=
d,
and then feigned a belated surprise. "I shouldn't have thought it.&quo=
t;
"I was
forty-three when his bankers--you remember you wired to his bankers--sent o=
n 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 h=
ave
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 befor=
e 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,&quo=
t;
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 h=
as
been done."
"It wouldn't=
be
a bad idea to hand him over to some public body--the British Museum Trustee=
s,
or the Royal College of Physicians. Sounds a bit odd, of course, but the wh=
ole
situation is odd."
"The difficu=
lty
is to induce them to take him."
"Red tape, I
suppose?"
"Partly.&quo=
t;
Pause. "It's=
a
curious business, certainly," said Isbister. "And compound intere=
st
has a way of mounting up."
"It has,&quo=
t;
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 hi=
s 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.<= o:p>
"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 ma=
n of
considerable gifts, but spasmodic, emotional. He had grave domestic trouble=
s,
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. E=
nergetic--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 t=
he
world is of unanticipated things. He will have much to learn, much to unlea=
rn,
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 sudde=
n 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 AWAKENI=
NG
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 w=
ith
Graham at the end of his vast slumber. A dim cloud of sensation taking shap=
e, 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 perple=
xing
memories, strange creatures, strange scenery, as if from another planet. Th=
ere
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 awa=
re
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 miser=
y of
one who wakes towards the hour of dawn. He had an uncertain sense of whispe=
rs
and footsteps hastily receding.
The movement of h=
is
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 w=
hite
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 extrem=
ely.
Quite suddenly he rolled over, stared for a moment, and struggled into a
sitting position. The effort was unexpectedly difficult, and it left him gi=
ddy
and weak--and amazed.
He rubbed his eye=
s.
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 observ=
ed
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 framew=
ork
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 recognisab=
le.
The slightly gree=
nish
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. Clos=
e 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 o=
ne,
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, knock=
ing
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 lit=
tle
recovered he filled the remaining glass from the bottle and drank--a colour=
less
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 h=
ad
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 movemen=
ts,
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 stil=
l 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,&quo=
t;
that sweeping shadow had a note of its own in the subdued tumult that filled
the air.
He would have cal=
led
out, but only a little sound came into his throat. Then he stood up, and, w=
ith
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 d=
own
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 t=
he
balcony and with their backs to him, gesticulating and apparently in animat=
ed
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 b=
rightly
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 change=
d,
became rigid. The other two turned swiftly at his exclamation and stood
motionless. Their faces assumed an expression of consternation, an expressi=
on
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 the=
re
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 insist=
ent
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-ha=
ired
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?&quo=
t;
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 be=
en
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 strange=
ly.
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 th=
ing
resolved upon and somehow neglected. He cleared his throat.
"Have you wi=
red
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 se=
nd
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 th=
at,
sir." (Graham concluded the word was sir, but this man pronounced it
"Sire.")
"Oh!" s=
aid
Graham, and became quiet.
It was all very
puzzling, but apparently these people in unfamiliar dress knew what they we=
re
about. Yet they were odd and the room was odd. It seemed he was in some new=
ly
established place. He had a sudden flash of suspicion! Surely this wasn't s=
ome
hall of public exhibition! If it was he would give Warming a piece of his m=
ind.
But it scarcely had that character. And in a place of public exhibition he
would not have discovered himself naked.
Then suddenly, qu=
ite
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 assuranc=
e 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 th=
roat
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 t=
he
others.
"How long?&q=
uot;
"A very long
time."
"Yes--yes,&q=
uot;
said Graham, suddenly testy. "But I want--Is it--it is--some years? Ma=
ny
years? There was something--I forget what. I feel--confused. But you--"=
; He
sobbed. "You need not fence with me. How long--?"
He stopped, breat=
hing
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 m=
ore
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, a=
nd
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--? Wh=
at
was that? A couple of centuries!"
"Yes," =
said
the man with the red beard. "Two hundred years."
Graham repeated t=
he
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 sl=
owly
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--s=
ome
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 Cornwal=
l--it's
in the south-west country beyond the dairy meadows. There is a house there
still. I have been there."
"Boscastle!&=
quot;
Graham turned his eyes to the youngster. "That was it--Boscastle. Litt=
le
Boscastle. I fell asleep--somewhere there. I don't exactly remember. I don't
exactly remember."
He pressed his br=
ows
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 s=
aw
or spoke to before I went to sleep, must be dead."
They did not answ=
er
him.
"The Queen a=
nd
the Royal Family, her Ministers, Church and State. High and low, rich and p=
oor,
one with another ... Is there England still?"
"That's a
comfort! Is there London?"
"This is Lon=
don,
eh? And you are my assistant-custodian; assistant-custodian. And these--? E=
h?
Assistant-custodians too!"
He sat with a gau=
nt
stare on his face. "But why am I here? No! Don't talk. Be quiet. Let
me--"
He sat silent, ru=
bbed
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 we=
ep
naturally and refreshingly.
Presently he look=
ed
at their faces, suddenly laughed through his tears, a little foolishly.
"But--two--hun--dred--years!" he said. He grimaced hysterically a=
nd
covered his face again.
After a space he =
grew
calm. He sat up, his hands hanging over his knees in almost precisely the s=
ame
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 t=
he
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 al=
most
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 sai=
d in
a voice of extreme irritation. "You had better go."
"Go?" s=
aid
the red-bearded man.
"Certainly--=
go
now. But see the doorways are closed as you go."
The two men addre=
ssed
turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at Graham, and instead of goi=
ng
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 th=
eir
charge. He spoke clearly, but in phrases only partially intelligible to Gra=
ham.
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 s=
o,
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 a=
nd
went away. "You will very speedily have clothes," said the thicks=
et
man.
"Is it true
indeed, that I have been asleep two hundred--?" asked Graham.
"They have t=
old
you that, have they? Two hundred and three, as a matter of fact."
Graham accepted t=
he
indisputable now with raised eyebrows and depressed mouth. He sat silent fo=
r 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,&qu=
ot;
said the thickset man impatiently. "It's people. You'll understand bet=
ter
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 m=
an
turned and listened also. He cursed suddenly under his breath, and turned h=
is
eyes upon Graham with an unfriendly expression. It was a surge of many voic=
es,
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. Grah=
am
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 fr=
om
the balcony."
There was an
inaudible reply.
"Say he is n=
ot
awake. Anything! I leave it to you."
He came hurrying =
back
to Graham. "You must have clothes at once," he said. "You ca=
nnot
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 a=
bout
the Sleeper--that's you. They have some twisted idea. I don't know what it =
is. I
know nothing."
A shrill bell jet=
ted
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 li=
ft
came sliding down in front of the thickset man, and a lean, grey-bearded ma=
n,
carrying a roll, and wearing a tightly-fitting costume of dark green, appea=
red
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. B=
ut I
shall. I shall. You will be as rapid as possible?" he said to the tail=
or.
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 thicks=
et
man.
He opened the rol=
ler
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 alway=
s.
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 appea=
red
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,&q=
uot;
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 o=
ur
modern development. See here." The little figure repeated its evolutio=
ns,
but in a different costume. "Or this," and with a click another s=
mall
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 t=
hese
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 answe=
red
in guttural tones and with words Graham did not recognise. The boy then wen=
t 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 mo=
ving
a mechanism that initiated a faint-sounding rhythmic movement of parts in t=
he
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 flax=
en
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 blu=
ish
satin and the two began fixing this in the mechanism in a manner reminiscen=
t 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 wh=
ere
a twisted cable looped rather gracefully from the wall. They made some conn=
exion
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 sor=
t 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 expl=
ain.
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 com=
er,
he asked in an undertone, "Why is this man glaring at me? Is he a
mesmerist?"
"Mesmerist! =
He
is a capillotomist."
"Capillotomi=
st!"
"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. "S=
ixdoz
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 do=
zen,
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. Ve=
ry
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 yo=
ur
clothes!" he said. Graham turned round sharply and saw the tailor stan=
ding
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 mach=
ine
towards the lift by which he had arrived. Graham stared at the completed su=
it.
"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 furio=
us bell
summoned the thickset man to the corner. The man with the flaxen beard rush=
ed
across to him and then hurried out by the archway.
The tailor was
assisting Graham into a dark purple combination garment, stockings, vest, a=
nd
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 quick=
ly
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 unprece=
dented
way graceful.
"I must
shave," he said regarding himself in the glass.
"In a
moment," said Howard.
The persistent st=
are
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,&quo=
t;
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 politenes=
s.
"He is going to cut your hair."
"Oh!" c=
ried
Graham enlightened. "But you called him--"
"A
capillotomist--precisely! He is one of the finest artists in the world.&quo=
t;
Graham sat down
abruptly. The flaxen-bearded man disappeared. The capillotomist came forwar=
d,
examined Graham's ears and surveyed him, felt the back of his head, and wou=
ld
have sat down again to regard him but for Howard's audible impatience.
Forthwith with rapid movements and a succession of deftly handled implement=
s 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 inspir=
ed.
And as soon as he had finished Graham was handed a pair of shoes.
Suddenly a loud v=
oice
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 bei=
ng
stopped. Wait for nothing, but come."
This shout appear=
ed
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 oc=
currences
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 attractio=
n.
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 WA=
YS
He went to the railings of the balc=
ony
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 impress= ion was of overwhelming architecture. The place into which he looked was an ais= le of Titanic buildings, curving spaciously in either direction. Overhead migh= ty cantilevers sprang together across the huge width of the place, and a trace= ry of translucent material shut out the sky. Gigantic globes of cool white lig= ht shamed the pale sunbeams that filtered down through the girders and wires. = Here and there a gossamer suspension bridge dotted with foot passengers flung ac= ross the chasm and the air was webbed with slender cables. A cliff of edifice hu= ng 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 ste= ep 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 arre= sted 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 le= dge of masonry and handling some well-nigh invisible strings dependent from the li= ne. Then suddenly, with a swoop that sent Graham's heart into his mouth, this m= an 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. The= n he understood. Under the balcony this extraordinary roadway ran swiftly to Gra= ham's right, an endless flow rushing along as fast as a nineteenth century express train, an endless platform of narrow transverse overlapping slats with litt= le 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 ser= ies of others descended to the centre of the space. Each moved to the right, ea= ch 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 pac= e to Graham's left. And seated in crowds upon the two widest and swiftest platfo= rms, or stepping from one to another down the steps, or swarming over the central space, was an innumerable and wonderfully diversified multitude of people.<= o:p>
"You must not
stop here," shouted Howard suddenly at his side. "You must come a=
way
at once."
Graham made no
answer. He heard without hearing. The platforms ran with a roar and the peo=
ple
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 w=
ith
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 sor=
t 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, apparent=
ly
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, leap=
ing
dexterously from platform to platform. The clustering people on the higher
platforms seemed to divide their interest between this point and the balcon=
y. 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 antagoni=
sts,
for the struggle was indisputable.
He saw these thin=
gs
with Howard shouting in his ear and shaking his arm. And then suddenly Howa=
rd
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 empt=
y to
the right of him, and far across the space the platform running in the oppo=
site
direction was coming crowded and passing away bare. With incredible swiftne=
ss a
vast crowd had gathered in the central space before his eyes; a dense swayi=
ng
mass of people, and the shouts grew from a fitful crying to a voluminous
incessant clamour: "The Sleeper! The Sleeper!" and yells and chee=
rs,
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 r=
oad
nearest to him, were borne rapidly past him, shouting strange, unintelligib=
le
things, and ran back obliquely to the central way. One thing he distinguish=
ed:
"It is indeed the Sleeper. It is indeed the Sleeper," they testif=
ied.
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 th=
at
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 sudden=
ly
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 s=
top
the ways. The whole city will be in confusion."
He perceived a nu=
mber
of men hurrying along the passage of blue pillars behind Howard, the red-ha=
ired
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?&qu=
ot;
said Graham. "I don't see--"
"You must co=
me
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 drag=
ged
away. It seemed as though the tumult suddenly became two, as if half the sh=
outs
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 bl=
ue
pillars, and suddenly he found himself alone with Howard in a lift and movi=
ng
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 sle=
ep
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 irratio=
nal,
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, an=
d 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 uneasi=
ly
upward, as though he found the progress of the lift slow.
"I shall und=
erstand
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 a=
ll
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, al=
ong
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 so=
cial
trouble--that--in the great roadway place? How are you governed? Have you s=
till
a police?"
"Several,&qu=
ot;
said Howard.
"Several?&qu=
ot;
"About
fourteen."
"I don't
understand."
"Very probab=
ly
not. Our social order will probably seem very complex to you. To tell you t=
he
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 attentio=
n 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 vi=
sion
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 conducto=
r,
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 no=
t 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 pass=
age
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 va=
gue
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 t=
he
restoratives he had taken was only temporary. He was speedily fatigued by t=
his
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 clif=
fs
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 mi=
ghty
globes of light obscured everything. A man seated in a little openwork crad=
le
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 involuntari=
ly
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 individua=
ls
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 rhythmic= ally 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.<= o:p>
"I want to s=
ee
more of that," cried Graham, resisting.
"No, no,&quo=
t; 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 t=
he
end of a great chamber. The attendant in black and yellow crossed this, thr=
ust
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 bey=
ond.
He perceived white men in red and other negroes in black and yellow standing
stiffly about those portals.
As they crossed t=
he
gallery he heard a whisper from below, "The Sleeper," and was awa=
re
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 va=
lve
behind him.
Compared with any=
of
the places Graham had seen thus far, this second hall appeared to be decora=
ted
with extreme richness. On a pedestal at the remoter end, and more brilliant=
ly
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 st=
rike
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 gro=
up
of seven men who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of its prop=
ortions.
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 al=
ong
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 re=
main
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?"<= o:p>
"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!" s=
aid
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 p=
erceived
there were now eight, though how the newcomer had arrived he had not observ=
ed.
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 flo=
or 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 th=
at
visible inaudible conversation. Occasionally, one of the white-robed men wo=
uld
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 movi=
ng
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 g=
iant
at whose feet the Council sat. Thence they wandered to the walls of the hal=
l.
It was decorated in long painted panels of a quasi-Japanese type, many of t=
hem
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 en=
hanced
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 d=
rew
nearer his features could be distinguished, and Graham saw that he was flus=
hed
and blowing out his cheeks. His countenance was still disturbed when presen=
tly
he reappeared along the gallery.
"This way,&q=
uot;
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. How=
ard
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 be=
hind
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 ano=
ther
door, and they were in the first of two contiguous chambers furnished in wh=
ite
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 statem=
ent
would give you false impressions. As a matter of fact--it is a case of comp=
ound
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 gra=
ve
social troubles."
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"Things have
come to such a pass that, in fact, it is advisable to seclude you here.&quo=
t;
"Keep me
prisoner!" exclaimed Graham.
"Well--to ask
you to keep in seclusion."
Graham turned on =
him.
"This is strange!" he said.
"No harm wil=
l be
done you."
"No harm!&qu=
ot;
"But you mus=
t be
kept here--"
"While I lea=
rn
my position, I presume."
"Precisely.&=
quot;
"Very well t=
hen.
Begin. Why harm?"
"Not now.&qu=
ot;
"Why not?&qu=
ot;
"It is too l=
ong
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 becaus=
e 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 wa=
it.
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 t=
he
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 gr=
oup
of remote unsympathetic men beneath the colossal Atlas, Howard's mysterious
behaviour. There was an inkling of some vast inheritance already in his min=
d--a
vast inheritance perhaps misapplied--of some unprecedented importance and
opportunity. What had he to do? And this room's secluded silence was eloque=
nt
of imprisonment!
It came into Grah=
am's
mind with irresistible conviction that this series of magnificent impressio=
ns
was a dream. He tried to shut his eyes and succeeded, but that time-honoured
device led to no awakening.
Presently he bega=
n to
touch and examine all the unfamiliar appointments of the two small rooms in
which he found himself.
In a long oval pa= nel 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.<= o:p>
A flash of laught=
er
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 w=
ith
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 t=
o a
white consternation.
The tumultuous me=
mory
of the moving platforms and the huge façade of that wonderful street
reasserted itself. The shouting multitudes came back clear and vivid, and t=
hose
remote, inaudible, unfriendly councillors in white. He felt himself a little
figure, very small and ineffectual, pitifully conspicuous. And all about hi=
m,
the world was--strange.
CHAPTER VII - IN THE SILE=
NT
ROOMS
Presently Graham resumed his examin=
ation
of his apartments. Curiosity kept him moving in spite of his fatigue. The i=
nner
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 van=
es
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 plac=
e.
As these vanes sprang up one after the other, Graham could get transient gl=
impses
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 passag=
es
he had traversed with Howard he had observed no windows at all. Had there b=
een
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 nig=
ht
there?
And another thing
dawned upon him. There was no fireplace in either room. Was the season summ=
er, 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 arrangement=
s by
which the labour of bedroom service was practically abolished. And over
everything was a curious absence of deliberate ornament, a bare grace of fo=
rm
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 notic=
ed
there were no books, no newspapers, no writing materials. "The world h=
as
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 appar=
atus
about a yard square and having a white smooth face to the room. A chair fac=
ed
this. He had a transitory idea that these cylinders might be books, or a mo=
dern
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 notic=
ed a
suggestion of mutilated English about certain of the words.
"Thi Man huw=
dbi
Kin" forced itself on him as "The Man who would be King."
"Phonetic
spelling," he said. He remembered reading a story with that title, the=
n 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 tit=
les
of two adjacent cylinders. "The Heart of Darkness" he had never h=
eard
of before nor "The Madonna of the Future"--no doubt if they were
indeed stories, they were by post-Victorian authors.
He puzzled over t=
his
peculiar cylinder for some time and replaced it. Then he turned to the squa=
re
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 re=
gard
it.
On the flat surfa=
ce
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 cle=
ar
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!" s=
aid
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 th=
ing
remote and incredible. But in a little while he knew those two people like
intimate friends.
At last the minia=
ture
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 seeki=
ng,
energetic, subtle, a world too of dire economic struggle; there were allusi=
ons
he did not understand, incidents that conveyed strange suggestions of alter=
ed
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 contemporar=
y,
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 ru=
bbed
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 wa=
it
until someone came to him. Presently he became restless and eager for
information, for distraction, for fresh sensations.
He went back to t=
he
apparatus in the other room, and had soon puzzled out the method of replaci=
ng
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 a=
nd
understandable after two hundred years. The haphazard cylinders he substitu=
ted
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 ver=
sion
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 fanc=
y of
a fantastic, voluptuous writer.
He became interes=
ted,
curious. The story developed with a flavour of strangely twisted
sentimentality. Suddenly he did not like it. He liked it less as it proceed=
ed.
He had a revulsio=
n of
feeling. These were no pictures, no idealisations, but photographed realiti=
es.
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 i=
ndignation.
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 fo=
r a
means of stopping its action. Something snapped. A violet spark stung and c=
onvulsed
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 p=
ath
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 t=
hese
coming times. "We were making the future," he said, "and har=
dly
any of us troubled to think what future we were making. And here it is!&quo=
t;
"What have t=
hey
got to, what has been done? How do I come into the midst of it all?" T=
he
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 r=
ich
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 alr=
eady
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 tir=
ed,
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 fe=
lt
must be proceeding in the city.
He began to talk =
to
himself. "Two hundred and three years!" he said to himself over a=
nd
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 indisputabl=
e.
Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian atrocities as though it was yester=
day.
'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 t=
hey
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 si=
nce
dead, her magic influence now gone beyond corruption, of his rivals and fri=
ends
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 stud=
ies.
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 mirac=
le
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 t=
he
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, a=
ll
this elaborate contrivance to prevent him seeing, worked together in his mi=
nd.
Almost every possible interpretation of his position he debated--even as it
chanced, the right interpretation. Things that presently happened to him, c=
ame
to him at last credible, by virtue of this seclusion. When at length the mo=
ment
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 moment=
ous
happening. His enquiries became more definite and searching. Howard retreat=
ed
through protests and difficulties. The awakening was unforeseen, he repeate=
d;
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 s=
ome
way I am arbitrator--I might be arbitrator."
"It is not t=
hat.
But you have--I may tell you this much--the automatic increase of your prop=
erty
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 o=
ld
world notions, anyhow, ignorant as you are of every feature of our State.&q=
uot;
"Am I a
fool?"
"Certainly
not."
"Do I seem t=
o be
the sort of man who would act rashly?"
"You were ne=
ver
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 c=
rammed
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 beginn=
ing
to feel--every hour I feel more clearly--a system of concealment of which y=
ou
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 da=
y 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--e=
very
desire--every sort of desire ... There may be something. Is there any sort =
of
company?"
He paused meaning=
ly.
"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 paci=
ng
the room. Howard stood near the door watching him. The implication of Howar=
d's
suggestion was only half evident to Graham. Company? Suppose he were to acc=
ept
the proposal, demand some sort of company? Would there be any possibilities=
of
gathering from the conversation of this additional person some vague inklin=
g of
the struggle that had broken out so vividly at his waking moment? He medita=
ted
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 societ=
y,
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--discre=
et--"
Graham stopped de=
ad.
"It would pa=
ss
the time," said Howard. "It is a thing I should perhaps have thou=
ght
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 th=
at
pitiful question. I will not begin again. There is a city, a multitude--. A=
nd
meanwhile I am here like a rabbit in a bag."
His rage surged h=
igh.
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 kn=
ow
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 regard=
ing
him with a curious expression.
"I take it t=
his
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 s=
tood
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 mar=
ch
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 s=
et
to work to suggest things that might be done to him. The attempts of his re=
ason
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 ins=
tead
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 cen=
tury
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 exped=
ient
for us that one man should die for the people."
CHAPTER VIII - THE ROOF
SPACES
As the fans in the circular apertur=
e of
the inner room rotated and permitted glimpses of the night, dim sounds drif=
ted
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, swu=
ng
round and beat on with a little brownish patch on the edge of its thin blad=
e,
and something began to fall therefrom upon the floor, dripping silently.
Graham looked dow=
n,
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 flas=
hed
white, and then the darkness came again. Warmed and lit as he was, he perce=
ived
that it was snowing within a few feet of him.
Graham walked acr=
oss
the room and came back to the ventilator again. He saw the head of a man pa=
ss
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 whir=
led
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; h=
is
dark hair was wet with dissolving flakes of snow upon it. His arm went up i=
nto
the darkness holding something unseen. He had a youthful face and bright ey=
es,
and the veins of his forehead were swollen. He seemed to be exerting himsel=
f to
maintain his position.
For several secon=
ds
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?&quo=
t;
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 reappea=
red.
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 strug=
gle.
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. T=
he
released ventilator whirled noisily. The stranger rolled over, sprang up ni=
mbly
and stood panting, hand to a bruised shoulder, and with his bright eyes on
Graham.
"You are ind=
eed
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 her=
e. I
have been here since I awoke--at least three days."
The intruder seem=
ed
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 blo=
ws
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 the=
m,
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 s=
ee
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 ventila=
tor
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 agai=
n,
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 b=
ut
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 t=
he
latter start back, gesticulate to them to conceal themselves, and move as i=
f to
hide behind the opening door.
As he did so Howa=
rd
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 t=
he
door.
"Your
poison!" said a voice in Graham's ear.
Then abruptly they
were in darkness. The innumerable cornice lights had been extinguished. Gra=
ham
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 yel=
low
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 t=
he 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, t=
he
first-comer astride over Howard and still working at the door. Graham turne=
d to
the ladder again, and was thrust by his conductor and helped up by those ab=
ove,
and then he was standing on something hard and cold and slippery outside th=
e ventilating
funnel.
He shivered. He w=
as
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 mome=
nt
it was dark, then for a flash a ghastly violet white, and then everything w=
as
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 indist=
inct
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 whi=
te
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 w=
as
yet clear a dark shape gripped his arm. "This way," said this sha=
pe,
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 t=
he
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 runnin=
g.
"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 asid=
e to
follow this. Graham looked back, but the snowstorm had hidden the others.
"Come on!&qu=
ot;
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 ri=
m 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 fancie=
d 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 rush=
ed
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 abo=
ve 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 str=
eet
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 urgen=
cy
of his guide, he gave way to vertigo and lay spread-eagled on the glass, si=
ck
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 on=
ly 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!&q=
uot;
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 h=
is
way. At the edge he stumbled to his feet ankle deep in slush, thanking heav=
en
for an opaque footing again. His guide was already clambering up a metal sc=
reen
to a level expanse.
Through the spare
snowflakes above this loomed another line of vast windmills, and then sudde=
nly
the amorphous tumult of the rotating wheels was pierced with a deafening so=
und.
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 glo=
bes
of livid light. They receded in illimitable vistas in every direction. As f=
ar
as his eye could penetrate the snowfall they glared.
"Get on
this," cried Graham's conductor, and thrust him forward to a long grat=
ing
of snowless metal that ran like a band between two slightly sloping expanse=
s of
snow. It felt warm to Graham's benumbed feet, and a faint eddy of steam rose
from it.
"Come on!&qu=
ot;
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-whee=
ls.
Graham, recovering from his astonishment, followed as fast, convinced of his
imminent capture....
In a score of sec=
onds
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 pant=
ing
and stared out.
The scene upon wh=
ich
Graham looked was very wild and strange. The snow had now almost ceased; on=
ly a
belated flake passed now and again across the picture. But the broad stretc=
h of
level before them was a ghastly white, broken only by gigantic masses and
moving shapes and lengthy strips of impenetrable darkness, vast ungainly Ti=
tans
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 i=
nto
a luminous haze. Wherever the snow-spangled light struck down, beams and gi=
rders,
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 mechan=
ism
seemed void of all human presence save themselves, seemed as trackless and
deserted and unfrequented by men as some inaccessible Alpine snowfield.
"They will b=
e chasing
us," cried the leader. "We are scarcely halfway there yet. Cold a=
s it
is we must hide here for a space--at least until it snows more thickly
again."
His teeth chatter=
ed
in his head.
"Where are t=
he
markets?" asked Graham staring out. "Where are all the people?&qu=
ot;
The other made no
answer.
"Look!"
whispered Graham, crouched close, and became very still.
The snow had sudd=
enly
become thick again, and sliding with the whirling eddies out of the black p=
it
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 me=
n,
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 h=
is
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 w=
ith
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, h=
ad a
horrible sensation of sliding over the edge into the unfathomable, splashed,
and felt himself in a slushy gutter, impenetrably dark.
"This way,&q=
uot;
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 win=
dows
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. Sudden=
ly
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 w=
ere
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 w=
as a
faint cry. The man crouched motionless. Graham peered and saw his face diml=
y.
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 gr=
ew
larger. It was following the edge of the chasm towards them.
The man's movemen=
ts
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 substa=
nce.
"Put the cross between your legs," whispered the guide hysterical=
ly,
"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 t=
he
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. So=
mething
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 kne=
es
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 pass=
age
with the running ways, the hanging lights and interlacing girders. They rus=
hed
upward and by him. He had a momentary impression of a great round mouth yaw=
ning
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 apertur= e 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!&quo= t; The stage rushed up towards him with rapidly diminishing swiftness. Then--<= o:p>
He heard the man
clinging behind him shout as if suddenly terrified, and this shout was echo=
ed
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 fe=
lt
something soft against his extended hand, and the impact of a broken fall
quivering through his arm....
He wanted to be s=
till
and the people were lifting him. He believed afterwards he was carried to t=
he
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 boxe=
s.
If this was indeed a theatre.
A mighty tumult w=
as
in his ears, a thunderous roar, the shouting of a countless multitude. &quo=
t;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 surg=
ing
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 we=
re
balconies, galleries, great archways giving remoter perspectives, and
everywhere people, a vast arena of people, densely packed and cheering. Acr=
oss
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 unsteadi=
ly
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," a=
nd
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 tim=
e 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 M=
ARCH
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, eve=
n 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 d=
oor
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 t=
o 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!&qu=
ot;
he cried. "Who am I? Who am I?"
The others came
nearer to hear his words. "Who am I?" His eyes searched their fac=
es.
"They have t=
old
him nothing!" cried the girl.
"Tell me, te=
ll
me!" cried Graham.
"You are the
Master of the Earth. You are owner of the world."
He did not believ=
e he
heard aright. He resisted the persuasion. He pretended not to understand, n=
ot
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 peo=
ple
in this city--it is London?"
"Yes," =
said
the younger man.
"And those w=
ho
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 whi=
le 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 interferenc=
e."
"But why?&qu=
ot;
"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 t=
he
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, che=
er
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 dep=
uted
us. I am his brother--his half-brother, Lincoln. He wants you to show yours=
elf
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, tyrann=
ised.
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--. E=
ven
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 i=
s now
or never. The Council is rocking--They cannot trust even their drilled
men--"
"Hear the pe=
ople
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 shoutin=
g thousands
beyond the little doorway had rescued him. But why these things should be s=
o 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. "Sho=
w us
the Sleeper, show us the Sleeper!" was the burden of the uproar. Men w=
ere
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 toget=
her,
waving pale blue garments, extended hands. Many were standing, one man in r=
ags
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 ex=
pect
from him. He was dimly aware that the tumult outside had changed its charac=
ter,
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 re=
quired
of him.
Lincoln was shout=
ing
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 m=
ass
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 towa=
rds
the door. He obeyed mechanically. The strength of that chant took hold of h=
im,
stirred him, emboldened him. The hall opened to him, a vast welter of
fluttering colour swaying to the music.
"Wave your a=
rm
to them," said Lincoln. "Wave your arm to them."
"This,"
said a voice on the other side, "he must have this." Arms were ab=
out
his neck detaining him in the doorway, and a black subtly-folding mantle hu=
ng
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 va=
st
and intricate space--galleries, balconies, broad spaces of amphitheatral st=
eps,
and great archways. Far away, high up, seemed the mouth of a huge passage f=
ull
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 staf=
f.
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." A=
ll his
impressions were vague save the massive emotion of that trampling song. The
multitude were beating time with their feet--marking time, tramp, tramp, tr=
amp,
tramp. The green weapons waved, flashed and slanted. Then he saw those near=
est
to him on a level space before the stage were marching in front of him, pas=
sing
towards a great archway, shouting "To the Council!" Tramp, tramp,
tramp, tramp. He raised his arm, and the roaring was redoubled. He remember=
ed
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 bar=
e-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 monstro=
us
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, clambe=
red
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. M=
en
gesticulated to him, shouted inaudible personal things. Most of the faces w=
ere
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 passa=
ges.
Men and women mingled in the ranks; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The whole w=
orld
seemed marching. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; his brain was tramping. The
garments waved onward, the faces poured by more abundantly.
Tramp, tramp, tra=
mp,
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 directio=
n,
the flow of people smote downward until the upturned faces were below the l=
evel
of his feet. He was aware of a path before him, of a suite about him, of gu=
ards
and dignities, and Lincoln on his right hand. Attendants intervened, and ev=
er
and again blotted out the sight of the multitude to the left. Before him we=
nt
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 dippin=
g to
flow beneath, and shouting up to him. He did not know whither he went; he d=
id
not want to know. He glanced back across a flaming spaciousness of hall. Tr=
amp,
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, pou=
ring
along a huge vista, shouting as they came into view, shouting as they passe=
d,
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 u=
p to
Graham now, no longer upborne by music, but coarse and noisy, and the beati=
ng
of the marching feet, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, interwove with a thundero=
us
irregularity of footsteps from the undisciplined rabble that poured along t=
he
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 c=
ame
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 seeme=
d 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 awa=
re
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 chan=
ged,
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 lig=
ht
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 th=
ere
was only this roaring darkness, a black monstrosity that had suddenly swall=
owed
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 inad=
vertent
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 ou=
t 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 ed=
ge
of the further ways. By their light Graham saw the heads and bodies of a nu=
mber
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 instantan=
eous
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 mi=
nd.
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 fel=
l 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, t=
heir
backs against the pitiless cliff of building, and surrounded by a dense cro=
wd
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 lit=
tle flashes
from the green weapons became little jets of smoky grey while the light las=
ted.
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 h=
im
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 hal=
f-way
down the ways towards the central aisle. And raising his eyes Graham saw th=
at 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 belo=
w at
the boiling confusion of people on the lower ways. The meaning of these thi=
ngs
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 w=
hich
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 way=
s.
Then it seemed as though the whole face of the darkened building opposite w=
as
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 splas=
h of
silvery metal. He saw Lincoln near him. Felt his arm gripped. Then, pat, pa=
t;
he had been missed twice.
For a moment he d=
id
not understand this. The street was hidden, everything was hidden, as he
looked. The second flare had burned out.
Lincoln had gripp=
ed
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 th=
ey
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 year=
s.
He heard bullets whacking over his head, felt a splash of molten metal sting
his ear, and perceived without looking that the whole opposite façad=
e,
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, comin=
g,
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 ag=
ain,
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 momen=
tary
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 conf=
used
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 again=
st 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 st=
ar
must have been lit by the man on the cable. Its light came glaring in throu=
gh
vast windows and arches and showed Graham that he was now one of a dense ma=
ss
of flying black figures pressed back across the lower area of the great the=
atre.
This time the picture was livid and fragmentary, slashed and barred with bl=
ack
shadows. He saw that quite near to him the red guards were fighting their w=
ay
through the people. He could not tell whether they saw him. He looked for L=
incoln
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 towar=
ds
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 en=
d of
an ascending gangway. In the darkness the sound of firing ceased and the ro=
ar
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 f=
ifth
white star shone through the vast fenestrations of the theatre walls.
He rolled over am=
ong
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 s=
tray
shots ripped the pneumatic cushions and cut bright slashes on their soft me=
tal
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 fa=
ded
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 t=
he
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 sti=
ll
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 st=
ar
glared he was already close to the yawning throat of a passage. He ran on t=
he
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 directi=
on.
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 cross=
ed some
wide and open space, passed down a long incline, and came at last down a fl=
ight
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!" Th=
ere
were women and children in the crowd as well as men.
The crowd converg=
ed
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 se=
emed
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 gr=
oups
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 va=
gue
and grey, but he recognised that these great steps were a series of platfor=
ms
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 girde=
rs
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 j=
oin
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 w=
ere
fighting for him!
For a space he was
like a man who pauses in the reading of a vivid book, and suddenly doubts w=
hat
he has been taking unquestionably. At that time he had little mind for deta=
ils;
the whole effect was a huge astonishment. Oddly enough, while the flight fr=
om
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 h=
im
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 splendou=
rs
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 g=
reat
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 w=
hole
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 hunt=
ing
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 immen=
sity
of the twilight buildings, and it came to him as a thing infinitely wonderf=
ul,
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. H=
is
clothing had already dried upon him from the snow.
He wandered for m=
iles
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 crowd=
s,
or exceptional excitement, he was afraid of recognition, and watched and tu=
rned
back or went up and down by the middle stairways, into some transverse syst=
em
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 f=
rom
which he came. Ever and again a distant roaring, the remote suggestion of t=
hat
conflict, reached his ears. Then his caution and his curiosity struggled
together. But his caution prevailed, and he continued wandering away from t=
he
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 o=
f 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 knowle=
dge
of his vital implication in this struggle, would not let him rest in any pl=
ace
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 s=
lip
and thud of falling masonry--a series of gigantic concussions. A mass of gl=
ass
and ironwork fell from the remote roofs into the middle gallery, not a hund=
red
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 buildin=
gs
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 thou=
ght,
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 t=
ime
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.<= o:p>
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. Supp=
ose
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 wor=
ld
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 scound=
rels
are everywhere--everywhere."
Graham's answer w= as inarticulate assent. He tried to see the old man but the darkness hid his f= ace. He wanted very much to respond, to talk, but he did not know how to begin.<= o:p>
"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 prote=
ct
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 lon=
ger
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. Son=
s! 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 ma=
n'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 breath=
ing
could be heard.
"Ostrog!&quo=
t;
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 bur=
st
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 s=
ay
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 whil=
e 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 re=
peat
his words, to re-question vaguely, before he was sure of the meaning and fo=
lly
of what he heard. And his awakening had not been natural! Was that an old m=
an'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 conceivabl=
y be
an impression of some such stimulating effect. It dawned upon him that he h=
ad
happened upon a lucky encounter, that at last he might learn something of t=
he
new age. The old man wheezed awhile and spat, and then the piping, reminisc=
ent
voice resumed:
"The first t=
ime
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 certa=
inly
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?" s=
aid
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 t=
hat.
These are like the old days--for sure--when the Paris people broke out--thr=
ee
gross of years ago. That's what I mean hasn't been. But it's the world's wa=
y.
It had to come back. I know. I know. This five years Ostrog has been workin=
g,
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 rat=
her
well-informed on these things," said Graham.
"I know what=
I
hear. It isn't all Babble Machine with me."
"No," s=
aid
Graham, wondering what Babble Machine might be. "And you are certain t=
his
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 kn=
ows
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 anyth=
ing
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 t=
hat
have happened--especially of late years--. If I was the Sleeper, to tell you
the truth, I couldn't know less about them."
"Eh!" s=
aid
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 a=
ll
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!&q=
uot;
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 ful=
l 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 imaginatio=
n.
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 t=
his
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 aga=
in.
"Eh! but how
things work together!" said the old man. "This Sleeper that all t=
he
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 t=
he Sanitary
Company burns them to make ashlarite. But they were convenient in their dir=
ty
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 tra=
ced
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!" s=
aid
the old man. "I know, I know. He was a poor nobody, and set on a playf=
ul
woman, poor soul! And he fell into a trance. There's the old things they ha=
d,
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 alo=
ud,
"Yes--well go on."
"You must kn=
ow
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 bec=
ause
he didn't want to break up his great property or let in shareholders, he le=
ft
it all to the Sleeper, and put it under a Board of Trustees that he had pic=
ked
and trained. He knew then the Sleeper wouldn't wake, that he would go on sl=
eeping,
sleeping till he died. He knew that quite well! And plump! a man in the Uni=
ted
States, who had lost two sons in a boat accident, followed that up with ano=
ther
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.&quo=
t;
"No--I
mean--that American's."
"Isbister.&q=
uot;
"Isbister!&q=
uot;
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 i=
t?
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 trustee=
s at
first."
"And how did=
it
grow?"
"Eh!--but yo=
u're
not up to things. Money attracts money--and twelve brains are better than o=
ne.
They played it cleverly. They worked politics with money, and kept on addin=
g to
the money by working currency and tariffs. They grew--they grew. And for ye=
ars
the twelve trustees hid the growing of the Sleeper's estate under double na=
mes
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 bill=
ions
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 C=
ouncil
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 w=
as
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,&qu=
ot;
he said, "sevendy, and I hear and see--hear better than I see. And rea=
son
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 h=
is
doing! All his doing!"
His voice died aw=
ay
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,&qu=
ot;
said the old man.
"Perhaps. And
meanwhile the Sleeper's property grew in the hands of Twelve Trustees, unti=
l 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. Beca=
use
they are the paying power--just as the old English Parliament used to
be--"
"Eh!" s=
aid
the old man. "That's so--that's a good comparison. You're not so--&quo=
t;
"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 endor=
sed
this statement with a cough. "It's strange," he said, "to me=
et a
man who learns these things for the first time to-night."
"Aye," =
said
Graham, "it's strange."
"Have you be=
en
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 understan=
d.
"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. A=
ll
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. Everyo=
ne
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 t=
hat they
turned off the electricity--and put this damned darkness upon us. Do you me=
an
to say--?"
"I had heard=
the
Sleeper was rescued," said Graham. "But--to come back a minute. A=
re
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 ass=
ert
himself?"
"What are th=
ese
Pleasure Cities?" said Graham, abruptly.
The old man made =
him
repeat the question. When at last he was assured of Graham's words, he nudg=
ed
him violently. "That's too much," said he. "You're poking fu=
n 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 laugh=
ed
in an intimate way.
"What is mor=
e, 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 cann=
ot
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! Wel=
l,
gentlemen who dress in silk must have their fun." A withered hand care=
ssed
Graham's arm for a moment. "Silk. Well, well! But, all the same, I wis=
h 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 any=
one
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 deligh=
ts.
"The luck of it, the luck of it! All my life I've been in London, hopi=
ng
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 l=
ive
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 ang=
ry
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 wro=
ng
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.&q=
uot;
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 mig=
ht
get you into trouble in a time like this," said the old man.
Graham, slightly
dashed, repeated his assertion.
"I was sayin=
g 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, litt=
le
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 wo=
n'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 h=
im;
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 abrupt=
ly,
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 o=
dd
man," said the old man, "to sit here in the dark, talking clipped,
and telling a lie of that sort. But--"
Graham's exaspera=
tion
fell to laughter. "It is preposterous," he cried. "Preposter=
ous.
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 k=
now.
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 me=
an 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 hea=
rd
the old man's hobbling pursuit and his wheezy cries receding. But at last t=
he
darkness swallowed him, and Graham saw him no more.
Graham could now take a clearer vie=
w 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 inevita=
ble
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!" s=
aid
Graham, starting.
"Near a
dozand," said the man, "a dozand men!" and hurried on.
A number of men a=
nd 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 ind=
istinct.
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 a=
nd
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 quest=
ions.
Once he turned and walked for a long way after a little man of rotund invit=
ing
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 simp=
ly resulted
in a direction to go on towards Westminster. His second led to the discover=
y 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-w=
ay.
Thereupon came some trivial adventures; chief of these an ambiguous encount=
er
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 s=
poke
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 s=
ent
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!" "T=
hey
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,&quo=
t;
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 w=
ent
down this. At one or two of the tables he heard a clang of glass and a soun=
d of
eating. There were people then cool enough to dine, or daring enough to ste=
al 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 thi=
s, 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 t=
o console
them, but they were very still until he left them. Then as he receded he co=
uld
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 movi=
ng
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 answ=
er
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 d=
id
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, th=
at
the overthrow of the Council must already be accomplished. And still no new=
s of
his absence came to his ears.
The re-illuminati=
on
of the city came with startling abruptness. Suddenly he stood blinking, all
about him men halted dazzled, and the world was incandescent. The light fou=
nd
him already upon the outskirts of the excited crowds that choked the ways n=
ear
the wind-vane offices, and the sense of visibility and exposure that came w=
ith
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 off=
ices
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 prevent=
ed
his approaching it. From the fragments of speech he caught, he judged it
conveyed news of the fighting about the Council House. Ignorance and indeci=
sion
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 tha=
t 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 wis=
er
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 forw=
ard
effusively.
"Yes," =
he
cried. "It is you. And you are not dead!"
Graham made a bri=
ef
explanation.
"My brother =
is
waiting," explained Lincoln. "He is alone in the wind-vane office=
s.
We feared you had been killed in the theatre. He doubted--and things are ve=
ry
urgent still in spite of what we are telling them there--or he would have c=
ome
to you."
They ascended a l=
ift,
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 acr=
oss
this disc.
His attention was
arrested by a sound that began abruptly. It was cheering, the frantic cheer=
ing
of a vast but very remote crowd, a roaring exultation. This ended as sharpl=
y 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 garment= s of cream-coloured silk, appeared, regarding Graham from under his raised arm.<= o:p>
For a moment the
white form remained holding the curtain, then dropped it and stood before i=
t.
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 resolu=
te
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 ro=
se
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?&q=
uot;
"So I am
called."
Graham felt the
inconvenience of the silence. "I have to thank you chiefly, I understa=
nd,
for my safety," he said presently.
"We were afr=
aid
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 y=
our
double."
"My
double?"
"A man as li=
ke
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 Eart=
h.
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 Truste=
es
as it is called--"
"I have heard
the vague outline of these things."
"I
wondered."
"I came upon=
a
garrulous old man."
"I see.... O=
ur
masses--the word comes from your days--you know, of course, that we still h=
ave
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 i=
ll.
In certain matters, in the administration of the Labour Companies, for exam=
ple,
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 se=
e.
And now--we win?"
"We win. Ind=
eed
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 th=
ird man
almost was in it! All the blue, all the public services, save only just a f=
ew
aeronauts and about half the red police. You were rescued, and their own po=
lice
of the ways--not half of them could be massed at the Council House--have be=
en
broken up, disarmed or killed. All London is ours--now. Only the Council Ho=
use
remains.
"Half of tho=
se
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 cov=
ert
arming here and there, suddenly--So!"
"I am very
ignorant," said Graham. "I suppose--I do not clearly understand t=
he
conditions of this fighting. If you could explain. Where is the Council? Wh=
ere
is the fight?"
Ostrog stepped ac=
ross
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 glan=
ce
he was unable to guess what this scene might be. It was a daylight scene, t=
he
daylight of a wintry day, grey and clear. Across the picture, and halfway a=
s 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 tho=
se
through which he had fled from the Council House. He distinguished an order=
ly
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 upp=
er surface
of latter-day London. The overnight snows had gone. He judged that this mir=
ror
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 f=
rom
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 hou=
ses
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 g=
leam
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 ri=
ght,
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 fie=
ld
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, countle=
ss
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 spok=
e,
Graham saw that beyond this area of ruins, overhanging it and rising to a g=
reat
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 wal=
ls
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 defend=
ers
of the Council. Every now and then faint flashes illuminated the bleak shad=
ows.
At the first sight it seemed to Graham that an attack upon this isolated wh=
ite
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 swar=
ming
like cheese-mites along a ruinous groove that had once been a street of mov=
ing
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 re=
volt
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 ami=
dst
these places.
He stretched a hu=
ge
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 Cou=
ncil
is really overthrown?" he said.
"Overthrown,=
"
said Ostrog.
"And I--. Is=
it
indeed true that I--?"
"You are Mas=
ter
of the World."
"But that wh=
ite
flag--"
"That is the
flag of the Council--the flag of the Rule of the World. It will fall. The f=
ight
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 the=
m,
paralysed them."
"But haven't=
the
Council flying machines? Why is there no fighting with them?"
"They had. B=
ut
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 othe=
rs
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 sta=
ges
at the outset in every city we could, and so stopped and captured the great=
er
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 Cou=
ncil
House. If they dropped they couldn't rise again, because there's no clear s=
pace
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 tu=
rned
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 lo=
nger
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 ot=
her
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 exp=
lain
more fully later. At present there are--duties. The people are coming by th=
e 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, Cap=
ri--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 th=
ey
will scarcely believe--"
"But surely-=
-I
can't go ..."
Ostrog answered f=
rom
the other side of the room, and the picture on the oval disc paled and vani=
shed
as the light jerked back again. "There are kineto-telephoto-graphs,&qu=
ot;
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 i=
s 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 br=
ight
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, co=
unt
your eyelashes."
Graham clutched
desperately at one of the questions in his mind. "What is the populati=
on
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 ca=
ll a
Speech, but what our people call a word--just one sentence, six or seven wo=
rds.
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 th=
at?"
asked Graham.
"'I am awake=
ned
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 disp=
erse
to their homes."
Graham hesitated.
"I am in your hands," he said.
Ostrog was clearl=
y of
that opinion. He thought for a moment, turned to the curtain and called bri=
ef
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 a=
s 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 disappeare=
d.
For a moment Grah=
am
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 curt=
ain
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 in=
dex
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 carri=
ed
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 g=
rip
of Graham's arm.
"We have rai=
sed
the people," he said. "We have given them arms. For to-day at lea=
st
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 bi=
ers,
and about which men in medical purple hurried to and fro. From this room ca=
me
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 fro=
m a
railed footway and then a buttress hid the place and they were going on tow=
ards
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 dow=
n a
long passage. The picture opened out. He perceived they were entering the g=
reat
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 pla=
ce
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 t=
he
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 pin=
k,
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 h=
ad
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 h=
ad
left him inordinately fatigued, even his curiosity was exhausted; for a spa=
ce
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 the=
ir advice
in cold water, he felt a rapid return of interest and energy, and was prese=
ntly
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 rul=
e.
The way ran devio=
usly
through a maze of buildings. They came at last to a passage that curved abo=
ut,
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 opene=
d to
Graham's eyes, none the less strange and wonderful for the remote view he h=
ad
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 th=
at
stood in the midst of it, the great black banner of the surrender still hun=
g 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 fr=
om
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 girder=
s,
Titanic masses of wall, forests of stout pillars. Amongst the sombre wrecka=
ge
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 clambe=
red
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 w=
ere
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 rui=
ns,
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 sto=
od
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 blac=
k-uniformed
men appeared remotely, thrusting through the crowds towards the Council Hou=
se.
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 ac=
cord
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, c=
ame
up to him as multitudinous wavelets of cheering.
The western sky w=
as a
pallid bluish green, and Jupiter shone high in the south, before the
capitulation was accomplished. Above was a slow insensible change, the adva=
nce
of night serene and beautiful; below was hurry, excitement, conflicting ord=
ers,
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 l=
ined
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 circumadjac=
ent
buildings, were innumerable people, and their voices, even when they were n=
ot
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 thi=
s a stage
of timbers and metal girders was being hastily constructed. Its essential p=
arts
were complete, but humming and clangorous machinery still glared fitfully in
the shadows beneath this temporary edifice.
The stage had a s=
mall
higher portion on which Graham stood with Ostrog and Lincoln close beside h=
im,
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 present=
ly
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 t=
he
Council House they had been in darkness. He watched them approaching, drawi=
ng
nearer past first this blazing electric star and then that; the minatory ro=
ar
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 ta=
ble
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 ca=
me
to the sloping path of planks that ascended to the stage where their surren=
der
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 sti=
ll.
His eye went again to the little group of White Councillors. And then he lo=
oked
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 CR=
OW'S
NEST
And so after strange delays and thr=
ough
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 cl=
ue
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 boo=
k.
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 lon=
ger
hoped to discover his experiences a dream; he became anxious now to convinc=
e himself
that they were real.
An obsequious val=
et
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 res=
umed
throughout the city. Abroad the downfall of the Council had been received f=
or
the most part with delight. Nowhere was the Council popular, and the thousa=
nd
cities of Western America, after two hundred years still jealous of New Yor=
k, 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 wo=
rld
hung in suspense.
While he was brea=
king
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 enquiri=
es.
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 t=
hree
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 abo=
ve
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 ou=
ter
rail. These were the specula, en rapport with the wind-vane keeper's mirror=
s,
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 wa=
s 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 gl=
en.
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 fr=
om
which started in times of peace the service of aeroplanes to the various gr=
eat
cities of Europe and America, were also black with the victors. Across a na=
rrow
way of planking raised on trestles that crossed the ruins a crowd of workme=
n were
busy restoring the connection between the cables and wires of the Council H=
ouse
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 wi=
th
the areas of disturbance, that presently Graham, looking beyond them, could
almost forget the thousands of men lying out of sight in the artificial gla=
re
within the quasi-subterranean labyrinth, dead or dying of the overnight wou=
nds,
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, un=
der
the fresh sunlight, beyond the crater of the fight, as if nothing had happe=
ned
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, a=
nd
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 underneat=
h 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 sig= ht, 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 colossa= l shipping in the Pool. For all the heavy traffic, for which there was no need of hast= e, came in gigantic sailing ships from the ends of the earth, and the heavy go= ods for which there was urgency in mechanical ships of a smaller swifter sort.<= o:p>
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 hun=
dred
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 gat=
her,
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 h=
ad 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 s=
een.
Their passages had ceased, and only one little-seeming monoplane circled hi=
gh
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 est=
ate,
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 m=
erchant,
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 frequ=
ent
market towns disappeared. And the big towns grew. They drew the worker with=
the
gravitational force of seemingly endless work, the employer with their sugg=
estion
of an infinite ocean of labour.
And as the standa=
rd
of comfort rose, as the complexity of the mechanism of living increased, li=
fe
in the country had become more and more costly, or narrow and impossible. T=
he
disappearance of vicar and squire, the extinction of the general practition=
er
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 clot=
hed
nor fed (according to the refined conceptions of the time), no efficient
doctors for an emergency, no company and no pursuits.
Moreover, mechani=
cal
appliances in agriculture made one engineer the equivalent of thirty labour=
ers.
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 sta=
ge
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 w=
ere
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 th=
ese,
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 w=
as
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 d=
welt
in cities; the whole world was his property....
Out of the dim south-west, glittering and strange, voluptuous, and in some way terrible, s= hone 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 wonde= rful cities of motion and music, whither repaired all who profited by the fierce, inglorious, economic struggle that went on in the glaring labyrinth below.<= o:p>
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 PE=
OPLE
The state apartments of the Wind Va=
ne
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 up=
on 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, a=
scending
and descending. From this position he looked down a vista of subtle and var=
ied
ornament in lustreless white and mauve and purple, spanned by bridges that
seemed wrought of porcelain and filigree, and terminating far off in a clou=
dy
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 t=
he mysterious
title of an "amorist," wore his hair in two becoming plaits &agra=
ve; la
Marguerite. The pigtail was in evidence; it would seem that citizens of Chi=
nese
extraction were no longer ashamed of their race. There was little uniformit=
y of
fashion apparent in the forms of clothing worn. The more shapely men displa=
yed
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 perh=
aps
the prevailing influence, but the aesthetic conceptions of the far east were
also patent. Masculine embonpoint, which, in Victorian times, would have be=
en
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 expressi=
ve
faces. They gesticulated, they expressed surprise, interest, amusement, abo=
ve
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 th=
at
women were in a great majority.
The ladies in the
company of these gentlemen displayed in dress, bearing and manner alike, le=
ss
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 moveme=
nts
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 ent=
ry
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 ais=
le.
He had already le=
arnt
from Lincoln that these were the leaders of existing London society; almost
every person there that night was either a powerful official or the immedia=
te
connexion of a powerful official. Many had returned from the European Pleas=
ure
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 dres=
sed 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 oth=
er,
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?&q=
uot;
"Far too
much."
Graham did not qu=
ite
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 Aerona=
ut,
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 contra=
sted
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 obsequiousn=
ess,
and passed.
"I am glad to
see that type endures," said Graham.
"Phonographs=
and
kinematographs," said Lincoln, a little spitefully. "He has studi=
ed
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 afr=
aid
of Ostrog. Everything rested with him."
He turned sharply=
to
introduce the Surveyor-General of the Public Schools. This person was a wil=
lowy
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 o=
f a
beautifully manicured hand. Graham was immediately interested in this
gentleman's functions, and asked him a number of singularly direct question=
s.
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, "com=
pletely
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 o=
rder
of merit are put in conspicuous places. You see how your little germ has gr=
own?
The illiterate middle-class of your days has quite passed away."
"About the
public elementary schools," said Graham. "Do you control them?&qu=
ot;
The Surveyor-Gene=
ral
did, "entirely." Now, Graham, in his later democratic days, had t=
aken
a keen interest in these and his questioning quickened. Certain casual phra=
ses
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 wo=
rds.
"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 t=
hem
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 tel=
l.
They tell one another. There are socialistic dreams--anarchy even! Agitator=
s 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,&q=
uot;
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-Gene=
ral
of schools gesticulated himself away. "Perhaps," said Lincoln,
intercepting a casual glance, "you would like to know some of these
ladies?"
The daughter of t=
he
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,&q=
uot;
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 y=
our
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," s=
aid
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 beginn=
ing
of this new order. You will find it hard to understand how little I know.&q=
uot;
"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 n=
ot.
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 o=
ut 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 wo=
nderful
time it is! That man in purple?"
"He is not q=
uite
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, pe=
ople
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."
"Capillotomi=
st,"
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 thoug=
ht
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. Peop=
le
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 loo=
ked
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 s=
een
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. Poss=
ibly
he coloured a little. "Who is that talking with the lady in saffron?&q=
uot;
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 o=
f 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 th=
ere
had been a rule of clerical monogamy--"neither a natural nor an expedi=
ent 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 ve=
rge
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 effec=
t.
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 colo=
urs,
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 h=
im,
his manner became more convincingly regal, his feet walked assuredly, the b=
lack
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 w=
as
watching him.
For the moment he=
did
not remember when he had seen her, and then came a vague memory of the stir=
ring
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, unaccountabl=
y, a
vague restlessness, a feeling that grew to dissatisfaction, came into his m=
ind.
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 th=
at
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 H=
all,
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 tum=
ult
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 tha=
t he
could not account for, a sort of instinctive feeling that outside in the wa=
ys a
huge crowd must be watching this place in which their Master amused himself=
.
Though the song h=
ad
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 l=
ady
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 towa=
rds
him; he saw her first before she saw him. She was dressed in a faintly lumi=
nous
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 f=
ace.
The lady in troub=
le
about the Eadhamite saw the change in his expression, and grasped her oppor=
tunity
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 m=
any
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. S=
he
saw him and turned to Graham strangely eager, with a swift change to confid=
ence
and intimacy. "Sire," she said quickly, "I cannot tell you n=
ow
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 te=
ll
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 y=
ou
are in the air," said Lincoln. "The wind has fallen; even now an
aeroplane awaits you."
The girl's attitu=
de
awaited dismissal.
Graham glanced at=
her
face, was on the verge of a question, found a warning in her expression, bo=
wed
to her and turned to accompany Lincoln.
CHAPTER XVI - THE MONOPLA=
NE
The Flying Stages of London were
collected together in an irregular crescent on the southern side of the riv=
er.
They formed three groups of two each and retained the names of ancient subu=
rban
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 c=
ould
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 t=
he
upper moving platform. His passage to the flying stages was unexpected,
nevertheless a considerable crowd gathered and followed him to his destinat=
ion.
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 staircas=
es
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 a=
mong
the poor of the city. When at last he descended, his guards were immediatel=
y surrounded
by a dense excited crowd. Afterwards it occurred to him that some had attem=
pted
to reach him with petitions. His guards cleared a passage for him with
difficulty.
He found a monopl=
ane
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 h=
ull
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 cl=
osed
in, but Graham was anxious for novel experiences, and desired that it shoul=
d 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 a=
s a
makeweight to the parts of the central engine that projected to the propell=
er
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; t=
hen
these things seemed to tilt up abruptly. He gripped the little rods on eith=
er
side of him instinctively. He felt himself moving upward, heard the air whi=
stle
over the top of the wind screen. The propeller screw moved round with power=
ful
rhythmic impulses--one, two, three, pause; one, two, three--which the engin=
eer 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 sa=
me
sensations. He recognised the Council House and the Highgate Ridge. And the=
n he
looked straight down between his feet.
For a moment phys=
ical
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 be=
low
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 seem=
ed
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 lo=
ok
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; sup=
pose
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 s=
hock
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 bl=
ue
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 confid=
ence
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 pass=
age
of town into country through an extensive sponge of suburbs, which was so
characteristic a feature of the great cities of the nineteenth century, exi=
sted
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 grou=
nd,
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 isl=
ands
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 ho=
use
walls, and broke along the foot of the city wall in a surf of bramble and h=
olly
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, we=
re
the artificial gardens among the ruins. The city limits were indeed as shar=
ply
defined as in the ancient days when the gates were shut at nightfall and th=
e 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 b=
y 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 so=
uth.
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 w=
as
very swift and pleasing. During these downward glides the propeller was
inactive altogether. These ascents gave Graham a glorious sense of successf=
ul 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 minut=
e,
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 ruin=
s.
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 t=
own 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, follow=
ed
the course of the old railway, the gorge of the wey was choked with thicket=
s.
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 s=
tern
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 ro=
b 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 s=
aw
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 su=
nlit,
and the grey and glittering waters of the narrow sea. They seemed to leap t=
he
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 wi=
th
the shadow of a cloud, here grey, here a burnished mirror, and here a sprea=
d 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 cl=
ouds,
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 be=
low.
In a little time,=
as
it seemed, Paris came above the horizon, and hung there for a space, and sa=
nk
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 surmou=
nted
by a pin-point Colossus. And he perceived, too, though he did not understan=
d 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 mar=
ked
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 cu=
rved
round and soared towards them, growing rapidly larger and larger. The aeron=
aut
was saying something. "What?" said Graham, loth to take his eyes =
from
this. "London aeroplane, Sire," bawled the aeronaut, pointing.
They rose and cur=
ved
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 t=
his
tremendous rush. How great the monster seemed, how swift and steady! It pas=
sed
quite closely beneath them, driving along silently, a vast spread of
wire-netted translucent wings, a thing alive. Graham had a momentary glimps=
e 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 w=
ind 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,&qu=
ot;
bawled Graham, laughing. "Not land yet. I want to learn more of this
machine."
"I meant--&q=
uot;
said the aeronaut.
"I want to l=
earn
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 h=
ave
these things explained," said Graham. "What do you do when you mo=
ve
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 momen=
t'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 cur=
ved
about, and the keen fresh wind cut across Graham's face and his garment lug=
ged
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. Th=
ey
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," s=
aid
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 sh=
are
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 pas=
t it
was my dream to fly. Now--keep your balance."
"A dozen spi=
es
are watching me, Sire!"
Graham's temper w=
as
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 pro=
mise
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 l=
ike
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 machi=
ne
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 s=
woop
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 straig=
ht
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 que=
er
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 a=
nd
something flying past, and a drop like a drop of rain. Then as he went on d=
own
he saw something like a white rag whirling down in his wake. "What was
that?" he asked. "I did not see."
The aeronaut glan=
ced,
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 whir=
ling
to check their fall, and the flying stage growing broad and dark before the=
m.
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 ma=
ss
was crushed together under the stage, a darkness stippled with innumerable
faces, and quivering with the minute oscillation of waved white handkerchie=
fs
and waving hands.
Lincoln awaited Graham in an apartm=
ent
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 fi=
nd
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 tha=
t.
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 occu=
py
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 aff=
airs
aside. "Ostrog will tell you that to-morrow," he said.
"Everything is settling down. The Revolution accomplishes itself all o=
ver
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--bef=
ore
I sleep?" said Graham, pacing. "Then I could be at it the very fi=
rst
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 amusement= s, 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.<= o:p>
"Yes," =
said
Graham.
"We had prep=
ared
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 af=
ford
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, a=
nd
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 arr=
ived
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 prepar=
ed
dinner, served by a number of charmingly dexterous girls, waited for a spac=
e.
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 excellen=
t 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 ingeni=
ous
wonders in the hands of a latter-day engineer. For the time, at any rate, t=
he
neat dexterity of counting and numbering machines, building machines, spinn=
ing
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 refra=
in,
"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, M=
yers
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 i=
n 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 man=
ual 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 beautiful=
ly
punctual and trustworthy machine minders, and released forthwith from the l=
ong,
long thoughts of youth. Aeronautical pupils, who gave way to giddiness, cou=
ld
be relieved from their imaginary terrors. In every street were hypnotists r=
eady
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 met=
hod,
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 oblite=
rate
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 a=
nd
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 t=
he
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 thi=
rd,
he soared across middle France, and within sight of the snow-clad Alps. The=
se
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 ai=
r,
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 la=
st his
appetite for novelty was well-nigh glutted. One might fill a dozen inconsec=
utive
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 becomi=
ng
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 perspec=
tive
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 Europe=
an
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 tha=
t,
more hypnotic wonders. On the third day Lincoln was moved to suggest that t=
he
Master should repair to a Pleasure City, but this Graham declined, nor woul=
d 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 durin=
g 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 m=
ade
was a deep one, albeit the incessant surprise of novel circumstances had ke=
pt
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 sentence=
s;
the picture of her eyes and the earnest passion of her face became more viv=
id
as his mechanical interests faded. Her slender beauty came compellingly bet=
ween
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 litt=
le
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 fa=
ce.
She rose instantly, made a step toward him as if to address him, and hesita=
ted.
He stopped and stood still, expectant. Then he perceived that a nervous tum=
ult
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--the=
re
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 t=
he
earth," he said. "So they tell me. But try and imagine how little=
I
know of it."
"Cities--Tru=
sts--the
Labour Department--"
"Principalit=
ies,
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 h=
im
and surveyed his face with a curious scrutiny. "Well?"
He smiled. "=
To
take the responsibility."
"That is wha=
t 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 s=
peak
and did not.
She hesitated, an=
d 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 t=
ime
and put the world right for them?"
"I suppose t=
he
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 l=
ay
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 fa=
ce
from him and looked steadfastly at the painted wall before her. Her voice f=
ell.
"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 wha=
t 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 eart=
h, a
myriad myriad men and women are waiting to see what you will do, full of
strange incredible expectations."
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"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 spok=
en
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 g=
reat
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 detai=
l.
And, indeed, what are these miseries of which you speak? What am I to know?=
Do
you mean--"
He stopped blankl=
y.
"I am still
hardly more than a girl," she said. "But to me the world seems fu=
ll
of wretchedness. The world has altered since your day, altered very strange=
ly.
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 flus=
hed
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 t=
ime.
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 y=
our
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 suff=
er.
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,&q=
uot;
she said, "from the days when this new tyranny of the cities was scarc=
ely
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 de=
vour
them. I have heard the stories out of the old books--there was nobility! Co=
mmon
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!&qu=
ot;
he said.
"Slavery.&qu=
ot;
"You don't m=
ean
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. Th=
ey
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 whe=
n I
was wandering about the city, after the lights returned, great fronts of
buildings coloured pale blue. Do you really mean--?"
"Yes. How ca=
n 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 gr=
own
imperceptibly."
"What is this
Labour Department?" asked Graham.
"In the old
times, how did you manage with starving people?"
"There was t=
he
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 g=
reat
agitation against the workhouse. Now I come to think of it, it was one of t=
he
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."<= o:p>
"Nowadays th=
ere
are no workhouses, no refuges and charities, nothing but that Department. I=
ts
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 resor=
t,
must go to the Department in the end--or seek some way of death. The Euthan=
asy
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 vi=
sitor's
proper clothing and sends him or her out again."
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"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 kinematogr=
aph
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 th=
at 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 a=
re
born, they are thwarted and they die. That is the state to which we have
come."
For a space Graham
sat downcast.
"But there h=
as
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 the=
ir
politics, they live in ease by their degradation. But you--you who come fro=
m 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. Fo=
r 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 wo=
rld
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 t=
heir
drudgery--they refuse to be disarmed. Ostrog has awakened something greater
than he dreamt of--he has awakened hopes."
His heart was bea=
ting
fast. He tried to seem judicial, to weigh considerations.
"They only w=
ant
their leader," she said.
"And then?&q=
uot;
"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 ha=
ve
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.&q=
uot;
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 somet=
hing
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. Ostr=
og
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?"<= o:p>
"That you wi=
ll
help me."
"I--a
girl!"
"Yes. Does it
not occur to you I am absolutely alone?"
She started and f=
or
an instant her eyes had pity. "Need you ask whether I will help you?&q=
uot;
she said.
There came a tense
silence, and then the beating of a clock striking the hour. Graham rose.
"Even now,&q=
uot;
he said, "Ostrog will be waiting." He hesitated, facing her. &quo=
t;When
I have asked him certain questions--. There is much I do not know. It may b=
e,
that I will go to see with my own eyes the things of which you have spoken.=
And
when I return--?"
"I shall kno=
w 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 PO=
INT
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 anx=
ious
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 in=
subordinate
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 resto=
red
in these cities. Graham, the more deliberately judicial for the stirring
emotions he felt, asked if there had been any fighting. "A little,&quo=
t;
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 l=
ittle
trouble in the continental cities, and in America. But things are very quie=
t 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 chie=
fly
the discontent with the Labour Department. It was that discontent supplied =
the
motive force of this overthrow--that and your awakening."
"Yes?"<= o:p>
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 revolut=
ion
is accomplished, and the Council is overthrown, and people whom we have sti=
rred
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 be=
en
astonished. In Paris, as I say--we have had to call in a little external
help."
"And here?&q=
uot;
"There is
trouble. Multitudes will not go back to work. There is a general strike. Ha=
lf
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 stree=
ts.
The blue canvas is expecting all sorts of things from you.... Of course the=
re
is no need for you to trouble. We are setting the Babble Machines to work w=
ith
counter suggestions in the cause of law and order. We must keep the grip ti=
ght;
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 t=
hem
as police of the ways, and things might have been different. Of course, the=
re
is nothing to fear except rioting and wreckage. You can manage your own win=
gs
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-van=
es.
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 oppor=
tune
awakening. Mere busybodies and sentimentalists they are and bitterly jealou=
s of
each other. None of them is man enough for a central figure. The only troub=
le 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 t=
hey 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 Creçy, 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 mean=
s of
power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealth now is power as it never was pow=
er
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 fact=
s.
The world for the Crowd! The Crowd as Ruler! Even in your days that creed h=
ad
been tried and condemned. To-day it has only one believer--a multiplex, sil=
ly
one--the man in the Crowd."
Graham did not an=
swer
immediately. He stood lost in sombre preoccupations.
"No," s=
aid
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. T=
here
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 day=
s 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,&q=
uot;
said Graham.
Ostrog stared.
"Must the wo=
rld
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 deat=
h.
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 fla=
me,
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 o=
ut?
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 troub=
le
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? E=
ven
if it does not die, it can still be tamed and driven. I have no sympathy wi=
th
servile men. You heard those people shouting and singing two nights ago. Th=
ey
were taught that song. If you had taken any man there in cold blood and ask=
ed
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 s=
laughter
the Council. To-day--they are already murmuring against those who have
overthrown the Council."
"No, no,&quo=
t;
said Graham. "They shouted because their lives were dreary, without jo=
y 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 i=
t?
That some day the Over-man may come, that some day the inferior, the weak a=
nd
the bestial may be subdued or eliminated. Subdued if not eliminated. The wo=
rld
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 t=
he
beast rose to manhood, by which man goes on to higher things."
Ostrog took a pac=
e,
seemed to think, and turned on Graham. "I can imagine how this great w=
orld
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 f=
eel
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 wo=
uld
be in sympathy with you. Even in the streets now, they clamour to destroy t=
he
Pleasure Cities. But the Pleasure Cities are the excretory organs of the St=
ate,
attractive places that year after year draw together all that is weak and v=
icious,
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 childle=
ss,
all the pretty silly lascivious women die childless, and mankind is the bet=
ter.
If the people were sane they would not envy the rich their way of death. An=
d 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 th=
ey
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. Liber=
ty
is within--not without. It is each man's own affair. Suppose--which is impo=
ssible--that
these swarming yelping fools in blue get the upper hand of us, what then? T=
hey
will only fall to other masters. So long as there are sheep Nature will ins=
ist
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,&q=
uot;
said Graham doggedly.
For a moment he s=
tood
downcast.
"But I must =
see
these things for myself," he said, suddenly assuming a tone of confide=
nt
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 childre=
n,
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 mi=
ght
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 A=
sano
will be able to manage. He would go with you. After all it is not a bad ide=
a 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 hostili=
ty
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 ab=
out
Europeans and the subject races. Even about Paris--"
Ostrog stood watc=
hing
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 n=
ot
to speak, and bowed deferentially.
CHAPTER XX - IN THE CITY =
WAYS
And that night, unknown and unsuspe=
cted,
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 swa=
ying
of the forces of revolution, in spite of the unusual discontent, the mutter=
ings
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 someth=
ing
of the dimensions and quality of the new age, but he was not prepared for t=
he
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, ha=
d had
its element of seclusion, had been a movement within the comparatively narr=
ow
political quarter, that all his previous experiences had revolved immediate=
ly
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 t=
he
new time.
They emerged at f=
irst
into a street whose opposite ways were crowded with the blue canvas liverie=
s.
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 s=
tuff
with red letters. "No disarmament," said the banners, for the most
part in crudely daubed letters and with variant spelling, and "Why sho=
uld
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 m=
ade
a detour to avoid the congested crowd that gaped upon the occasional passag=
e of
dead bodies from hospital to a mortuary, the gleanings after death's harves=
t of
the first revolt.
That night few pe=
ople
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 cultur=
e,
in their commonplace intercourse. Everywhere this trouble of disarmament wa=
s in
the air, with a quality of immediate stress of which he had no inkling duri=
ng
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 w=
hich
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 exclusi=
on
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 sw=
ay.
There were spaces when the revolutionary movement passed clean out of his m=
ind,
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, f=
or
the easy transit about the city afforded by the moving ways rendered sporad=
ic churches
and chapels no longer necessary--and his attention was vividly arrested by =
the
façade of one of the Christian sects.
They were travell=
ing
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 sen=
se
for the most part almost incredible blasphemy. Among the less offensive were
"Salvation on the First Floor and turn to the Right." "Put y=
our
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-n=
ight
and Prices as Usual." "Brisk Blessings for Busy Business Men.&quo=
t;
"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!&qu=
ot;
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,&q=
uot;
said Graham, glancing back at the receding blue and white. "That is su=
rely
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 quie=
ter
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 swarmi=
ng
touts were forgotten in this new interest. A turn of a phrase suggested, an=
d 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 wa=
s 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 alrea=
dy 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 mea=
ns
of the little brown, green and pink council cheques for small amounts, prin=
ted
with a blank payee. Asano had several with him, and at the first opportunit=
y 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 wi=
th
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 disarmam=
ent
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 gall=
ery
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 voi=
ce
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 spect=
acle
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 fe=
ast
of several thousand people came to him.
It was his consta=
nt
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 sh=
aped
as a riddle and pointed to the obvious thing he had overlooked. He discover=
ed
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 ho=
tel
with a thousand classes of accommodation, thousands of dining halls, chapel=
s,
theatres, markets and places of assembly, a synthesis of enterprises, of wh=
ich
he chiefly was the owner. People had their sleeping rooms, with, it might b=
e,
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 li=
ved
in the new-made giant hotels of the Victorian days, eating, reading, thinki=
ng,
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 t=
rading
section.
He perceived at o=
nce
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 househ=
olds
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 necessit=
ated
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 m=
eals
from home, the casually patronised horse-box coffee-house had given place t=
o the
open and crowded Aerated Bread Shop for instance, women's clubs had had the=
ir
beginning, and an immense development of reading rooms, lounges and librari=
es
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 bel=
ow,
albeit vivacious, hurried and uncommunicative, were dexterously mannered an=
d 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 broadca=
st
crumbs, the splashes of viand and condiment, the overturned drink and displ=
aced
ornaments, which would have marked the stormy progress of the Victorian mea=
l.
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 substa=
nce
having the texture and appearance of damask. He discerned that this damask
substance was patterned with gracefully designed trade advertisements.
In a sort of rece=
ss before
each diner was a complex apparatus of porcelain and metal. There was one pl=
ate
of white porcelain, and by means of taps for hot and cold volatile fluids t=
he
diner washed this himself between the courses; he also washed his elegant w=
hite
metal knife and fork and spoon as occasion required.
Soup and the chem=
ical
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 h=
uge
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.<= o:p>
Graham's attention
was immediately arrested by a violent, loud hoot, followed by a vast leathe=
ry
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 patronag=
e 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 t=
his
was brayed. This was the General Intelligence Machine. For a space it seeme=
d to
be gathering breath, and a regular throbbing from its cylindrical body was
audible. Then it trumpeted "Galloop, Galloop," and broke out agai=
n.
"Paris is now
pacified. All resistance is over. Galloop! The black police hold every posi=
tion
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 scre=
amed
deafeningly and gave tongue in a shrill voice. "Yahaha, Yahah, Yap! He=
ar 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 argum=
ent."
"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 t=
hese
voices, towards the exit, Graham conceived more clearly the proportion and
features of this room. Altogether, great and small, there must have been ne=
arly
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 firs=
t 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 Ost=
rog
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 begin=
ning
of the Master's rule? For a long time after he had left the place, the hoot=
ing,
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 doe=
s 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 Ma=
ster,
the world is yours. But there will be no Commune here. There is no need for
black police here.
"And every c=
onsideration
has been shown. It is their own negroes--French speaking negroes. Senegal
regiments, and Niger and Timbuctoo."
"Regiments?&=
quot;
said Graham, "I thought there was only one--"
"No," s=
aid
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 prese=
nt
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 pri=
vate
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 diffic=
ulty
in understanding that this news room and the dining hall were not great cen=
tral
places, that such establishments were repeated almost beyond counting all o=
ver
the city. But ever and again during the night's expedition his ears would p=
ick
out from the tumult of the ways the peculiar hooting of the organ of Boss O=
strog,
"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 reac=
hed
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 na=
rrow
little doors, their size and arrangement suggestive of the cells of a Victo=
rian
prison. But the upper portion of each door was of the same greenish transpa=
rent
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 appara=
tus
watched the atmosphere and rang a bell far away in the central office at th=
e 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, with=
out
embrace or endearment, was wholly repugnant to him. The attendant doctor wa=
s 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 moth=
er,
that there human mortality had ever been most terrible. On the other hand t=
his crèche
company, the International Crèche Syndicate, lost not one-half per c=
ent,
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 ba=
ld
head of their first-born. Graham's face must have showed his estimate of th=
em,
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 sl=
eep.
As they went through these, the little officer pointed out the nature of th=
e 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 h=
ad
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--ab=
ominable
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. F=
ew
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 child=
ren.
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 sudde=
nly
dancing with music, and down a way they approached obliquely, set with gorg=
eous
pillars as it seemed of clear amethyst, flowed a concourse of gay people an=
d a
tumult of merry cries and laughter. He saw curled heads, wreathed brows, an=
d 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, mov=
ing
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 a=
nd
sight.
"Here,"
said Asano, "are the fathers and mothers of the little ones you saw.&q=
uot;
The hall was not =
so
richly decorated as that of the Atlas, but saving that, it was, for its siz=
e,
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 h=
all
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 crow=
d of
less brilliantly dressed people, as numerous almost as those who danced wit=
hin,
the great majority wearing the blue uniform of the Labour Department that w=
as
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 no=
t 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 mas=
s of
effeminate curls, their chins were always shaven, and many of them had flus=
hed
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 wi=
th eyes
half closed in pleasure.
"What sort of
people are these?" he asked abruptly.
"Workers--pr=
osperous
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 plac=
e 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 suppos=
e,
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 c=
hild
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 thoug=
ht,
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 conqu=
ered
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 w=
eary
moments," said the little officer, reflectively.
"They all lo=
ok
young. Down there I should be visibly the oldest man. And in my own time I
should have passed as middle-aged."
"They are yo=
ung.
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 de=
ath.
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 ti=
me,
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.&qu=
ot;
Asano smiled fain=
tly.
"For that matter, men are dying in London," he said.
There was a momen=
t's
silence.
"Where do th=
ese
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 pe=
ople
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 transve=
rse
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 w=
ith
a smile. "Here, Sire," he said, "is something--will be famil=
iar
to you at least--and yet--. But I will not tell you. Come!"
He led the way al=
ong
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 ente=
red
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 wh=
ich
was another almost vertical ladder. This they ascended, Graham still perple=
xed.
But at the top he
understood, and recognised the metallic bars to which he clung. He was in t=
he
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, shin=
ing
greasily under a few distant lights, into a circumambient ditch of darkness=
.
Out between the b=
ars
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 star=
s 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 star=
t.
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 quarte=
rs
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!&q=
uot;
The place seemed =
to
him to be dense with people either profoundly agitated or swelling with obs=
cure
cunning, yet he learnt that the place was comparatively empty, that the gre=
at
political convulsion of the last few days had reduced transactions to an
unprecedented minimum. In one huge place were long avenues of roulette tabl=
es,
each with an excited, undignified crowd about it; in another a yelping Babe=
l of
white-faced women and red-necked leathery-lunged men bought and sold the sh=
ares
of an absolutely fictitious business undertaking which, every five minutes,=
paid
a dividend of ten per cent, and cancelled a certain proportion of its share=
s 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 promin=
ent
merchants in violent controversy with teeth and nails on some delicate poin=
t of
business etiquette. Something still remained in life to be fought for. Furt=
her
he had a shock at a vehement announcement in phonetic letters of scarlet fl=
ame,
each twice the height of a man, that "WE ASSURE THE PROPRAIET'R. WE AS=
SURE
THE PROPRAIET'R."
"Who's the
proprietor?" he asked.
"You."<= o:p>
"But what do
they assure me?" he asked. "What do they assure me?"
"Didn't you =
have
assurance?"
Graham thought.
"Insurance?"
"Yes--Insura=
nce.
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 annuit=
y 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 woul=
d-be
annuitants grew so thick about them that for some time they could move neit=
her
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 a=
rm
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 g=
et
out of this," said Graham to Asano. "This is not what I came to s=
ee.
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-S=
IDE
From the Business Quarter they pres=
ently
passed by the running ways into a remote quarter of the city, where the bul=
k of
the manufactures was done. On their way the platforms crossed the Thames tw=
ice,
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, overarche=
d 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. T=
he
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 archw=
ay
cut and blotted out the picture.
Presently they le=
ft
the way and descended by a lift and traversed a passage that sloped downwar=
d,
and so came to a descending lift again. The appearance of things changed. E=
ven
the pretence of architectural ornament disappeared, the lights diminished in
number and size, the architecture became more and more massive in proportio=
n 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 gre=
at
and dusty galleries were silent avenues of machinery, endless raked out ash=
en
furnaces testified to the revolutionary dislocation, but wherever there was
work it was being done by slow-moving workers in blue canvas. The only peop=
le
not in blue canvas were the overlookers of the work-places and the orange-c=
lad
Labour Police. And fresh from the flushed faces of the dancing halls, the
voluntary vigours of the business quarter, Graham could note the pinched fa=
ces,
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 dresse=
d 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 art=
ist
under direction.
The women, in
comparison with those Graham remembered, were as a class distinctly plain a=
nd
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 attractiv=
e 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 deligh=
ts,
and at last to the Euthanasy and peace. To be steadfast against such induce=
ments
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 a=
nd
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 run=
ning
on their rails far overhead, and chinks of white lights between the transve=
rse
slits. The factories that were not working were sparsely lighted; to Graham
they and their shrouded aisles of giant machines seemed plunged in gloom, a=
nd
even where work was going on the illumination was far less brilliant than u=
pon
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 gallerie=
s.
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 finge=
rs
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 geometric=
al
motif. These workers wore a peculiar white uniform without pockets or sleev=
es.
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 Departm=
ent
was not infrequently robbed.
Beyond was a gall=
ery
of women busied in cutting and setting slabs of artificial ruby, and next t=
hese
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 strik=
ing
disfigurement.
"She might h=
ave
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 al=
ong
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 th=
at
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 cargoe=
s of
powdered felspar by a multitude of coughing men, each guiding a little truc=
k;
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, a=
nd
rushed to and fro against a long stretch of white-washed wall. Every now an=
d then
one would stop to cough.
A shadowy, huge m=
ass
of masonry rising out of the inky water, brought to Graham's mind the thoug=
ht
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 tak=
en
up the beating refrain, singing it defiantly--the Song of the Revolt. The f=
eet
upon the planks thundered now to the rhythm of the song, tramp, tramp, tram=
p.
The policeman who had shouted glanced at his fellow, and Graham saw him shr=
ug
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 re=
eks.
Everywhere were pillars and cross archings of such a massiveness as Graham =
had
never before seen, thick Titans of greasy, shining brickwork crushed beneat=
h 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, a=
nd
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 do=
wn a
passage, and learnt that a number of these serfs had seized their bread bef=
ore
their work was done. Graham was ascending towards the ways again when he sa=
w a
number of blue-clad children running down a transverse passage, and present=
ly
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 remo=
te 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 passa=
ge
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 shouti=
ng
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 Polic=
e 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 t=
he
thing he already knew. "But how can they know?" asked Asano.
Graham heard some=
one
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, Ostr=
og
the Knave! The Master is betrayed." His voice was hoarse and a thin fo=
am
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 Grah=
am
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 bl=
ue
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 swiftl=
y.
"What am I to do?"
"Go back to =
the
Council House," said Asano.
"Why should I
not appeal--? The people are here."
"You will lo=
se
time. They will doubt if it is you. But they will mass about the Council Ho=
use.
There you will find their leaders. Your strength is there--with them."=
"Suppose thi=
s 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 crie=
d.
"That is where they will swarm. Even now the ruins may be
impassable."
Graham regarded h=
im
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 cryi=
ng
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 yo=
ur
wards. Every man get arms. Every man to his ward!"
CHAPTER XXII - THE STRUGG=
LE
IN THE COUNCIL HOUSE
As Asano and Graham hurried along t=
o the
ruins about the Council House, they saw everywhere the excitement of the pe=
ople
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 &quo=
t;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, dinni=
ng
that refrain into Graham's ear until it haunted him. This person stayed clo=
se
beside Graham and Asano on the swift way, shouting to the people who swarme=
d 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, anothe=
r of
meeting Ostrog face to face. He was full of rage, of tense muscular excitem=
ent,
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-offi=
ce
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 t=
he
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 ma=
ins
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 a=
nd
other building machines going to and fro upon it projected to the left of t=
he
white pile.
The moving ways t=
hat
ran across this area had been restored, albeit for once running under the o=
pen
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 mas=
onry
were heaped together.
It was already hi=
gh
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 swayi=
ng
towards the central building. For the most part that shouting mass consiste=
d of
shapeless swarms, but here and there Graham could see that a rude disciplin=
e struggled
to establish itself. And every voice clamoured for order in the chaos. &quo=
t;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 disobe=
yed
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 empt=
y.
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 de=
adened,
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 la=
nk
arms of red painted metal stretched gauntly across this green tinted pictur=
e.
On it were still a number of workmen staring at the crowd below. For a mome=
nt
he stood regarding these things, and Asano overtook him.
"Ostrog,&quo=
t;
said Asano, "will be in the small offices beyond there." The litt=
le
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 bla=
ck
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 somet=
hing
to Lincoln and advanced alone.
Graham was the fi=
rst
to speak. His voice was loud and dictatorial. "What is this I hear?&qu=
ot;
he asked. "Are you bringing negroes here--to keep the people down?&quo=
t;
"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 nothi=
ng,
but drew nearer.
"These negro=
es
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 m=
ust
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 Lin=
coln
again. "I know now what you think--I can guess something of what you m=
ean
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!&quo=
t;
said Graham. "You can hear it--a sound like the sea. Not voices--but a
voice. Do you altogether understand?"
"We taught t=
hem
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," s=
aid
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 anot=
her
moment Lincoln had grasped Graham's cloak.
He turned and str=
uck
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 headlo=
ng,
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 rou=
nd
his neck, he was pulled over backward, fell heavily, and his arms were pinn=
ed
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 excited=
ly
to the people below them. They had seen!
Ostrog followed h=
is
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 e=
dges
of the torn aperture darkened, curved, ran rapidly towards the framework, a=
nd
in a moment the Council chamber stood open to the air. A chilly gust blew i=
n 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 reali=
sed
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 thro=
at,
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 d=
ozen
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 fl=
ing
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, fi=
rst
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 l=
ed
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 the=
ir
endeavours to thrust him towards the opening that yawned to receive him.
"They can't come down," panted Ostrog. "They daren't fire. I=
t'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 re=
nt
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 cam=
e,
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 perceiv= ed that he was no longer held. He turned about and came full into a man in bla= ck. 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.<= o:p>
He saw a man in p=
ale
blue stabbing one of the black and yellow attendants not three yards from h=
is
face. Then hands were upon him again.
He was being pull=
ed
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 fr=
om
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 t=
hat
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 t=
hat
a bodyguard surrounded him. Active men about him shouted vague orders. He s=
aw
close at hand the black moustached man in yellow who had been among those w=
ho
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 ne=
ar
him hear for the tumult about them. "Where has Ostrog gone?" he
asked.
The man he questi=
oned
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 sash=
es,
were running through them and vanishing into the chambers and passages beyo=
nd.
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 bene=
ath 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. T=
hey
were taking him up a narrow stairway of brick, and close at hand rose the g=
reat
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 ca=
me
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 bla=
ck
banners of the revolutionary societies ducked and swayed and formed rare nu=
clei
of organisation in the chaos. Up the steep stairs of wall and scaffolding b=
y which
his rescuers had reached the opening in the Atlas Chamber clung a solid cro=
wd,
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 flappi=
ng
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 solita=
ry
monoplane beat up from the central stage as if to meet the coming aeroplane=
s.
"What has be=
come
of Ostrog?" asked Graham, and even as he spoke he saw that all eyes we=
re
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 t=
he
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 open=
ed 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 fl=
ight
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 attendan=
ts
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? Wh=
y is
Ostrog left there? Why is he not captured? They will lift him--the monoplane
will lift him! Ah!"
The exclamation w=
as
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 ho=
use
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 strid=
ing 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. Gr=
aham
saw him strike a projecting corner, fly out, head over heels, head over hee=
ls,
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 t=
he
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 th=
at
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 st=
em.
A man beside him
cheered hoarsely, and he saw that the blue rebels had gained the archway th=
at
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 innumerab=
le
men below.
Graham clutched t=
he
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 screa=
med
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-swe=
pt
sky.
The suspense of t=
he
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 bl=
ue
and the air pungent with the thin smoke of their weapons.
Too late! The fly=
ing
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 throa=
t 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, lo=
uder
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, lo=
oked
to him to act, awaited his orders. He was king indeed. His puppet reign was=
at
an end.
He was very inten=
t to
do the thing that was expected of him. His nerves and muscles were quiverin=
g,
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 nervo=
us
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 m=
uch
in detail of the huge complexity of the struggle about him lest be should b=
e paralysed
by the sense of its intricacy.
Over there those
square blue shapes, the flying stages, meant Ostrog; against Ostrog, who wa=
s 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 SP=
EAKS
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, h=
is
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, an=
d 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 ha=
lls,
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 happe=
ned,
and then he found himself with the man in yellow entering a little room whe=
re
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 At=
las
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, t=
he
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 gapi=
ng,
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 yell=
ow
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 ha=
ve
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 impatie=
ntly
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 shou=
ld
be said! Aeroplanes at Madrid! They must have started before the main fleet=
.
"Oh! what ca=
n 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 i=
ts
assured conviction. The picture of a little strutting futility in a windy w=
aste
of incomprehensible destinies replaced it. Abruptly it was perfectly clear =
to
him that this revolt against Ostrog was premature, foredoomed to failure, t=
he
impulse of passionate inadequacy against inevitable things. He thought of t=
hat 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 thro=
ugh
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 runnin=
g 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 cir=
cle
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 thi=
ngs
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 he=
lped
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 wom=
en
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 gat=
her
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 overthr=
own.
I think I may be overthrown."
He found the thin=
g 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 h=
is
voice touched it to vitality. He stated the case of the old days to the peo=
ple
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 citie=
s,
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 t=
his
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 fa=
ith
but faith--faith which is courage...."
Things that he had
long wished to believe, he found that he believed. He spoke gustily, in bro=
ken
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 mom=
ents
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 lon=
ger.
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-nig=
ht,
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,&quo=
t;
she whispered. "Oh! Father of the World--Sire! I knew you would say th=
ese
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. "T=
ell them;--well
done South West."
He turned his eye=
s to
Helen Wotton again. His face expressed his struggle between conflicting ide=
as.
"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 h=
e 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 Gr=
aham
that she expected him to lead these marching people, that that was the thin=
g 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 war=
ren.
Your place is here."
He explained
elaborately. He motioned towards the room where Graham must wait, he insist=
ed
no other course was possible. "We must know where you are," he sa=
id.
"At any moment a crisis may arise needing your presence and
decision."
A picture had dri=
fted
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 t=
hat
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 litt=
le
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 multitud=
es untrained
in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by mindless labour a=
nd
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 unprov=
ided
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 ha=
lls
and passages choked with smoke, beneath the flying stages, to learn there w=
hen
retreat was hopeless the ancient mysteries of warfare. And overhead save fo=
r 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 clea=
r 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 th=
ere
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 w=
ere
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 lea=
ders
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 recordi=
ng
implements, Graham felt isolated, strangely inactive, inoperative.
His isolation see=
med
at times the strangest, the most unexpected of all the things that had happ=
ened
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 i=
ts
mouthpieces and bells and broken mirror!
Now the door woul=
d 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 a=
nd
vehemence of the battle rushed in and overwhelmed them. They were no longer
persons but mere spectators, mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion. T=
hey
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 shou=
lder
of the world.
There came a sudd=
en
stir outside, a running to and fro, and cries. The girl stood up, speechles=
s,
incredulous.
Metallic voices w=
ere
shouting "Victory!" Yes it was "Victory!"
Bursting through =
the
curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled and dishevelled with exciteme=
nt,
"Victory," he cried, "victory! The people are winning. Ostro=
g's
people have collapsed."
She rose.
"Victory?"
"What do you
mean?" asked Graham. "Tell me! What?"
"We have dri=
ven
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 ran=
g.
An agitated grey-headed man appeared from the room of the Ward Leaders.
"It is all over," he cried.
"What matter=
s 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 m=
ount
them--in half an hour."
"Do you mean
they are found?"
"Too late,&q=
uot;
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 aerop=
lanes
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 wo=
uld
that take?" asked Graham suddenly.
"An
hour--certainly."
"Too late,&q=
uot;
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?&qu=
ot;
"No. It is l=
ying
crossways to the carrier. It might be got upon the guides--easily. But ther=
e 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 suddenl=
y to
Helen. His decision was made. "I must do it."
"Do what?&qu=
ot;
"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--y=
es.
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 b=
een
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!&quo=
t;
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. Ye=
t,
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 co=
uld
speak no more, he swept the alternative aside by a gesture, and they stood
looking at one another.
They were both cl=
ear
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,&qu=
ot;
she cried, "for this!"
He held her clums=
ily
for a moment, and kissed the hair of her bowed head, and then thrust her aw=
ay,
and turned towards the man in yellow.
He could not spea=
k.
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 sta=
ge
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 s=
poke
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 t=
he
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 h=
is
jacket smouldering in a circle about the neat bullet hole on his chest. Clo=
se
beside him a wounded man, with a leg swathed about, sat with an expressionl=
ess
face and watched the progress of that burning. Behind them, athwart the car=
rier
lay the captured monoplane.
"I can't see=
him
now," said the second man in a tone of provocation.
The marksman beca=
me
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 goin=
g 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 th=
ese,
and swarming across the stage.
"We don't wa=
nt
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 liste=
ned.
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, grippi=
ng
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 fe=
et,
his friend rose also. "What's the good?" said his friend. "W=
e'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, w=
hat
indeed everyone in the city knew, that the Master, raw learner though he wa=
s,
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,&qu=
ot;
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 t=
hat
a thick stream of heads still poured up the stairway. "The Master is
coming," shouted voices, "the Master is coming," and the cro=
wd
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 ey=
es
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 g=
one
and he was fighting in the swaying crowd. A lad weeping with terror thrust
against him, pressing towards the stairways, yelling "Clear for the st=
art,
you fools!" The bell that cleared the flying stage became a loud
unmelodious clanging.
With that clangin=
g in
his ears Graham drew near the monoplane, marched into the shadow of its til=
ting
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 sta=
rted
the engine. The bell clanged faster and faster, and the feet of the retreat=
ing
people roared faster and louder. The man in yellow was assisting him to mou=
nt
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. N=
o 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. Th=
ey
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 gir=
ders
by his gesture.
For a moment he w=
as
motionless, staring at the levers, the wheel by which the engine shifted, a=
nd
all the delicate appliances of which he knew so little. His eye caught a sp=
irit
level with the bubble towards him, and he remembered something, spent a doz=
en
seconds in swinging the engine forward until the bubble floated in the cent=
re
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 w=
heel
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 w=
ing
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 mome=
nt
and flung himself at the levers again. The wind whistled about him. One fur=
ther
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 le=
vers
for a moment and looked again. For a moment he could have believed they wer=
e annihilated.
And then he saw between the two stages to the east was a chasm, and down th=
is
something, a slender edge, fell swiftly and vanished, as a sixpence falls d=
own
a crack.
At first he did n=
ot
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 ha=
d a
momentary fear that this second machine had risen above him, and then he sa=
w it
alighting on the Norwood stage. They had meant shooting. To risk being ramm=
ed
headlong two thousand feet in the air was beyond their latter-day courage..=
..
For a little whil=
e 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 smo=
ke
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 overpower=
ed.
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 glow=
ing
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 fran=
tic
cheering, heard a bullet from the Wimbledon Park stage tweet through the ai=
r,
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 u=
p,
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 shape=
s.
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 w=
heel
that brought the engine forward. He touched a lever and the throbbing effor=
t 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 se=
emed
scarce a second from that soaring moment before he struck the foremost aero=
plane.
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 tee=
th
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 h=
it
them.
He had aimed at t=
he
body of the aeroplane, but at the very last instant a better idea had flash=
ed
into his mind. He twisted about and struck near the edge of the starboard w=
ing
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 mom=
ent
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 t=
he 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 g=
uide
bars. The fenestrations in the further float flashed open as the aeronaut t=
ried
to right her. Beyond, he saw a second aeroplane leaping steeply to escape t=
he
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 over=
turned,
hung like a sloping wall above him.
He did not clearly
understand that he had struck the side float of the aeroplane and slipped o=
ff,
but he perceived that he was flying free on the down glide and rapidly near=
ing
earth. What had he done? His heart throbbed like a noisy engine in his thro=
at
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, fo=
ught
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 ma=
in
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 s=
tern
and looked again. He drove up heedless of his direction as he watched. He s=
aw
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 wrecka=
ge a
thin tongue of white fire licked up towards the zenith. He was aware of a h=
uge
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 clo=
se
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. Presen=
tly
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 v=
ictim
and all its load of soldiers saw him coming. The big machine heeled and swa=
yed
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 activi=
ty.
His troubles about humanity, about his inadequacy, were gone for ever. He w=
as 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 darkl=
ing
ground so nearly he could see a frightened rabbit bolting up a slope. He je=
rked
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 Ostrogit=
es
banged tumultuously in the sky. To the south the wreckage of half a dozen a=
ir
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 paus=
e in
the air. In their present confusion any attempt at evolution would have mea=
nt
disastrous collisions.
He passed two hun=
dred
feet or so above the Roehampton stage. It was black with people and noisy w=
ith
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. Fir=
st
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 sta=
ge.
On Blackheath no aeroplane had landed. Norwood was covered by a swarm of li=
ttle
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 usurpatio=
n.
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 o=
f 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 t=
he
monoplane on Blackheath was running down its guides to launch. It lifted cl=
ean
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 i=
ts
velocity and drove straight upon it.
It suddenly becam=
e 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 s=
aw
Ostrog's machine beating up a spiral before him. He rose straight towards i=
t,
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 b=
e.
Below he saw the Croydon hills. He jerked upward and once more he gained on=
his
enemy.
He glanced over h=
is
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 cow=
led
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 w=
heel
that swayed up over his head. And then the shock of the second explosion to=
ok
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 su=
re
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 sure=
ly
he would meet her. She at least was real. She was real. He would wake and m=
eet
her.
Although he could=
not
look at it, he was suddenly aware that the earth was very near.
THE END.