When the Sleeper Wakes ....................................................................................................................................1

H. G. Wells..............................................................................................................................................1

One afternoon, at low water, Mr. Isbister, a young artist lodging at Boscastle, walked from that place to the

picturesque cove of Pentargen, desiring to examine the caves there. Halfway down the precipitous path to the

Pentargen beach he came suddenly upon a man sitting in an attitude of profound distress beneath a projecting

mass of rock. The hands of this man hung limply over his knees, his eyes were red and staring before him,

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

"Very," answered the stranger shortly, hesitated a second, and added in a colourless tone, "I can't sleep."

Isbister stopped abruptly. "No?" was all he said, but his bearing conveyed his helpful impulse.

"It may sound incredible," said the stranger, turning weary eyes to Isbister's face and emphasizing his words

"Yes. Bad advice for the most part. Drugs. My nervous system... . They are all very well for the run of

people. It's hard to explain. I dare not take . . . sufficiently powerful drugs."

He stood helplessly in the narrow path, perplexed what to do. Clearly the man wanted to talk. An idea natural

enough under the circumstances, prompted him to keep the conversation going. "I've never suffered from

sleeplessness myself," he said in a tone of commonplace gossip, "but in those cases I have known, people

He spoke wearily. He gave a gesture of rejection, and for a space both men were silent.

"Exercise?" suggested Isbister diffidently, with a glance from his interlocutor's face of wretchedness to the

"That is what I have tried. Unwisely perhaps. I have followed the coast, day after dayfrom New Quay. It

has only added muscular fatigue to the mental. The cause of this unrest was overwork trouble. There was

He stopped as if from sheer fatigue. He rubbed his forehead with a lean hand. He resumed speech like one

"I am a lone wolf, a solitary man, wandering through a world in which I have no part. I am wifeless

childlesswho is it speaks of the childless as the dead twigs on the tree of life? I am wifeless, I childlessI

could find no duty to do. No desire even in my heart. One thing at last I set myself to do.

"I said, I will do this, and to do it, to overcome the inertia of this dull body, I resorted to drugs. Great God,

I've had enough of drugs! I don't know if __you__ feel the heavy inconvenience of the body, its exasperating

demand of time from the mindtime life! Live! We only live in patches. We have to eat, and then comes

the dull digestive complacencies or irritations. We have to take the air or else our thoughts grow sluggish,

stupid, run into gulfs and blind alleys. A thousand distractions arise from within and without, and then comes

drowsiness and sleep. Men seem to live for sleep. How little of a man's day is his owneven at the best!

And then come those false friends, those Thug helpers, the alkaloids that stifle natural fatigue and kill rest

"You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feela 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

"You must sleep," said Isbister decisively, and with an air of a remedy discovered. "Certainly you must

"My mind is perfectly lucid. It was never clearer. But I know I am drawing towards the vortex. Presently"

"You have seen things go down an eddy? Out of the light of the day, out of this sweet world of sanity

The man threw out a hand towards him, and his eyes were wild, and his voice suddenly high. "I shall kill

myself. If in no other wayat 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

Isbister looked at him and wondered transitorily if some complex Providence had indeed brought them

together that afternoon. "It's not a cert, you know," he remarked. " There's a cliff like that at Lulworth

Coveas high, anyhowand a little girl fell from top to bottom. And lives todaysound and well."

"One might lie on them rather dismally through a cold night, broken bones grating as one shivered, chill

Their eyes met. "Sorry to upset your ideals," said Isbister with a sense of devilmaycareish brilliance.

"But a suicide over that cliff (or any cliff for the matter of that), really, as an artist" He laughed. "It's so

"But the other thing," said the sleepless man irritably, "the other thing. No man can keep sane if night after

"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

"Look at these rocks!" cried the seated man with a sudden force of gesture. "Look at that sea that has shone

and quivered there for ever! See the white spume rush into darkness under that great cliff. And this blue vault,

with the blinding sun pouring from the dome of it. It is your world. You accept it, you rejoice in it. It warms

He turned his head and showed a ghastly face, bloodshot pallid eyes and bloodless lips. He spoke almost in a

whisper. "It is the garment of my misery. The whole world . . . is the garment of my misery."

Isbister looked at all the wild beauty of the sunlit cliffs about them and back to that face of despair For a

He started, and made a gesture of impatient rejection. "You get a night's sleep," he said, "and you won't see

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 selfapplause. He took

possession forthwith. It seemed to him that the first need of this exhausted being was companionship He

flung himself down on the steeply sloping turf beside the motionless seated figure, and deployed forthwith

His hearer seemed to have lapsed into apathy; he stared dismally seaward, and spoke only in answer to

Isbister's direct questionsand not to all of those But he made no sign of objection to this benevolent

In a helpless way he seemed even grateful, and when presently Isbister, feeling that his unsupported talk was

losing vigour, suggested that they should reascend the steep and return towards Boscastle, alleging the view

into Blackapit, he submitted quietly. Halfway up he began talking to himself, and abruptly turned a ghastly

face on his helper. "What can be happening?" he asked with a gaunt illustrative hand. "What can be

happening? Spin, spin, spin, spin. It goes round and round, round and round for evermore."

"It's all right, old chap," said Isbister with the air of an old friend. "Don't worry yourself. Trust to me."

The man dropped his hand and turned again. They went over the brow in single file and to the headland

beyond Penally, with the sleepless man gesticulating ever and again, and speaking fragmentary things

concerning his whirling brain. At the headland they stood for a space by the seat that looks into the dark

mysteries of Blackapit, and then he sat down. Isbister had resumed his talk whenever the path had widened

sufficiently for them to walk abreast. He was enlarging upon the complex difficulty of making Boscastle

Harbour in bad weather, when suddenly and quite irrelevantly his companion interrupted him again.

"My head is not like what it was," he said, gesticulating for want of expressive phrases. "It's not like what it

was. There is a sort of oppression, a weight. Nonot 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 itsteadily

" Don't trouble, old chap," said Isbister. "I think I can understand. At any rate, it don't matter very much just

The sleepless man thrust his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed them. Isbister talked for awhile while this

rubbing continued, and then he had a fresh idea. "Come down to my room," he said, "and try a pipe. I can

Several times Isbister heard him stumble as they came down, and his movements were slow and hesitating.

"Come in with me," said Isbister, "and try some cigarettes and the blessed gift of alcohol. If you take

The stranger hesitated at the garden gate. He seemed no longer clearly aware of his actions. "I don't drink," he

said slowly, coming up the garden path, and after a moment's interval repeated absently, "NoI don't drink.

He stumbled at the doorstep and entered the room with the bearing of one who sees nothing.

Then he sat down abruptly and heavily in the easy chair, seemed almost to fall into it. He leant forward with

Presently he made a faint sound in his throat. Isbister moved about the room with the nervousness of an

inexperienced host, making little remarks that scarcely required answering. He crossed the room to his

"I don't know if you'd care to have supper with me," he said with an unlighted cigarette in his hand his

mind troubled with a design of the furtive administration of chloral. "Only cold mutton, you know, but

passing sweet. Welsh. And a tart, I believe." He repeated this after momentary silence.

The stillness lengthened. The match went out, the cigarette was put down unlit. The man was certainly very

still. Isbister took up the portfolio, opened it, put it down, hesitated, seemed about to speak. "Perhaps," he

whispered doubtfully. Presently he glanced at the door and back to the figure. Then he stole on tiptoe out of

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

A number of children going along the road stopped and regarded the artist curiously. A boatman exchanged

civilities with him. He felt that possibly his circumspect attitude and position seemed peculiar and

unaccountable. Smoking, perhaps, might seem more natural. He drew pipe and pouch from his pocket, filled

"I wonder," . . . he said, with a scarcely perceptible loss of complacency. " At any rate we must give him a

Presently he heard his landlady behind him, coming with his lamp lit from the kitchen. He turned,

gesticulating with his pipe, and stopped her at the door of his sittingroom. He had some difficulty in

explaining the situation in whispers, for she did not know he had a visitor. She retreated again with the lamp,

still a little mystified to judge from her manner, and he resumed his hovering at the corner of the porch,

Long after he had smoked out his pipe, and when the bats were abroad, his curiosity dominated his complex

hesitations, and he stole back into his darkling sittingroom. 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

slatecarrying ships in the harbour, the evening was very still. Outside, the spikes of monkshood and

delphinium stood erect and motionless against the shadow of the hillside. Something flashed into Isbister's

mind; he started, and leaning over the table, listened. An unpleasant suspicion grew stronger; became

He crept slowly and noiselessly round the table, pausing twice to listen. At last he could lay his hand on the

Then he bent still lower to look up at his visitor's face. He started violently and uttered an exclamation. The

He looked again and saw that they were open and with the pupils rolled under the lids. He was suddenly

afraid. Overcome by the strangeness of the man's condition, he took him by the shoulder and shook him. "Are

you asleep?" he said, with his voice jumping into alto, and again, "Are you asleep?"

A conviction took possession of his mind that this man was dead. He suddenly became active and noisy,

strode across the room, blundering against the table as he did so, and rang the bell.

"Please bring a light at once," he said in the passage. "There is something wrong with my friend."

Then he returned to the motionless seated figure, grasped the shoulder, shook it, and shouted. The room was

flooded with yellow glare as his astonished landlady entered with the light. His face was white as he turned

blinking towards her. "I must fetch a doctor at once," he said. "It is either death or a fit. Is there a doctor in

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

He was removed from the hotel to the Boscastle surgery, and from the surgery, after some weeks, to London.

But he still resisted every attempt at reanimation. After a time, for reasons that will appear later, these

attempts were discontinued. For a great space he lay in that strange condition, inert and still neither dead nor

living but, as it were, suspended, hanging midway between nothingness and existence. His was a darkness

unbroken by a ray of thought or sensation, a dreamless inanition, a vast space of peace. The tumult of his

mind had swelled and risen to an abrupt climax of silence. Where was the man? Where is any man when

"It seems only yesterday," said Isbister. "I remember it all as though it happened yesterday clearer perhaps,

It was the Isbister of the last chapter, but he was no longer a young man. The hair that had been brown and a

trifle in excess of the fashionable length, was iron grey and clipped close, and the face that had been pink and

white was buff and ruddy. He had a pointed beard shot with grey. He talked to an elderly man who wore a

summer suit of drill (the summer of that year was unusually hot). This was Warming, a London solicitor and

next of kin to Graham, the man who had fallen into the trance. And the two men stood side by side in a room

It was a yellow figure Iying lax upon a waterbed and clad in a flowing shirt, a figure with a shrunken face

and a stubby beard, lean limbs and lank nails, and about it was a case of thin glass. This glass seemed to mark

off the sleeper from the reality of life about him, he was a thing apart, a strange, isolated abnormality. The

"The thing gave me a shock," said Isbister "I feel a queer sort of surprise even now when I think of his white

eyes. They were white, you know, rolled up. Coming here again brings it all back to me.

"Often wanted to come," said Isbister; "but business nowadays is too serious a thing for much holiday

"Was. And then I became a married man. I saw it was all up with black and white, very soonat least for a

mediocre man, and I jumped on to process. Those posters on the Cliffs at Dover are by my people."

"Good posters," admitted the solicitor, "though I | was sorry to see them there." I

"Last as long as the cliffs, if necessary," exclaimed Isbister with satisfaction. " The world changes. When he

fell asleep, twenty years ago, I was down at Boscastle with a box of watercolours and a noble,

oldfashioned ambition. I didn't expect that some day my pigments would glorify the whole blessed coast of

England, from Land's End round again to the Lizard. Luck comes to a man very often when he's not looking."

Warming seemed to doubt the quality of the luck. " I just missed seeing you, if I recollect aright."

"You came back by the trap that took me to Camelford railway station. It was close on the Jubilee, Victoria's

Jubilee, because I remember the seats and flags in Westminster, and the row with the cabman at Chelsea."

"Ah, yes ! At the proper Jubileethe Fifty Year affairI was down at Wookeya 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 doctorit wasn't

the present chap, but the G.P. before himwas at him until nearly two, with, me and the landlord holding

"Stiff!wherever you bent him he stuck. You might have stood him on his head and he'd have stopped. I

never saw such stiffness. Of course this" he indicated the prostrate figure by a movement of his head" is

"Smithers it waswas 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

"Yes. You could see his muscles throb and jump, and he twisted about. There was just two flaring yellow

candles, and all the shadows were shivering, and the little doctor nervous and putting on side, and himstark

"Here's the body, empty. Not dead a bit, and yet not alive. It's like a seat vacant and marked 'engaged.' No

feeling, no digestion, no beating of the heartnot 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

They peered through the glass again. Graham was indeed in a strange state, in the flaccid phase of a trance,

but a trance unprecedented in medical history. Trances had lasted for as much as a year before but at the

end of that time it had ever been waking or a death; sometimes first one and then the other. Isbister noted the

marks the physicians had made in injecting nourishment, for that device had been resorted to to postpone

"And while he has been Iying here," said Isbister, with the zest of a life freely spent, " I have changed my

plans in life; married, raised a family, my eldest lad I hadn't begun to think of sons thenis an American

citizen, and looking forward to leaving Harvard. There's a touch of grey in my hair. And this man, not a day

older nor wiser (practically) than I was in my downy days. It's curious to think of."

Warming turned. "And I have grown old too. I played cricket with him when I was still only a lad. And he

"I've understood," said Isbister after a pause, "that he had some moderate property of his own?"

"That is so," said Warming. He coughed primly. "As it happens have charge of it."

" Ah!" Isbister thought, hesitated and spoke: "No doubthis keep here is not expensiveno doubt it will

"As a business man," said Isbister, "that thought has naturally been in my mind. I have, indeed, sometimes

thought that, speaking commercially, of course, this sleep may be a very good thing for him. That he knows

what he is about, so to speak, in being insensible so long. If he had lived straight on"

"I doubt if he would have premeditated as much," said Warming. "He was not a farsighted man. In fact"

"We differed on that point. I stood to him some what 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,

"It will be a pity to lose his surprise. There's been a lot of change these twenty years. It's Rip Van Winkle

"It's Bellamy," said Warming. " There has been a lot of change certainly. And, among other changes, I have

Isbister hesitated, and then feigned a belated surprise. "I shouldn't have thought it."

"I was fortythree when his bankersyou remember you wired to his bankerssent on to me."

There was another pause, and then Isbister gave way to an unavoidable curiosity. "He may go on for years

yet," he said, and had a moment of hesitation. "We have to consider that. His affairs, you know, may fall

"That, if you will believe me, Mr. Isbister, is one of the problems most constantly before my mind. We

happen to beas a matter of fact, there are no very trustworthy connections of ours. It is a grotesque and

"It is," said Isbister. "As a matter of fact, it's a case for a public trustee, if only we had such a functionary."

"It seems to me it's a case for some public body, some practically undying guardian. If he really is going on

livingas the doctors, some of them, think. As a matter of fact, I have gone to one or two public men about

"It wouldn't be a bad idea to hand him over to some public bodythe British Museum Trustees, or the Royal

College of Physicians. Sounds a bit odd, of course, but the whole situation is odd."

Pause. " It's a curious business, certainly," said Isbister. "And compound interest has a way of mounting up."

"It has," said Warming. "And now the gold supplies are running short there is a tendency towards . . .

"I've felt that," said Isbister with a grimace. "But it makes it better for him."

"If he wakes," echoed Isbister. "Do you notice the pinchedill look of his nose, and the way in which his

Warming looked and thought for a space. "I doubt if he will wake," he said at last.

"I never properly understood," said Isbister, "what it was brought this on. He told me something about

"He was a man of considerable gifts, but spasmodic, emotional. He had grave domestic troubles, divorced his

wife, in fact, and it was as a relief from that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort. He was a

fanatical Radicala Socialistor typical Liberal, as they used to call themselves,of the advanced school.

Energeticflightyundisciplined. Overwork upon a controversy did this for him. I remember the pamphlet

he wrotea curious production. Wild, whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies. Some of them are

already exploded, some of them are established facts. But for the most part to read such a thesis is to realise

how full the world is of unanticipated things. He will have much to learn, much to unlearn, when he wakes. If

"I'd give anything to be there," said Isbister, "just to hear what he would say to it all."

"So would I," said Warming. "Aye! so would I," with an old man's sudden turn to self pity. "But I shall never

He stood looking thoughtfully at the waxen figure. "He will never wake," he said at last. He sighed "He will

What a wonderfully complex thing! this simple seeming unitythe self! Who can trace its reintegration as

morning after morning we awaken, the flux and confluence of its countless factors intenveaving, rebuilding,

the dim first stirrings of the soul, the growth and synthesis of the unconscious to the subconscious, the

subconscious to dawning consciousness, until at last we recognise ourselves again. And as it happens to

most of us after the night's sleep, so it was with Graham at the end of his vast slumber. A dim cloud of

sensation taking shape, a cloudy dreariness, and he found himself vaguely somewhere, recumbent, faint, but

The pilgrimage towards a personal being seemed to traverse vast gulfs, to occupy epochs. Gigantic dreams

that were terrible realities at the time, left vague perplexing memories, strange creatures, strange scenery, as

if from another planet. There was a distinct impression, too, of a momentous conversation, of a namehe

could not tell what namethat was subsequently to recur, of some queer longforgotten sensation of vein

and muscle, of a feeling of vast hopeless effort, the effort of a man near drowning in darkness. Then came a

It was something white, the edge of something, a frame of wood. He moved his head slightly, following the

contour of this shape. It went up beyond the top of his eyes. He tried to think where he might be. Did it

matter, seeing he was so wretched? The colour of his thoughts was a dark depression. He felt the featureless

misery of one who wakes towards the hour of dawn. He had an uncertain sense of whispers and footsteps

The movement of his head involved a perception of extreme physical weakness. He supposed he was in bed

in the hotel at the place in the valleybut he could not recall that white edge. He must have slept. He

remembered now that he had wanted to sleep. He recalled the cliff and waterfall again, and then recollected

How long had he slept? What was that sound of pattering feet? And that rise and fall, like the murmur of

breakers on pebbles? He put out a languid hand to reach his watch from the chair whereon it was his habit to

place it, and touched some smooth hard surface like glass. This was so unexpected that it startled him

extremely. Quite suddenly he rolled over, stared for a moment, and struggled into a sitting position. The

He rubbed his eyes. The riddle of his surroundings was confusing but his mind was quite clearevidently his

sleep had benefited him. He was not in a bed at all as he understood the word, but Iying naked on a very soft

and yielding mattress, in a trough of dark glass. The mattress was partly transparent, a fact he observed with a

strange sense of insecurity, and below it was a mirror reflecting him greyly. About his armand he saw with

a shock that his skin was strangIy dry and yellowwas bound a curious apparatus of rubber, bound so

cunningly that it seemed to pass into his skin above and below. And this strange bed was placed in a case of

greenish coloured glass (as it seemed to him), a bar in the white framework of which had first arrested his

attention. In the corner of the case was a stand of glittering and delicately made apparatus, for the most part

quite strange appliances, though a maximum and minimum thermometer was recognisable.

The slightly greenish tint of the glasslike substance which surrounded him on every hand obscured what lay

behind, but he perceived it was a vast apartment of splendid appearance, and with a very large and simple

white archway facing him. Close to the walls of the cage were articles of furniture, a table covered with a

silvery cloth, silvery like the side of a fish, a couple of graceful chairs, and on the table a number of dishes

with substances piled on them, a bottle and two glasses. He realised that he was intensely hungry.

He could see no human being, 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 glasslike 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 vanisheda

pricked bubble. He reeled out into the general space of the hall, greatly astonished. He caught at the table to

save himself, knocking one of the glasses to the floorit rang but did not break and sat down in one of the

When he had a little recovered he filled the remaining glass from the bottle and dranka colourless liquid it

was, but not water, with a pleasing faint aroma and taste and a quality of immediate support and stimulus. He

The apartment lost none of its size and magnificence now that the greenish transparency that had intervened

was removed. The archway he saw led to a flight of steps, going downward without the intermediation of a

door, to a spacious transverse passage. This passage ran between polished pillars of some whiteveined

substance of deep ultramarine, and along it came the sound of human movements and voices and a deep

undeviating droning note. He sat, now fully awake, listening alertly, forgetting the viands in his attention.

Then with a shock he remembered that he was naked, and casting about him for covering, saw a long black

robe thrown on one of the chairs beside him. This he wrapped about him and sat down again, trembling.

His mind was still a surging perplexity. Clearly he had slept. and had been removed in his sleep. But here?

And who were those people, the distant crowd beyond the deep blue pillars? Boscastle? He poured out and

What was this place?this place that to his senses seemed subtly quivering like a thing alive? He looked

about him at the clean and beautiful form of the apartment, unstained by ornament, and saw that the roof was

broken in one place by a circular shaft full of light, and, as he looked, a steady, sweeping shadow blotted it

out and passed, and came again and passed. "Beat, beat," that sweeping shadow had a note of its own in the

He would have called out, but only a little sound came into his throat. Then he stood up, and, with the

uncertain steps of a drunkard, made his way towards the archway. He staggered down the steps, tripped on

the corner of the black cloak he had wrapped about himself, and saved himself by catching at one of the blue

The passage ran down a cool vista of blue and purple, and ended remotely in a railed space like a balcony,

brightly lit and projecting into a space of haze, a space like the interior of some gigantic building. Beyond and

remote were vast and vague architectural forms. The tumult of voices rose now loud and clear, and on the

balcony and with their backs to him, gesticulating and apparently in animated conversation, were three

figures, richly dressed in loose and easy garments of bright soft colourings. The noise of a great multitude of

people poured up over the balcony, and once it seemed the top of a banner passed, and once some brightly

coloured object, a pale blue cap or garment thrown up into the air perhaps, flashed athwart the space and fell.

The shouts sounded like English, there was a reiteration of "Wake!" He heard some indistinct shrill cry, and

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed onea redhaired man in a short purple robe. "When the Sleeper wakes

He turned his eyes full of merriment along the passage. His face changed, the whole man changed, became

rigid. The other two turned swiftly at his exclamation and stood motionless. Their faces assumed an

Suddenly Graham's knees bent beneath him, his arm against the pillar collapsed limply, he staggered forward

Graham's last impression before he fainted was of a clamorous ringing of bells. He learnt afterwards that he

was insensible, hanging between life and death, for the better part of an hour. When he recovered his senses,

he was back on his translucent couch, and there was a stirring warmth at heart and throat. The dark apparatus,

he perceived, had been removed from his arm, which was bandaged. The white framework was still about

him, but the greenish transparent substance that had filled it was altogether gone. A man in a deep violet robe,

Remote but insistent was a clamour of bells and confused sounds, that suggested to his mind the picture of a

great number of people shouting together. Something seemed to fall across this tumult, a door suddenly

He saw the redhaired man who had been first to discover him. A voice seemed to be asking what he had

The man in violet answered in a soft voice, speaking English with a slightly foreign accent, or so at least it

You were brought hither from where you fell asleep. It is quite safe. You have been here some time

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

" Better?" asked the man in violet, as Graham's eyes reopened. He was a pleasantfaced man of thirty,

perhaps, with a pointed flaxen beard, and a clasp of gold at the neck of his violet robe.

"You have been asleep some time. In a cataleptic trance. You have heard? Catalepsy? It may seem strange to

Graham did not answer, but these words served their reassuring purpose. His eyes went from face to face of

the three people about him. They were regarding him strangely. He knew he ought to be somewhere in

A matter that had been in his mind during his last waking moments at Boscastle recurred, a thing resolved

They were all assiduous to hear. But he had to repeat it. "What an odd __blurr__ in his accent!" whispered

the redhaired man. "Wire, sir?" said the young man with the flaxen beard, evidently puzzled.

"He means send an electric telegram," volunteered the third, a pleasantfaced youth of nineteen or twenty.

The flaxenbearded 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 towire to your cousin. He is not in

London now. But don't trouble about arrangements yet; you have been asleep a very long time and the

important thing is to get over that, sir." (Graham concluded the word was sir, but this man pronounced it

It was all very puzzling, but apparently these people in unfamiliar dress knew what they were about. Yet they

were odd and the room was odd. It seemed he was in some newly established place. He had a sudden flash of

suspicion. Surely this wasn't some hall of public exhibition! If it was he would give Warming a piece of his

mind. But it scarcely had that character. And in a place of public exhibition he would not have discovered

Then suddenly, quite abruptly, he realised what had happened. There was no perceptible interval of suspicion,

no dawn to his knowledge. Abruptly he knew that his trance had lasted for a vast interval; as if by some

processes of thought reading he interpreted the awe in the faces that peered into his. He looked at them

strangely, full of intense emotion. It seemed they read his eyes. He framed his lips to speak and could not. A

queer impulse to hide his knowledge came into his mind almost at the moment of his discovery. He looked at

his bare feet, regarding then silently. His impulse to speak passed. He was trembling exceedingly.

They gave him some pink fluid with a greenish fluorescence and a meaty taste, and the assurance of returning

"Thatthat makes me feel better," he said hoarsely, and there were murmurs of respectful approval. He

"Some considerable time," said the flaxenbearded man, glancing quickly at the others.

"Yesyes," said Graham, suddenly testy. "But I want Is itit issome years? Many years? There was

somethingI forget what. I feel confused. But you" He sobbed. "You need not fence with me. How

He stopped, breathing irregularly. He squeezed his eyes with his knuckles and sat waiting for an answer.

He looked at them and it seemed as though imps were twitching the muscles of his face. He looked his

Graham struggled into a sitting position. He wiped a rheumy tear from his face with a lean hand. "Many

years!" he repeated. He shut his eyes tight, opened them, and sat looking about him, from one unfamiliar

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."

__"Whats?"__ he cried, turning on the youth who he thought had spoken. "Who says? What was that? A

Graham repeated the words. He had been prepared to hear of a vast repose, and yet these concrete centuries

"Two hundred years," he said again, with the figure of a great gulf opening very slowly in his mind; and then,

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 rightthis is a

joke you have played upon me! Tell mesome days ago, perhaps, I was walking along the coast of

The man with the flaxen beard hesitated. "I'm not very strong in history, sir," he said weakly, and glanced at

"That was it, sir," said the youngster. "Boscastle, in the old Duchy of Cornwallit's in the southwest country

"Boscastle!" Graham turned his eyes to the youngster. "That was itBoscastle. Little Boscastle. I fell

He began to speak quickly with a twitching face, but his heart was cold within him. "But if it is two hundred

years, every soul I know, every human being that ever I saw or spoke to before I went to sleep, must be

"The Queen and the Royal Family, her Ministers, of Church and State. High and low, rich and poor, one with

"That's a comfort! Is there London?" E "This __is__ London, eh? And you are my assistant custodian;

He sat with a gaunt stare on his face. "But why am I here? No! Don't talk. Be quiet. Let me"

He sat silent, rubbed his eyes, and, uncovering them, found another little glass of pinkish fluid held towards

him. He took the dose. It was almost immediately sustaining. Directly he had taken it he began to weep

Presently he looked at their faces, suddenly laughed through his tears, a little foolishly. "Buttwo

hundredyears ! " he said. He grimaced hysterically and covered up his face again.

After a space he grew calm. He sat up, his hands hanging over his knees in almost precisely the same attitude

in which Isbister had found him on the cliff at Pentargen. His attention was attracted by a thick domineering

voice, the footsteps of an advancing personage. "What are you doing? Why was I not warned? Surely you

could tell? Someone will suffer for this. The man must be kept quiet. Are the doorways closed? All the

doorways? He must be kept perfectly quiet. He must not be told. Has he been told anything?"

The man with the fair beard made some inaudible remark, and Graham looking over his shoulder saw

approaching a very short, fat, and thickset beardless man, with aquiline nose and heavy neck and chin. Very

thick black and slightly sloping eyebrows that almost met over his nose and overhung deep grey eyes, gave

his face an oddly formidable expression. He scowled momentarily at Graham and then his regard returned to

the man with the flaxen beard. "These others," he said in a voice of extreme irritation. "You had better go."

The two men addressed turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at Graham, and instead of going through

the archway as he expected, walked straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. And then

came a strange thing; 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 new comer and the purplerobed

For a space the thickset man took not the slightest notice of Graham, but proceeded to interrogate the

otherobviously his subordinateupon the treatment of their charge. He spoke clearly, but in phrases only

partially intelligible to Graham. The awakening seemed not only a matter of surprise but of consternation and

"You must not confuse his mind by telling him things," he repeated again and again. "You must not confuse

His questions answered, he turned quickly and eyed the awakened sleeper with an ambiguous expression.

"They" said the thickset man and stopped, and the flaxenbearded man met his eye and went away. "You

"They have told you that, have they? Two hundred and three, as a matter of fact."

Graham accepted the indisputable now with raised eyebrows and depressed mouth. He sat silent for a

moment, and then asked a question, "Is there a mill or dynamo near here?" He did not wait for an answer.

"Nothing," said the thickset man impatiently. "It's people. You'll understand better laterperhaps. As you

say, things have changed." He spoke shortly, his brows were knit, and he glanced about him like a man trying

Better wait here until some can come. No one will come near you. You want shaving."

The man with the flaxen beard came back towards them, turned suddenly, listened for a moment, lifted his

eyebrows at the older man, and hurried off through the archway towards the balcony. The tumult of shouting

grew louder, and the thickset man turned and listened also. He cursed suddenly under his breath, and turned

his eyes upon Graham with an unfriendly expression. It was a surge of many voices, rising and falling,

shouting and screaming, and once came a sound like blows and sharp cries, and then a snapping like the

crackling of dry sticks. Graham strained his ears to draw some single thread of sound from the woven tumult.

Then he perceived, repeated again and again, a certain formula. For a time he doubted his ears. But surely

"I can't come," said the thickset man; "I have __him__ to see to. But shout from the balcony."

He came hurrying back to Graham. "You must have clothes at once," he said. "You cannot stop hereand it

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. Yesin a moment. And then I can take you away from here. You will find out our troubles soon

"Something about the Sleeperthat's you. They have some twisted idea. I don't know what it is. I know

A shrill bell jetted acutely across the indistinct mingling of remote noises, and this brusque person sprang to a

little group of appliances in the corner of the room. He listened for a moment, regarding a ball of crystal,

nodded, and said a few indistinct words; then he walked to the wall through which the two men had vanished.

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

The man with the flaxen beard reentered from the archway, and as he did so the cage of a lift came sliding

down in front of the thickset man, and a lean, greybearded man, carrying a roll, and wearing a tightlyfitting

"This is the tailor," said the thickset man with an introductory gesture." It will never do for you to wear that

black. I cannot understand how it got here. But I shall. I shall. You will be as rapid as possible? " he said to

The 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

He opened the roller with a quick movement, and a confusion of brilliant fabrics poured out over his knees.

"You lived, Sire, in a period essentially cylindrical the Victorian. With a tendency to the hemisphere in

hats. Circular curves always. Now" He flicked out a little appliance the size and appearance of a keyless

watch, whirled the knob, and beholda little figure in white appeared kinetoscope fashion on the dial,

walking and turning. The tailor caught up a pattern of bluish white satin. "That is my conception of your

"In your days they showed you a fashionplate," said the tailor," but this is our modern development See

here." The little figure repeated its evolutions, but in a different costume. "Or this," and with a click another

small figure in a more voluminous type of robe marched on to the dial. The tailor was very quick in his

It rumbled again, and a crophaired anaemic 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 crophaired lad, who answered in guttural tones and with

words Graham did not recognise. The boy then went to conduct an incomprehensible monologue in the

corner, and the tailor pulled out a number of slotted arms terminating in little discs, pulling them out until the

discs were flat against the body of Graham, one at each shoulder blade, one at the elbows, one at the neck and

so forth, so that at last there were, perhaps, two score of them upon his body and limbs. At the same time,

some other person entered the room by the lift, behind Graham. The tailor set moving a mechanism that

initiated a faintsounding rhythmic movement of parts in the machine, and in another moment he was

knocking up the levers and Graham was released. The tailor replaced his cloak of black, and the man with the

flaxen beard proffered him a little glass of some refreshing fluid. Graham saw over the rim of the glass a

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 cropheaded lad

handed the tailor a roll of the bluish satin and the two began fixing this in the mechanism in a manner

reminiscent of a roll of paper in a nineteenth century printing machine. Then they ran the entire thing on its

easy, noiseless bearings across the room to a remote corner where a twisted cable looped rather gracefully

from the wall. They made some connexion and the machine became energetic and swift.

"What is that doing?" asked Graham, pointing with the empty glass to the busy figures and trying to ignore

The man in purple stroked his little beard, hesitated, and answered in an undertone, "He is Howard, your

chief guardian. You see, Sire,it's a little difficult to explain. The Council appoints a guardian and

assistants. This hall has under certain restrictions been public. In order that people might satisfy themselves.

We have barred the doorways for the first time. But I thinkif you don't mind, I will leave him to explain."

"Odd" said Graham. " Guardian? Council?" Then turning his back on the new comer, he asked in an

It sounded sheer nonsense. Graham snatched at the last phrase with an unsteady mind. "Sixdoz lions?" he

"Didn't you have lions? I suppose not. You had the old pounds? They are our monetary units."

"Yes. Six dozen, Sire. Of course things, even these little things, have altered. You lived in the days of the

decimal system, the Arab systemtens, and little hundreds and thousands. We have eleven numerals now.

We have single figures for both ten and eleven, two figures for a dozen, and a dozen dozen makes a gross, a

great hundred, you know, a dozen gross a dozand, and a dozand dozand a myriad. Very simple?"

"Here are your clothes!" he said. Graham turned round sharply and saw the tailor standing at his elbow

smiling, and holding some palpably new garments over his arm. The cropheaded boy, by means of one

finger, was impelling the complicated machine towards the lift by which he had arrived. Graham stared at the

"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 Iying, flung out the translucent mattress, and turned up the looking glass. As he

did so a furious bell summoned the thickset man to the corner. The man with the flaxen beard rushed across

The tailor was assisting Graham into a dark purple combination garment, stockings, vest, and pants in one, as

the thickset man came back from the corner to meet the man with the flaxen beard returning from the

balcony. They began speaking quickly in an undertone, their bearing had an unmistakable quality of anxiety.

Over the purple undergarment came a I complex but graceful garment of bluish white, and I Graham was

clothed in the fashion once more and saw himself, sallowfaced, unshaven and shaggy still, but at least naked

The persistent stare ceased. The young man closed his eyes, reopened them, and with a lean hand extended,

advanced on Graham. Then he stopped, with his hand slowly gesticulating, and looked about him.

"A seat," said Howard impatiently, and in a moment the flaxenbearded man had a chair behind Graham. "Sit

Graham hesitated, and in the other hand of the wildeyed man he saw the glint of steel.

"Don't you understand, Sire?" cried the flaxenbearded man with hurried politeness. "He is going to cut your

Graham sat down abruptly. The flaxenbearded man disappeared. The capillotomist came forward with

graceful gestures, examined Graham's ears and surveyed him, felt the back of his head, and would have sat

down again to regard him but for Howard's audible impatience. Forthwith with rapid movements and a

succession of deftly handled implements he shaved Graham's chin, clipped his moustache, and cut and

arranged his hair. All this he did without a word, with something of the rapt air of a poet inspired. And as

Suddenly a loud voice shoutedit seemed from a piece of machinery in the corner"At onceat once.

The people know all over the city. Work is being stopped. Work is being stopped. Wait for nothing, but

This shout appeared to perturb Howard exceedingly. By his gestures it seemed to Graham that he hesitated

between two directions. Abruptly he went towards the corner where the apparatus stood about the little

crystal ball. As he did so the undertone of tumultuous shouting from the archway that had continued during

all these occurrences rose to a mighty sound, roared as if it were sweeping past, and fell again as if receding

swiftly. It drew Graham after it with an irresistible attraction. He glanced at the thickset man, and then

obeyed his impulse. In two strides he was down the steps and in the passage, and, in a score he was out upon

He went to the railings of the balcony and stared upward. An exclamation of surprise at his appearance, and

His first impression was of overwhelming architecture. The place into which he looked was an aisle of

Titanic buildings, curving spaciously in either direction. Overhead mighty cantilevers sprang together across

the huge width of the place, and a tracery of translucent material shut out the sky. Gigantic globes of cool

white light shamed the pale sunbeams that filtered down through the girders and wires. Here and there a

gossamer suspension bridge dotted with foot passengers flung across the chasm and the air was webbed with

slender cables. A cliff of edifice hung above him, he perceived as he glanced upward, and the opposite facade

was grey and dim and broken by great archings, circular perforations, balconies, buttresses, turret projections,

myriads of vast windows, and an intricate scheme of architectural relief. Athwart these ran inscriptions

horizontally and obliquely in an unfamiliar lettering. Here and there close to the roof cables of a peculiar

stoutness were fastened, and drooped in a steep curve to circular openings on the opposite side of the space,

and even as Graham noted these a remote and tiny figure of a man clad in pale blue arrested his attention.

This little figure was far overhead across the space beside the higher fastening of one of these festoons,

hanging forward from a little ledge of masonry and handling some wellnigh invisible strings dependent

from the line. Then suddenly, with a swoop that sent Graham's heart into his mouth, this man had rushed

down the curve and vanished through a round opening on the hither side of the way. Graham had been

looking up as he came out upon the balcony, and the things he saw above and opposed to him had at first

seized his attention to the exclusion of anything else. Then suddenly he discovered the roadway! It was not a

roadway at all, as Graham understood such things, for in the nineteenth century the only roads and streets

were beaten tracks of motionless earth, jostling rivulets of vehicles between narrow footways. But this

roadway was three hundred feet across, and it moved; it moved, all save the middle, the lowest part. For a

Under the balcony this extraordinary roadway ran swiftly to Graham's right, an endless flow rushing along as

fast as a nineteenth century express train, an endless platform of narrow transverse overlapping slats with

little interspaces that permitted it to follow the curvatures of the street. Upon it were seats, and here and there

little kiosks, but they swept by too swiftly for him to see what might be therein. From this nearest and

swiftest platform a series of others descended to the centre of the space. Each moved to the right, each

perceptibly slower than the one above it, but the difference in pace was small enough to permit anyone to step

from any platform to the one adjacent, and so walk uninterruptedly from the swiftest to the motionless middle

way. Beyond this middle way was another series of endless platforms rushing with varying pace to Graham's

left. And seated in crowds upon the two widest and swiftest platforms, or stepping from one to another down

the steps, or swarming over the central space, was an innumerable and wonderfully diversified multitude of

"You must not stop here," shouted Howard suddenly at his side. "You must come away at once."

Graham made no answer. He heard without hearing. The platforms ran with a roar and the people were

shouting. He perceived women and girls with flowing hair, beautifully robed, with bands crossing between

the breasts. These first came out of the confusion. Then he perceived that the dominant note in that

kaleidoscope of costume was the pale blue that the tailor's boy had worn. He became aware of cries of "The

Sleeper. What has happened to the Sleeper?" and it seemed as though the rushing platforms before him were

suddenly spattered with the pale buff of human faces, and then still more thickly. He saw pointing fingers. He

perceived that the motionless central area of this huge arcade just opposite to the balcony was densely

crowded with blueclad people. Some sort of struggle had sprung into life. People seemed to be pushed up

the running platforms on either side, and carried away against their will. They would spring off so soon as

"It is the Sleeper. Verily it is the Sleeper," shouted voices. "That is never the Sleeper," shouted others. More

and more faces were turned to him. At the intervals along this central area Graham noted openings, pits,

apparently the heads of staircases going down with people ascending out of them and descending into them.

The struggle it seemed centred about the one of these nearest to him. People were running down the moving

platforms to this, leaping dexterously from platform to platform. The clustering people on the higher

platforms seemed to divide their interest between this point and the balcony. A number of sturdy little figures

clad in a uniform of bright red, and working methodically together, were employed it seemed in preventing

access to this descending staircase. About them a crowd was rapidly accumulating. Their brilliant colour

contrasted vividly with the whitishblue of their antagonists, for the struggle was indisputable.

He saw these things with Howard shouting in his ear and shaking his arm. And then suddenly Howard was

He perceived that the cries of "The Sleeper" grew in volume, and that the people on the nearer platform were

standing up. The nearer swifter platform he perceived was empty to the right of him, and far across the space

the platform running in the opposite direction was coming crowded and passing away bare. With incredible

swiftness a vast crowd had gathered in the central space before his eyes; a dense swaying mass of people, and

the shouts grew from a fitful crying to a voluminous incessant clamour: "The Sleeper!" The Sleeper!" and

yells and cheers, a waving of garments and cries of "Stop the ways!" They were also crying another name

strange to Graham. It sounded like "Ostrog." The slower platforms were soon thick with active people,

"Stop the ways," they cried. Agile figures ran up swiftly from the centre to the swift road nearest to him, were

borne rapidly past him, shouting strange, unintelligible things, and ran back obliquely to the central way. One

thing he distinguished: "It is indeed the Sleeper. It is indeed the Sleeper," they testified.

For a space Graham stood without a movement. Then he became vividly aware that all this concerned him.

He was pleased at his wonderful popularity, he bowed, and, seeking a gesture of longer range, waved his arm.

He was astonished at the violence of uproar that this provoked. The tumult about the descending stairway

rose to furious violence. He became aware of crowded balconies, of men sliding along ropes, of men in

trapezelike seats hurling athwart the space. He heard voices behind him, a number of people descending the

steps through the archway; he suddenly perceived that his guardian Howard was back again and gripping his

He turned, and Howard's face was white. "Come back," he heard. "They will stop the ways. The whole city

He perceived a number of men hurrying along the passage of blue pillars behind Howard, the redhaired

man, the man with the flaxen beard, a tall man in vivid vermilion, a crowd of others in red carrying staves,

"You must come away!" said the man in red in a resolute voice. His face and eyes were resolute, too.

Graham's glances went from face to face, and he was suddenly aware of that most disagreeable flavour in life,

compulsion. Some one gripped his arm.... He was being dragged away. It seemed as though the tumult

suddenly became two, as if half the shouts that had come in from this wonderful roadway had sprung into the

passages of the great building behind him. Marvelling and confused, feeling an impotent desire to resist,

Graham was half led, half thrust, along the passage of blue pillars, and suddenly he found himself alone with

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. And as yet the haze of his vast interval of sleep hung about him, as

yet the initial strangeness of his being alive at all in this remote age touched everything with wonder, with a

sense of the irrational, with something of the quality of a realistic dream. He was still detached, an astonished

spectator, still but half involved in life. What he had seen, and especially the last crowded tumult, framed in

the setting of the balcony, had a spectacular turn, like a thing witnessed from the box of a theatre. "I don't

understand," he said. "What was the trouble? My mind is in a whirl. Why were they shouting? What is the

"We have our troubles," said Howard. His eyes avoided Graham's enquiry. "This is a time of unrest. And, in

He spoke jerkily, like a man not quite sure of his breathing. He stopped abruptly.

"I shall understand better, no doubt, when I have seen my way about a little," said Graham puzzled. "It. will

beit is bound to be perplexing. At present it is all so strange. Anything seems possible. Anything In the

The lift stopped, and they stepped out into a narrow but very long passage between high walls, along which

"What a huge place this is!" said Graham. "Is it all one building? What place is it?"

"Was it a social troublethatin the great roadway place? How are you governed? Have you still a

"Very probably not. Our social order will probably seem very complex to you. To tell you the truth, I don't

understand it myself very clearly. Nobody does. You will, perhapsbye and bye. We have to go to the

Council." Graham's attention was divided between the urgent necessity of his inquiries and the people in the

passages and halls they were traversing. For a moment his mind would be concentrated upon Howard and the

halting answers he made, and then he would lose the thread in response to some vivid unexpected impression.

Along the passages, in the halls, half the people seemed to be men in the red uniform. The pale blue canvas

that had been so abundant in the aisle of moving ways did not appear. Invariably these men looked at him,

He had a clear vision of entering a long corridor, and there were a number of girls sitting on low seats and as

though in a class. He saw no teacher, but only a novel apparatus from which he fancied a voice proceeded.

The girls regarded him and his conductor, he thought, with curiosity and astonishment. But he was hurried on

before he could form a clear idea of the gathering. He judged they knew Howard and not himself, and that

they wondered who he was. This Howard, it seemed, was a person of importance. But then he was also

There came a passage in twilight, and into this passage a footway hung so that he could see the feet and

ankles of people going to and fro thereon, but no more of them. Then vague impressions of galleries and of

casual astonished passersby turning round to stare after the two of them with their redclad guard.

The stimulus of the restoratives he had taken was only temporary. He was speedily fatigued by this excessive

haste. He asked Howard to slacken his speed. Presently he was in a lift that had a window upon the great

street space, but this was glazed and did not open, and they were too high for him to see the moving platforms

below. But he saw people going to and fro along cables and along strange, fraillooking ridges.

And thence they passed across the street and at a vast height above it. They crossed by means of a narrow

bridge closed in with glass, so clear that it made him giddy even to remember it. The floor of it also was of

glass. From his memory of the cliffs between New Quay and Boscastle, so remote in time, and so recent in

his experience, it seemed to him that they must be near four hundred feet above the moving ways. He

stopped, looked down between his legs upon the swarming blue and red multitudes, minute and fore

shortened, struggling and gesticulating still towards the little balcony far below, a little toy balcony, it

seemed, where he had so recently been standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mighty globes of light

obscured everything. A man seated in a little open work cradle shot by from some point still higher than the

little narrow bridge, rushing down a cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling. Graham stopped

involuntarily to watch this strange passenger vanish in a great circular opening below, and then his eyes went

Along one of the swifter ways rushed a thick crowd of red spots. This broke up into individuals as it

approached the balcony, and went pouring down the slower ways towards the dense struggling crowd on the

central area. These men in red appeared to be armed with sticks or truncheons; they seemed to be striking and

thrusting. A great shouting, cries of wrath, screaming, burst out and came up to Graham, faint and thin. "Go

Another man rushed down a cable. Graham suddenly glanced up to see whence he came, and beheld through

the glassy roof and the network of cables and girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vans 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.

"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 wasplike uniform of black and yellow appeared down the passage, and one

hastened to throw up a sliding shutter that had seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham

found himself in a gallery overhanging the end of a great chamber. The attendant in black and yellow crossed

This place had the appearance of an anteroom. He saw a number of people in the central space, and at the

opposite end a large and imposing doorway at the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but giving a

glimpse of some still larger hall beyond. He perceived white men in red and other negroes in black and

As they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below, "The Sleeper," and was aware of a turning of

heads, a hum of observation. They entered another little passage in the wall of this antechamber, and then he

found himself on an ironrailed 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 welltrained servant, and closed the valve

Compared with any of the places Graham had see thus far, this second hall appeared to be decorate with

extreme richness. On a pedestal at the remote end, and more brilliantly lit than any other object, was a

gigantic white figure of Atlas, strong and strenuous, the globe upon his bowed shoulders. It was the first thing

to strike his attention, it was so vast, so patiently and painfully real, so white and simple. Save for this figure

and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the place was a shining vacancy. The dais was remote in the

greatness of the area; it would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been for the group of seven men

who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of its proportions. They were all dressed in white robes,

they seemed to have arisen that moment from their seats, and they were regarding Graham steadfastly. At the

Howard led him along the end gallery until they were opposite this mighty labouring figure. Then he stopped.

The two men in red who had followed them into the gallery came and stood on either hand of Graham.

"You must remain here," murmured Howard, "for a few moments," and, without waiting for a reply, hurried

He moved as if to follow Howard, and found his path obstructed by one of the men in red. "You have to wait

"Oh!" said Graham, and after an equally ineffectual attempt at the other man, went to the railing and stared at

The Council? He perceived there were now eight, though how the newcomer had arrived he had not

observed. They made no gestures of greeting; they stood regarding him as in the nineteenth century a group

of men might have stood in the street regarding a distant balloon that had suddenly floated into view. What

council could it be that gathered there, that little body of men beneath the significant white Atlas, secluded

from every eavesdropper in this impressive spaciousness? And why should he be brought to them, and be

looked at strangely and spoken of inaudibly? Howard appeared beneath, walking quickly across the polished

floor towards them. As he drew near he bowed and performed certain peculiar movements, apparently of a

ceremonious nature. Then he ascended the steps of the dais, and stood by the apparatus at the end of the table.

Graham watched that visible inaudible conversation. Occasionally, one of the whiterobed men would glance

towards him. He strained his ears in vain. The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated. He

glanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants. . . . When he looked again Howard was extending

his hands and moving his head like a man who protests. He was interrupted, it seemed, by one of the

The conversation lasted an interminable time to Graham's sense. His eyes rose to the still giant at whose feet

the Council sat. Thence they wandered at last to the walls of the hall. It was decorated in long painted panels

of a quasiJapanese type, many of them very beautiful. These panels were grouped in a great and elaborate

framing of dark metal, which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries, and the great structural lines

of the interior. The facile grace of these panels enhanced the mighty white effort that laboured in the centre of

the scheme. Graham's eyes came back to the Council, and Howard was descending the steps. As he drew

nearer his features could be distinguished, and Graham saw that he was flushed and blowing out his cheeks.

His countenance was still disturbed when presently he reappeared along the gallery.

"This way," he said concisely, and they went on in silence to a little door that opened at their approach. The

two men in red stopped on either side of this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing

back, saw the whiterobed Council still standing in a close group and looking at him. Then the door closed

behind him with a heavy thud, and for the first time since his awakening he was in silence. The floor, even,

Howard opened another door, and they were in the first of two contiguous chambers furnished in white and

green. "What Council was that? " began Graham. "What were they discussing? What have they to do with

me?" Howard closed the door carefully, heaved a huge sigh, and said something in an undertone. He walked

slanting ways across the room and turned, blowing out his cheeks again. "Ugh!" he grunted, a man relieved.

"You must understand," began Howard abruptly, avoiding Graham's eyes, "that our social order is very

complex. A half explanation, a bare unqualified statement would give you false impressions. As a matter of

factit is a case of compound interest partlyyour small fortune, and the fortune of your cousin Warming

which was left to youand certain other beginningshave become very considerable. And in other ways

that will be hard for you to understand, you have become a person of significanceof very considerable

"Things have come to such a pass that, in fact, is advisable to seclude you here."

"All the more reason I should begin at once. You say I am a person of importance. What was that shouting I

heard? Why is a great multitude shouting and excited because my trance is over, and who are the men in

"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."

Graham made a petulant movement. " This is not right," he said. " I should be told what is happening.

Graham sat down abruptly. "I suppose since I have waited so long to resume life," he said, "that I must wait a

"That is better," said Howard. "Yes, that is much better. And I must leave you alone. For a space. While I

Graham walked to the door, tried it, found it securely fastened in some way he never came to understand,

turned about, paced the room restlessly, made the circuit of the room, and sat down. He remained sitting for

some time with folded arms and knitted brow, biting his finger nails and trying to piece together the

kaleidoscopic impressions of this first hour of awakened life; the vast mechanical spaces, the endless series of

chambers and passages, the great struggle that roared and splashed through these strange ways, the little

group of remote unsympathetic men beneath the colossal Atlas, Howard's mysterious behaviour. There was

an inkling of some vast inheritance already in his minda vast inheritance perhaps misappliedof some

unprecedented importance and opportunity. What had he to do? And this room's secluded silence was

It came into Graham's mind with irresistible conviction that this series of magnificent impressions was a

dream. He tried to shut his eyes and succeeded, but that timehonoured device led to no awakening.

Presently he began to touch and examine all the unfamiliar appointments of the two small rooms in which he

In a long oval panel of mirror he saw himself and stopped astonished. He was clad in a graceful costume of

purple and bluish white, with a little greyshot beard trimmed to a point, and his hair, its blackness streaked

now with bands of grey, arranged over his forehead in an unfamiliar but graceful manner. He seemed a man

A flash of laughter came with the recognition. "To call on old Warming like this!" he exclaimed, "and make

Then he thought of meeting first one and then another of the few familiar acquaintances of his early

manhood, and in the midst of his amusement realised that every soul with whom he might jest had died many

score of years ago. The thought smote him abruptly and keenly; he stopped short, the expression of his face

The tumultuous memory of the moving platforms and the huge facade of that wonderful street reasserted

itself. The shouting multitudes came back clear and vivid, and those remote, inaudible, unfriendly councilors

in white. He felt himself a little figure, very small and ineffectual, pitifully conspicuous. And all about him,

Presently Graham resumed his examination of his apartments. Curiosity kept him moving in spite of his

fatigue. The inner room, he perceived, was high, and its ceiling dome shaped', with an oblong aperture in the

centre, opening into a funnel in which a wheel of broad vans seemed to be rotating, apparently driving the air

up the shaft. The faint humming note of its easy motion was the only clear sound in that quiet place. As these

vans sprang up one after the other, Graham could get transient glimpses of the sky. He was surprised to see a

This drew his attention to the fact that the bright lighting of these rooms was due to a multitude of very faint

glow lamps set about the cornices. There were no windows. And he began to recall that along all the vast

chambers and passages he had traversed with Howard he had observed no windows at all. Had there been

windows? There were windows on the street indeed, but were they for light? Or was the whole city lit day

And another thing dawned upon him. There was no fireplace in either room. Was the season summer, and

were these merely summer apartments, or was the whole City uniformly heated or cooled? He became

interested in these questions, began examining the smooth texture of the walls, the simply constructed bed,

the ingenious arrangements by which the labour of bedroom service was practically abolished. And over

everything was a curious absence of deliberate ornament, a bare grace of form and colour, that he found very

pleasing to the eye. There were several very comfortable chairs, a light table on silent runners carrying

several bottles of fluids and glasses, and two plates bearing a clear substance like jelly. Then he noticed there

were no books, no newspapers, no writing materials. "The world has changed indeed," he said.

He observed one entire side of the outer room was set with rows of peculiar double cylinders inscribed with

green lettering on white that harmonized With the decorative scheme of the room, and in the centre of this

side projected a little apparatus about a yard square and having a white smooth face to the room. A chair

faced this. He had a transitory idea that these cylinders might be books, or a modern substitute for books, but

The lettering on the cylinders puzzled him. At first sight it seemed like Russian. Then he noticed a suggestion

forced itself on him as "The Man who would be King." "Phonetic spelling," he said. He remembered reading

a story with that title, then he recalled the story vividly, one of the best stories in the world. But this thing

before him was not a book as he understood it. He puzzled out the titles of two adjacent cylinders. 'The Heart

of Darkness,' he had never heard of before nor 'The Madonna of the Future'no doubt if they were indeed

He puzzled over this peculiar cylinder for some time and replaced it. Then he turned to the square apparatus

and examined that. He opened a sort of lid and found one of the double cylinders within, and on the upper

edge a little stud like the stud of an electric bell. He pressed this and a rapid clicking began and ceased. He

became aware of voices and music, and noticed a play of colour on the smooth front face. He suddenly

On the flat surface was now a little picture, very vividly coloured, and in this picture were figures that moved.

Not only did they move, but they were conversing in clear small voices. It was exactly like reality viewed

through an inverted opera glass and heard through a long tube. His interest was seized at once by the

situation, which presented a man pacing up and down and vociferating angry things to a pretty but petulant

woman. Both were in the picturesque costume that seemed so strange to Graham. "I have worked," said the

"Ah!" said Graham. He forgot everything else, and sat down in the chair. Within five minutes he heard

himself named, heard "when the Sleeper wakes," used jestingly as a proverb for remote postponement, and

passed himself by, a thing remote and incredible. But in a little while he knew those two people like l .

At last the miniature drama came to an end, and the square face of the apparatus was blank again.

It was a strange world into which he had been permitted to see, unscrupulous, pleasure seeking, energetic,

subtle, a world too of dire economic struggle; there were allusions he did not understand, incidents that

conveyed strange suggestions of altered moral ideals, flashes of dubious enlightenment. The blue canvas that

bulked so largely in his first impression of the city ways appeared again and again as the costume of the

common people. He had no doubt the story was contemporary, and its intense realism was undeniable. And

He started and rubbed his eyes. He had been so absorbed in the latterday 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 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

He resumed his examination of the rooms. He could find no way of opening the padded door, no bell nor

other means of calling for attendance. His feeling of wonder was in abeyance; but he was curious, anxious for

information. He wanted to know exactly how he stood to these new things. He tried to compose himself to

wait until someone came to him. Presently he became restless and eager for information, for distraction, for

He went back to the apparatus in the other room, and had soon puzzled out the method of replacing the

cylinders by others. As he did so, it came into his mind that it must be these little appliances had fixed the

language so that it was still clear and understand able after two hundred years. The haphazard cylinders he

substituted displayed a musical fantasia. At first it was beautiful, and then it was sensuous. He presently

recognized what appeared to him to be an altered version of the story of Tannhauser. The music was

unfamiliar. But the rendering was realistic, and with a contemporary unfamiliarity. Tannhauser did not go to a

Venusberg, but to a Pleasure City. What was a Pleasure City? A dream, surely, the fancy of a fantastic,

He became interested, curious. The story developed with a flavour of strangely twisted sentimentality.

He had a revulsion of feeling. These were no pictures, no idealisations, but photographed realities. He wanted

no more of the twentysecond century Venusberg. He forgot the part played by the model in nineteenth

century art, and gave way to an archaic indignation. He rose, angry and half ashamed at himself for

witnessing this thing even in solitude. He pulled forward the apparatus, and with some violence sought for a

means of stopping its action. Something snapped. A violet spark stung and convulsed his arm and the thing

was still. When he attempted next day to replace these Tannhauser cylinders by another pair, he found the

He struck out a path oblique to the room and paced to and fro, struggling with intolerable vast impressions.

The things he had derived from the cylinders and the things he had seen, conflicted, confused him. It seemed

to him the most amazing thing of all that in his thirty years of life he had never tried to shape a picture of

these coming times. "We were making the future," he said, "and hardly any of us troubled to think what

"What have they got to, what has been done? How do I come into the midst of it all?" The vastness of street

and house he was prepared for, the multitudes of people. But conflicts in the city ways! And the systematised

He thought of Bellamy, the hero of whose Socialistic Utopia had so oddly anticipated this actual experience.

But here was no Utopia, no Socialistic state. He had already seen enough to realise that the ancient antithesis

of luxury, waste and sensuality on the one hand and abject poverty on the other, still prevailed. He knew

enough of the essential factors of life to understand that correlation. And not only were the buildings of the

city gigantic and the crowds in the street gigantic, but the voices he had heard in the ways, the uneasiness of

Howard, the very atmosphere spoke of gigantic discontent. What country was he in? Still England it seemed,

and yet strangely "unEnglish." 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 felt very tired, felt

that feverish exhaustion that does not admit of rest. He listened for long spaces under the ventilator to catch

He began to talk to himself. "Two hundred and three years! " he said to himself over and over again, laughing

stupidly. "Then I am two hundred and thirtythree years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely they haven't

reversed the tendency of our time and gone back to the rule of the oldest. My claims are indisputable.

Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a great age! Ha ha!"

He was surprised at first to hear himself laughing, and then laughed again deliberately and louder. Then he

His pacing became more regular. "This new world," he said. "I don't understand it. __Why?__ . . . But it is all

"I suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things Let me try and remember just how it began."

He was surprised at first to find how vague the memories of his first thirty years had become. He remembered

fragments, for the most part trivial moments, things of no great importance that he had observed. His

boyhood seemed the most accessible at first, he recalled school books and certain lessons in mensuration.

Then he revived the more salient features of his life, memories of the wife long since dead, her magic

influence now gone beyond corruption, of his rivals and friends and betrayers, of the swift decision of this

issue and that, and then of his , last years of misery, of fluctuating resolves, and at last of his strenuous

studies. In a little while he perceived he had it all again; dim perhaps, like metal long laid aside, but in no

way defective or injured, capable of repolishing. And the hue of it was a deepening misery. Was it worth

repolishing? By a miracle he had been lifted out of a life that had become intolerable.

He reverted to his present condition. He wrestled with the facts in vain. It became an inextricable tangle. He

saw the sky through the ventilator pink with dawn. An old persuasion came out of the dark recesses of his

memory. "I must sleep," he said. It appeared as a delightful relief from this mental distress and from the

growing pain and heaviness of his limbs. He went to the strange little bed, lay down and was presently asleep.

He was destined to become very familiar indeed with these apartments before he left them, for he remained

imprisoned for three days. During that time no one, except Howard, entered his prison. 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 soundproof walls that enclosed him, he would not

elucidate. He evaded, as politely as possible, every question on the position of affairs in the outer world.

And in those three days Graham's incessant thoughts went far and wide. All that he had seen, all this

elaborate contrivance to prevent him seeing, worked together in his mind. Almost every possible

interpretation of his position he debatedeven as it chanced, the right interpretation. Things that presently

happened to him, came to him at last credible, by virtue of this seclusion. When at length the moment of his

Howard's bearing went far to deepen Graham's impression of his own strange importance; the door between

its opening and closing seemed to admit with him a breath of momentous happening. His enquiries became

more definite and searching. Howard retreated through protests and difficulties. The awakening was

unforeseen, he repeated; it happened to have fallen in with the trend of a social convulsion.

"To explain it I must tell you the history of a gross and a half of years," protested Howard.

"The thing is this," said Graham. "You are afraid of something I shall do. In some way I am arbitratorI

" It is not that. But you haveI may tell you this muchthe automatic increase of your property puts great

possibilities of interference in your hands. And in certain other ways you have influence, with your

"With your old world notions, anyhow, ignorant as you are of every feature of our State."

"You were never expected to act at all. No one counted on your awakening. No one dreamt you would ever

awake. The Council had surrounded you with antiseptic conditions. As a matter of fact, we thought that you

were deada mere arrest of decay. Andbut it is too complex. We dare not suddenly while you are still

"It won't do," said Graham. "Suppose it is as you saywhy am I not being crammed night and day with facts

and warnings and all the wisdom of the time to fit me for my responsibilities? Am I any wiser now than two

"I am beginning to feelevery hour I feel more clearlya sense of complex concealment of which you are

the salient point. Is this Council, or committee, or whatever they are, cooking the accounts of my estate? Is

" Ugh!" said Graham. "Now, mark my words, it will be ill for those who have put me here. It will be ill. I am

alive. Make no doubt of it, I am alive. Every day my pulse is stronger and my mind clearer and more

vigorous. No more quiescence. I am a man come back to life. And I want to __live__"

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. Naturallyan energetic man! You find it

dull here. But we are anxious that everything you may desireevery desireevery sort of desire . . . There

Graham began pacing the room. Howard stood near the door watching him. The implication of Howard's

suggestion was only half evident to Graham Company? Suppose he were to accept the proposal, demand

some sort of __company__? Would there be any possibilities of gathering from the conversation o� this

additional person some vague inkling of the struggle that had broken out so vividly at his waking moment?

He meditated again, and the suggestion took colour. He turned on Howard abruptly.

Howard raised his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. "Human beings," he said, with a curious smile on his

"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 thisby feminine society, for instance. We think it no scandal. We

have cleared our minds of formulae. There is in our city a class, a necessary class, no longer

"It would pass the time," said Howard. "It is a thing I should perhaps have thought of before, but, as a matter

Graham hesitated. For a moment the figure of a possible woman that his imagination suddenly created

"Everything you say, everything you do, convinces meof some great issue in which I am concerned. I do

not want to pass the time, as you call it. Yes, I know. Desire and indulgence are life in a sense and Death!

Extinction! In my life before I slept I had worked out that pitiful question. I will not begin again. There is a

His rage surged high. He choked for a moment and began to wave his clenched fists. He gave way to an anger

"I do not know who your party may be. I am in the dark, and you keep me in the dark. But I know this, that I

am secluded here for no good purpose. For no good purpose. I warn you, I warn you of the consequences.

He realised that to threaten thus might be a danger to himself. He stopped. Howard stood regarding him with

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

For a moment he stood rigid, with clenched hands half raised. Then he flung them down. "What a fool I have

been!" he said, and gave way to his anger again, stamping about the room and shouting curses. For a long

time he kept himself in a sort of frenzy, raging at his position, at his own folly, at the knaves who had

imprisoned him. He did this because he did not want to look calmly at his position. He clung to his

Presently he found himself reasoning with himself This imprisonment was unaccountable, but no doubt the

legal formsnew legal formsof the time permitted it. It must, of course, be legal. These people were two

hundred years further on in the march of civilisation than the Victorian generation. It was not likely they

would be lesshumane. Yet they had cleared their minds of formulae! Was humanity a formula as well as

His imagination set to work to suggest things that might be done to him. The attempts of his reason to dispose

of these suggestions, though for the most part logically valid, were quite unavailing. "Why should anything

"If the worst comes to the worst," he found himself saying at last, "I can give up what they want. But what do

He returned to his former preoccupation with the Council's possible intentions. He began to reconsider the

details of Howard's behaviour, sinister glances, inexplicable hesitations. Then, for a time, his mind circled

about the idea of escaping from these rooms; but whither could he escape into this vast, crowded world? He

would be worse off than a Saxon yeoman suddenly dropped into nineteenth century London. And besides,

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

As the fans in the circular aperture of the inner room rotated and permitted glimpses of the night, dim sounds

drifted in thereby. And Graham, standing underneath, wrestling darkly with the unknown powers that

imprisoned him, and which he had now deliberately challenged, 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. When a dark hand was extended, the swift van struck it, swung round and beat on with a little brownish

patch on the edge of its thin blade, and something began to fall therefrom upon the floor, dripping silently.

Graham looked down, and there were spots of blood at his feet. He looked up again in a strange excitement.

He remained motionlesshis every sense intent upon the flickering patch of darkness, for outside it was high

night. He became aware of some faint, remote, dark specks floating lightly through the outer air. They came

down towards him, fitfully, eddyingly, and passed aside out of the uprush from the fan. A gleam of light

flickered, the specks flashed white, and then the darkness came again. Warmed and lit as he was, he

Graham walked across the room and came back to the ventilator again. He saw the head of a man pass near.

There was a sound of whispering. Then a smart blow on some metallic substance, effort, voices, and the vans

stopped. A gust of snowflakes whirled into the room, and vanished before they touched the floor. "Don't be

For a moment there was nothing but a swaying of the fan, and then the head of a man was thrust cautiously

into the opening. His face appeared nearly inverted to Graham; his dark hair was wet with dissolving flakes

of snow upon it. His arm went up into the darkness holding something unseen. He had a youthful face and

bright eyes, and the veins of his forehead were swollen. He seemed to be exerting himself to maintain his

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

It was perhaps a quarter of an hour before anything returned to the ventilator. But at last came the same

metallic interference again; the fans stopped and the face reappeared. Graham had remained all this time in

"We wantI can't hold the thing. We have been trying to find a way to you these three days."

There was a struggle. The stranger's arm appeared, and his hand was bleeding. His knees came into view over

the edge of the funnel. "Stand away from me," he said, and he dropped rather heavily on his hands and one

shoulder at Graham's feet. The released ventilator whirled noisily. The stranger rolled over, sprang up nimbly

and stood panting, hand to a bruised shoulder, and with his bright eyes on Graham.

"You are indeed the Sleeper," he said. "I saw you asleep. When it was the law that anyone might see you."

"I am the man who was in the trance," said Graham. "They have imprisoned me here. I have been here since I

The intruder seemed about to speak, heard something, glanced swiftly at the door, and suddenly left Graham

and ran towards it, shouting quick incoherent words. A bright wedge of steel flashed in his hand, and he

began tap, tap, a quick succession of blows upon the hinges. "Mind!" cried a voice. "Oh!" The voice came

Graham glanced up, saw the soles of two feet, ducked, was struck on the shoulder by one of them, and a

heavy weight bore him to the earth. He fell on his knees and forward, and the weight went over his head. He

"I did not see you, Sire," panted the man. He rose and assisted Graham to arise. "Are you hurt, Sire?" he

panted. A succession of heavy blows on the ventilator began, something fell close to Graham's face, and a

"What is this?" cried Graham, confused and looking at the ventilator. "Who are you? What are you going to

"Stand back," said the stranger, and drew him from under the ventilator as another fragment of metal fell

" We want you to come, Sire," panted the newcomer, and Graham glancing at his face again, saw a new cut

had changed from white to red on his fore head, and a couple of little trickles of blood starting therefrom.

"To the hall about the markets. Your life is in danger here. We have spies. We learned but just in time. The

Council has decidedthis very day either to drug or kill you. And everything is ready. The people are

drilled, the windvane police, the engineers, and half the waygearers are with us. We have the halls

crowdedshouting. The whole city shouts against the Council. We have arms." He wiped the blood with his

He turned quickly as the man who had first come down made a hissing with his teeth. Graham saw the latter

start back, gesticulate to them to conceal themselves, and move as if to hide behind the opening door.

As he did so Howard appeared, a little tray in one hand and his heavy face downcast. He started, looked up,

the door slammed behind him, the tray tilted side ways, and the steel wedge struck him behind the ear. He

went down like a felled tree, and lay as he fell athwart the floor of the outer room. The man who had struck

him bent hastily, studied his face for a moment, rose, and returned to his work at the door.

Then abruptly they were in darkness. The innumerable cornice lights had been extinguished. Graham saw the

aperture of the ventilator with ghostly snow whirling above it and dark figures moving hastily. Three knelt on

the van. Some dim thinga ladder was being lowered through the opening, and a hand appeared holding a

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.

Graham felt for the ladder with extended hands, put his foot on the lower rung, and, turning his head, saw

over the shoulder of the nearest man, in the yellow flicker of the light, the firstcomer astride over Howard

and still working at the door. Graham turned to the ladder again, and was thrust by his conductor and helped

up by those above, and then he was standing on something hard and cold and slippery outside the ventilating

He shivered. He was aware of a great difference in the temperature. Half a dozen men stood about him, and

light flakes of snow touched hands and face and melted. For a moment it was dark, then for a flash a ghastly

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 Iying athwart it in every direction. The circular wheels of a number of windmills loomed indistinct and

gigantic through the darkness and snowfall, and roared with a varying loudness as the fitful white light smote

up from below, touched the snow eddies with a transient glitter, and made an evanescent spectre in the night;

and here and there, low down! some vaguely outlined winddriven 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 furlike texture about him, and fastened it by buckled straps at waist and shoulders. Things were

Before his mind was yet clear a dark shape gripped his arm. "This way," said this shape, urging him along,

and pointed Graham across the flat roof in the direction of a dim semicircular haze of light. Graham obeyed.

"Mind!" said a voice, as Graham stumbled against a cable. "Between them and not across them," said the

The stranger did not answer. He left Graham's arm as the path grew narrower, and led the way with rapid

strides. Graham followed blindly. In a minute he found himself running. "Are the others coming?" he panted,

but received no reply. His companion glanced back and ran on. They came to a sort of pathway of open

metalwork, transverse to the direction they had come, and they turned aside to follow this. Graham looked

"Come on!" said his guide. Running now, they drew near a little windmill spinning high in the air. "Stoop,"

said Graham's guide, and they avoided an endless band running roaring up to the shaft of the vane. "This

way!" and they were ankle deep in a gutter full of drifted thawing snow, between two low walls of metal that

presently rose waist high. "I will go first," said the guide. Graham drew his cloak about him and followed.

Then suddenly came a narrow abyss across which the gutter leapt to the snowy darkness of the further side.

Graham peeped over the side once and the gulf was black. For a moment he regretted his flight. He dared not

Then out of the gutter they clambered and hurried across a wide flat space damp with thawing snow, and for

half its extent dimly translucent to lights that went to and fro underneath. He hesitated at this unstable looking

substance, but his guide ran on unheeding, and so they came to and clambered up slippery steps to the rim of

a great dome of glass. Round this they went. Far below a number of people seemed to be dancing, and music

filtered through the dome. . . . Graham fancied he heard a shouting through the snowstorm, and his guide

hurried him on with a new spurt of haste. They clambered panting to a space of huge windmills, one so vast

that only the lower edge of its vans came rushing into sight and rushed up again and was lost in the night and

the snow. They hurried for a time through the colossal metallic tracery of its supports, and came at last above

a place of moving platforms like the place into which Graham had looked from the balcony. They crawled

across the sloping transparency that covered this street of platforms, crawling on hands and knees because of

For the most part the glass was bedewed, and Graham saw only hazy suggestions of the forms below, but

near the pitch of the transparent roof the glass was clear, and he found himself looking sheerly down upon it

all. For awhile, in spite of the urgency of his guide, he gave way to vertigo and lay spreadeagled on the

glass, sick and paralysed. Far below, mere stirring specks and dots, went the people of the unsleeping city in

their perpetual daylight, and the moving platforms ran on their incessant journey. Messengers and men on

unknown businesses shot along the drooping cables and the frail bridges were crowded with men. It was like

peering into a gigantic glass hive, and it lay vertically below him with only a tough glass of unknown

thickness to save him from a fall. The street showed warm and lit, and Graham was wet now to the skin with

thawing snow, and his feet were numbed with cold. For a space he could not move.

Over the ridge, following his guide's example, he turned about and slid backward down the opposite slope

very swiftly, amid a little avalanche of snow While he was sliding he thought of what would happen if some

broken gap should come in his way. At the edge he stumbled to his feet ankle deep in slush thanking heaven

for an opaque footing again. His guide was already clambering up a metal screen to a level expanse.

Through the spare snowflakes above this loomed another line of vast windmills, and then suddenly the

amorphous tumult of the rotating wheels was pierced with a deafening sound. It was a mechanical shrilling of

extraordinary intensity that seemed to come simultaneously from every point of the compass.

"They have missed us already!" cried Graham's guide in an accent of terror, and suddenly, with a blinding

Above the driving snow, from the summits of the windwheels, appeared vast masts carrying globes of livid

light. They receded in illimitable vistas in every direction. As far as his eye could penetrate the snowfall they

"Get on this," cried Graham's conductor, and thrust him forward to a long grating of snowless metal that ran

like a band between two slightly sloping expanses of snow. It felt warm to Graham's benurrled feet, and a

"Come on!" shouted his guide ten yards off, and, without waiting, ran swiftly through the incandescent glare

towards the iron supports of the next range of windwheels. Graham, recovering from his astonishment,

In a score of seconds they were within a tracery of glare and black shadows shot with moving bars beneath

the monstrous wheels. Graham's conductor ran on for some time, and suddenly darted sideways and vanished

into a black shadow in the corner of the foot of a huge support. In another moment Graham was beside him.

The scene upon which Graham looked was very wild and strange. The snow had now almost ceased; only a

belated flake passed now and again across the picture. But the broad stretch of level before them was a

ghastly white, broken only by gigantic masses and moving shapes and lengthy strips of impenetrable

darkness, vast ungainly Titans of shadow. All about them, huge metallic structures, iron girders, inhumanly

vast as it seemed to him, interlaced, and the edges of windwheels, scarcely moving in the lull, I passed in

great shining curves steeper and steeper up into a luminous haze. Wherever the snowspangled light struck

down, beams and girders, and incessant bands running with a halting, indomitable resolution passed upward

and downward into the black. And with all that mighty activity, with an omnipresent sense of motive and

design, this snowclad desolation of mechanism seemed void of all human presence save themselves, seemed

as trackless and deserted and unfrequented by men as some inaccessible Alpine snowfield.

"They will be chasing us," cried the leader. "We are scarcely halfway there yet. Cold as it is we must hide

"Where are the markets? " asked Graham staring out. "Where are all the people? "

The snow had suddenly become thick again, and sliding with the whirling eddies out of the black pit of the

sky came something, vague and large and very swift. It came down in a steep curve and swept round, wide

wings extended and a trail of white condensing steam behind it, rose with an easy swiftness and went gliding

up the air, swept horizontally forward in a wide curve, and vanished again in the steaming specks of snow.

And, through the ribs of its body, Graham saw two little men, very minute and active, searching the snowy

areas about him, as it seemed to him, with field glasses. For a second they were clear, then hazy through a

He pulled Graham's sleeve, and incontinently the two were running headlong down the arcade of ironwork

beneath the windwheels. Graham, running blindly, collided with his leader, who had turned back on him

suddenly. He found himself within a dozen yards of a black chasm. It extended as far as he could see right

"Do as I do," whispered his guide. He lay down and crawled to the edge, thrust his head over and twisted

until one leg hung. He seemed to feel for something with his foot, found it, and went sliding over the edge

into the gulf. His head reappeared. "It is a ledge," he whispered. "In the dark all the way along. Do as I did."

Graham hesitated, went down upon all fours, crawled to the edge, and peered into a velvety blackness. For a

sickly moment he had courage neither to go on nor retreat, then he sat and hung his leg down, felt his guide's

hands pulling at him, had a horrible sensation of sliding over the edge into the unfathomable, splashed, and

"This way," whispered the voice, and he began crawling along the gutter through the trickling thaw, pressing

himself against the wall. They continued along it for some minutes. He seemed to pass through a hundred

stages of misery, to pass minute after minute through a hundred degrees of cold, damp, and exhaustion. In a

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 blinddrawn windows rose above them. They came to the

end of a cable fastened above one of these white windows, dimly visible and dropping into impenetrable

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 snowflecked greyblue sky. In a moment it was hidden again.

For awhile both were motionless, then Graham's companion stood up, and reaching towards the fastenings of

The only answer was a faint cry. The man crouched motionless. Graham peered and saw his face dimly. He

was staring down the long ribbon of sky, and Graham, following his eyes, saw the flying machine small and

faint and remote. Then he saw that the wings spread on either side, that it headed towards them, that every

The man's movements became convulsive. He thrust two cross bars into Graham's hand. Graham could not

see them, he ascertained their form by feeling. They were slung by thin cords to the cable. On the cord were

hand grips of some soft elastic substance. "Put the cross between your legs," whispered the guide hysterically,

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

"Jump! Jumpin God's name! Or they will have us," cried Graham's guide, and in the violence of his

Graham tottered convulsively, gave a sobbing cry, a cry in spite of himself, and then, as the flying machine

swept over them, fell forward into the pit of that darkness, seated on the cross wood and holding the ropes

with the clutch of death. Something cracked, something rapped smartly against a wall. He heard the pulley of

the cradle hum on its rope. He heard the aeronauts shout. He felt a pair of knees digging into his back.... He

was sweeping headlong through the air, falling through the air. All his strength was in his hands. He would

He shot into a blinding light that made him grip the tighter. He recognised the great passage with the running

ways, the hanging lights and interlacing girders. They rushed upward and by him. He had a momentary

He was in the dark again, falling, falling, gripping with aching hands, and behold! a clap of sound, a burst of

light, and he was in a brightly lit hall with a roaring multitude of people beneath his feet. The people! His

people! A proscenium, a stage rushed up towards him, and his cable swept down to a circular aperture to the

right of this. He felt he was travelling slower, and suddenly very much slower. He distinguished shouts of

"Saved! The Master. He is safe!" The stage rushed up towards him with rapidly diminishing swiftness.

He heard the man clinging behind him shout as if suddenly terrified, and this shout was echoed by a shout

from below. He felt that he was no longer gliding along the cable but falling with it. There was a tumult of

yells, screams and cries. He felt something soft against his extended hand, and the impact of a broken fall

He wanted to be still and the people were lifting him. He believed afterwards he was carried to the platform

and given some drink, but he was never sure. He did not notice what became of his guide. When his mind

was clear again he was on his feet; eager hands were assisting him to stand. He was in a big alcove,

occupying the position that in his previous experience had been devoted to the lower boxes. If this was indeed

A mighty tumult was in his ears, a thunderous roar, the shouting of a countless multitude." It is the Sleeper!

"The Sleeper is with us! The Masterthe Owner! The Master is with us. He is safe."

Graham had a surging vision of a great hall crowded with people. He saw no individuals, he was conscious of

a froth of pink faces, of waving arms and garments, he felt the occult influence of a vast crowd pouring over

him, buoying him up. There were balconies, galleries, great archways giving remoter perspectives, and

everywhere people, a vast arena of people, densely packed and cheering. Across the nearer space lay the

collapsed cable like a huge snake. It had been cut by the men of the flying machine at its upper end, and had

crumpled down into the hall. Men seemed to be hauling this out of the way. But the whole effect was vague,

He stood unsteadily and looked at those about him. Someone supported him by one arm. "Let me go into a

little room," he said, weeping; "a little room," and could say no more. A man in black stepped forward, took

his disengaged arm. He was aware of officious men opening a door before him. Someone guided him to a

seat. He staggered. He sat down heavily and covered his face with his hands; he was trembling violently, his

nervous control was at an end. He was relieved of his cloak, he could not remember how; his purple hose he

saw were black with wet. People were running about him, things were happening, but for some time he gave

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

He became aware of someone urging a glass of clear fluid upon his attention, looked up and discovered this

was a dark young man in a yellow garment. He took the dose forthwith, and in a moment he was glowing. A

tall man in a black robe stood by his shoulder, and pointed to the half open door into the hall. This man was

shouting close to his ear and yet what was said was indistinct because of the tremendous uproar from the

great theatre. Behind the man was a girl in a silvery grey robe, whom Graham, even in this confusion,

perceived to be beautiful. Her dark eyes, full of wonder and curiosity,were fixed on him, her lips trembled

apart. A partially opened door gave a glimpse of the crowded hall, and admitted a vast uneven tumult, a

hammering, clapping and shouting that died away and began again, and rose to a thunderous pitch, and so

continued intermittently all the time that Graham remained in the little room. He watched the lips of the man

He stared stupidly for some moments at these things and then stood up abruptly; he grasped the arm of this

The others came nearer to hear his words. "Who am I?" His eyes searched their faces.

He did not believe he heard aright. He resisted the persuasion. He pretended not to understand, not to hear.

He lifted his voice again. "I have been awake three daysa prisoner three days. I judge there is some

"And those who meet in the great hall with the white Atlas? How does it concern me? In some way it has to

do with me. Why, I don't know. Drugs? It seems to me that while I have slept the world has gone mad. I have

"Because __you__ are the Atlas, Sire," said the man in yellow. "The world is on your shoulders. They rule it

The sounds from the hall had died into a silence threaded by one monotonous voice. Now suddenly,

trampling on these last words, came a deafening tumult, a roaring and thundering, cheer crowded on cheer,

voices hoarse and shrill, beating, overlapping, and while it lasted the people in the little room could not hear

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.

"Hehas deputed us. I am his brotherhis halfbrother, Lincoln. He wants you to show yourself to these

people and then come on to him. That is why he has sent. He is at the windvane offices directing. The

"In your name," shouted the younger man. "They have ruled, crushed, tyrannised. At last even"

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

"Ostrog is at the windvane offices ready. Even now there is a rumour of fighting beginning."

The man who had called himself Lincoln came close to him. "Ostrog has it planned. Trust him. We have our

organisations ready. We shall seize the flying stages. Even now he may be doing that. Then"

"This public theatre," bawled the man in yellow, "is only a contingent. We have five myriads of drilled

"We have arms," cried Lincoln. "We have plans. A leader. Their police have gone from the streets and are

massed in the" (inaudible)." It is now or never. The Council is rocking They cannot trust even their

Graham's mind was like a night of moon and swift clouds, now dark and hopeless, now clear and ghastly. He

was Master of the Earth, he was a man sodden with thawing snow. Of all his fluctuating impressions the

dominant ones presented an antagonism; on the one hand was the White Council, powerful, disciplined, few,

the White Council from which he had just escaped; and on the other, monstrous crowds, packed masses of

indistinguishable people clamouring his name, hailing him Master. The other side had imprisoned him,

debated his death. These shouting thousands beyond the little doorway had rescued him. But why these things

The door opened, Lincoln's voice was swept away and drowned, and a rush of people followed on the heels

of the tumult. These intruders came towards him and Lincoln gesticulating. The voices without explained

their soundless lips. "Show us the Sleeper, show us the Sleeper!" was the burden of the uproar Men were

Graham glanced towards the open doorway, and saw a tall, oblong picture of the hall beyond, a waving,

incessant confusion of crowded, shouting faces, men and women together, waving pale blue garments,

extended hands. Many were standing, one man in rags of dark brown, a gaunt figure, stood on the seat and

waved a black cloth. He met the wonder and expectation of the girl's eyes. What did these people expect from

him. He was dimly aware that the tumult outside had changed its character, was in some way beating,

marching. His own mind, too, changed. for a space he did not recognise the influence that was transforming

him. But a moment that was near to panic passed. He tried to make audible inquiries of what was required of

Lincoln was shouting in his ear, but Graham was deafened to that. All the others save the woman gesticulated

towards the hall. He perceived what had happened to the uproar. The whole mass of people was chanting

together. It was not simply a song, the voices were gathered together and upborne by a torrent of instrumental

music, music like the music of an organ, a woven texture of sounds, full of trumpets, full of flaunting

banners, full of the march and pageantry of opening war. And the feet of the people were beating

He was urged towards the door. He obeyed mechanically. The strength of that chant took hold of him, stirred

him, emboldened him. The hall opened to him, a vast welter of fluttering colour swaying to the music.

"This," said a voice on the other side," he must have this. "Arms were about his neck detaining him in the

doorway, and a black subtlyfolding mantle hung from his shoulders. He threw his arm free of this and

followed Lincoln. He perceived the girl in grey close to him, her face lit, her gesture onward. For the instant

she became to him, flushed and eager as she was, an embodiment of the song. He emerged in the alcove

again. Incontinently the mounting waves of the song broke upon his appearing, and flashed up into a foam of

shouting. Guided by Lincoln's hand he marched obliquely across the centre of the stage facing the people.

The hall was a vast and intricate spacegalleries, balconies, broad spaces of amphitheatral steps, and great

archways. Far away, high up, seemed the mouth of a huge passage full of struggling humanity. The whole

multitude was swaying in congested masses. Individual figures sprang out of the tumult, impressed him

momentarily, and lost definition again. Close to the platform swayed a beautiful fair woman, carried by three

men, her hair across her face and brandishing a green staff. Next this group an old careworn man in blue

canvas maintained his place in the crush with difficulty, and behind shouted a hairless face, a great cavity of

toothless mouth. A voice called that enigmatical word "Ostrog." All his impressions were vague save the

massive emotion of that trampling song. The multitude were beating time with their feetmarking time,

tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The green weapons waved, flashed and slanted. Then he saw those nearest to him

on a level space before the stage were marching in front of him, passing towards a great archway, shouting "

To the Council! " Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. He raised his arm, and the roaring was redoubled. He

remembered he had to shout " March! " His mouth shaped inaudible heroic words. He waved his arm again

and pointed to the archway, shouting " Onward! " They were no longer marking time, they were marching;

tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. In that host were bearded men, old men, youths, fluttering robed barearmed

women, girls. Men and women of the new age! Rich robes, grey rags fluttered together in the whirl of their

movement amidst the dominant blue. A monstrous black banner jerked its way to the right. He perceived a

blueclad negro, a shrivelled woman in yellow, then a group of tall fairhaired, whitefaced, blueclad men

pushed theatrically past him. He noted two Chinamen. A tall, sallow, darkhaired, shiningeyed youth, white

clad from top to toe, clambered up towards the platform shouting loyally, and sprang down again and

receded, looking backward. Heads, shoulders, hands clutching weapons, all were swinging with those

Faces came out of the confusion to him as he stood there, eyes met his and passed and vanished. Men

gesticulated to him, shouted inaudible personal things. Most of the faces were flushed, but many were ghastly

white. And disease was there, and many a hand that waved to him was gaunt and lean. Men and women of

the new age! Strange and incredible meeting! As the broad stream passed before him to the right, tributary

gangways from the remote uplands of the hall thrust downward in an incessant replacement of people; tramp,

tramp, tramp, tramp. The unison of the song was enriched and complicated by the massive echoes of arches

and passages. Men and women mingled in the ranks; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The whole world seemed

marching. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; his brain was tramping. The garments waved onward, the faces

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; at Lincoln's pressure he turned towards the archway, walking unconsciously in

that rhythm, scarcely noticing his movement for the melody and stir of it. The multitude, the gesture and

song, all moved in that direction, the flow of people smote downward until the upturned faces were below the

level of his feet. He was aware of a path before him, of a suite about him, of guards and dignities, and

;Lincoln on his right hand. Attendants intervened, and ever and again blotted out the sight of the multitude to

the left. Before him went the backs of the guards in blackthree and three and three. He was marched along

a little railed way, and crossed above the archway, with the torrent dipping to flow beneath, and shouting up

to him. He did not know whither he went; he did not want to know. He glanced back across a flaming

He was no longer in the hall. He was marching along a gallery overhanging one of the great streets of the

moving platforms that traversed the city. Before him and behind him tramped his guards. The whole concave

of the moving ways below was a congested mass of people marching, tramping to the left, shouting, waving

hands and arms, pouring along a huge vista, shouting as they came into view, shouting as they passed,

shouting as they receded, until the globes of electric light receding in perspective dropped down it seemed

The song roared up to Graham now, no longer upborne by music, but coarse and noisy, and the beating of the

marching feet, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, interwove with a thunderous irregularity of footsteps from the

Abruptly he noted a contrast. The buildings on the opposite side of the way seemed deserted, the cables and

bridges that laced across the aisle were empty and shadowy. It came into Graham's mind that these also

He felt a curious emotionthrobbingvery fast! He stopped again. The guards before him marched on;

those about him stopped as he did. He saw the direction of their faces. The throbbing had something to do

At first it seemed to him a thing that affected the lights simply, an isolated phenomenon, having no bearing

on the things below. Each huge globe of blinding whiteness was as it were clutched, compressed in a systole

that was followed by a transitory diastole, and again a systole like a tightening grip, darkness, light, darkness,

Graham became aware that this strange behaviour of the lights had to do with the people below. The

appearance of the houses and ways, the appearance of the packed masses changed, became a confusion of

vivid lights and leaping shadows. He saw a multitude of shadows had sprung into aggressive existence,

seemed rushing up, broadening, widening, growing with steady swiftnessto 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 purplewhite, purple with a reddish

glow, flickered, flickered faster and faster, fluttered between light and extinction, ceased to flicker and

became mere fading specks of glowing red in a vast obscurity. In ten seconds the extinction was

accomplished, and there was only this roaring darkness, a black monstrosity that had suddenly swallowed up

He felt invisible forms about him; his arms were gripped. Something rapped sharply against his shin. A voice

Graham shook off the paralysis of his first astonishment. He struck his forehead against Lincoln's and

"The Council has cut the currents that light the city. We must waitstop. The people will go on. They

His voice was drowned. Voices were shouting, "Save the Sleeper. Take care of the Sleeper." A guard

stumbled against Graham and hurt his hand by an inadvertent blow of his weapon. A wild tumult tossed and

whirled about him, growing, as it seemed, louder, denser, more furious each moment. Fragments of

recognisable sounds drove towards him, were whirled away from him as his mind reached out to grasp them.

Voices seemed to be shouting conflicting orders, other voices answered. There were suddenly a succession of

A voice bawled in his ear, "The red police," and receded forthwith beyond his questions.

A crackling sound grew to distinctness, and there with a leaping of faint flashes along the edge of the further

ways. By their light Graham saw the heads and bodies of a number of men, armed with weapons like those of

his guards, leap into an instant's dim visibility. The whole area began to crackle, to flash with little

instantaneous streaks of light, and abruptly the darkness rolled back like a curtain.

A glare of light dazzled his eyes, a vast seething expanse of struggling men confused his mind. A shout, a

burst of cheering, came across the ways. He looked up to see the source of the light. A man hung far

overhead from the upper part of a cable, holding by a rope the blinding star that had driven the darkness back.

Graham's eyes fell to the ways again. A wedge of red a little way along the vista caught his eye. He saw it

was a dense mass of redclad men jammed the higher further way, their backs against the pitiless cliff of

building, and surrounded by a dense crowd of antagonists. They were fighting. Weapons flashed and rose and

fell, heads vanished at the edge of the contest, and other heads replaced them, the little flashes from the green

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 shoutingit

might be at him. He was too confused to hear. He was thrust against the wall, and a number of people

blundered past him. It seemed to him that his guards were struggling with one another.

Suddenly the cablehung starholder appeared again, and the whole scene was white and dazzling. The band

of redcoats seemed broader and nearer; its apex was halfway down the ways towards the central aisle. And

raising his eyes Graham saw that a number of these men had also appeared now in the darkened lower

galleries of the opposite building, and were firing over the heads of their fellows below at the boiling

confusion of people on the lower ways. The meaning of these things dawned upon him. The march of the

people had come upon an ambush at the very outset. Thrown into confusion by the extinction of the lights

they were now being attacked by the red police. Then he became aware that he was standing alone, that his

guards and Lincoln were along the gallery in the direction along which he had come before the darkness fell.

He saw they were gesticulating to him wildly, running back towards him. A great shouting came from across

the ways. Then it seemed as though the whole face of the darkened building opposite was lined and speckled

with redclad men. And they were pointing over to him and shouting. "The Sleeper! Save the Sleeper!"

Something struck the wall above his head. He looked up at the impact and saw a starshaped splash of silvery

metal. He saw Lincoln near him. Felt his arm gripped. Then, pat, pat; he had been missed twice.

For a moment he did not understand this. The street was hidden, everything was hidden, as he looked. The

Lincoln had gripped Graham by the arm, was lugging him along the gallery. "Before the next light!" he cried.

His haste was contagious. Graham's instinct of selfpreservation overcame the paralysis of his incredulous

astonishment. He became for a time the blind creature of the fear of death. He ran, stumbling because of the

uncertainty of the darkness, blundered into his guards as they turned to run with him. Haste was his one

desire, to escape this perilous gallery upon which he was exposed. A third glare came close on its

predecessors. With it came a great shouting across the ways, an answering tumult from the ways. The

redcoats below, he saw, had now almost gained the central passage. Their countless faces turned towards

him, and they shouted. The white facade 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

Lucky it was for him that these shots were the first fired in anger for a hundred and fifty years. He heard

bullets whacking over his head, felt a splash of molten metal sting his ear, and perceived without looking that

the whole opposite facade, an unmasked ambuscade of red police, was crowded and bawling and firing at

Down went one of his guards before him, and Graham, unable to stop, leapt the writhing body.

In another second he had plunged, unhurt, into a black passage, and incontinently someone, coming, it may

be, in a transverse direction, blundered violently into him. He was hurling down a staircase in absolute

darkness. He reeled, and was struck again, and came against a wall with his hands. He was crushed by a

weight of struggling bodies, whirled round, and thrust to the right. A vast pressure pinned him. He could not

breathe, his ribs seemed cracking. He felt a momentary relaxation, and then the whole mass of people moving

together, bore him back towards the great theatre from which he had so recently come.

There were moments when his feet did not touch the ground. Then he was staggering and shoving. He heard

shouts of "They are coming!" and a muffled cry close to him. His foot blundered against something soft, he

heard a hoarse scream under foot. He heard shouts of "The Sleeper!" but he was too confused to speak. He

heard the green weapons crackling. For a space he lost his individual will, became an atom in a panic, blind,

unthinking, mechanical. He thrust and pressed back and writhed in the pressure, kicked presently against a

step, and found himself ascending a slope. And abruptly the faces all about him leapt out of the black, visible,

ghastlywhite 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

A fourth white star must have been lit by the man on the cable. Its light came glaring in through vast

windows and arches and showed Graham that he was now one of a dense mass of flying black figures pressed

back across the lower area of the great theatre. This time the picture was livid and fragmentary slashed and

barred with black shadows. He saw that quite near to him the red guards were fighting their way through the

people. He could not tell whether they saw him. He looked for Lincoln and his guards. He saw Lincoln near

the stage of the theatre surrounded in a crowd of blackbadged revolutionaries, lifted up and staring to and

fro as if seeking him. Graham perceived that he himself was near the opposite edge of the crowd, that behind

him, separated by a barrier, sloped the now vacant seats of the theatre. A sudden idea came to him, and he

began fighting his way towards the barrier. As he reached it the glare came to an end.

In a moment he had thrown off the great cloak that not only impeded his movements but made him

conspicuous, and had slipped it from his shoulders. He heard someone trip in its folds. In another he was

scaling the barrier and had dropped into the blackness on the further side. Then feeling his way he came to

the lower end of an ascending gangway. In the darkness the sound of firing ceased and the roar of feet and

voices lulled. Then suddenly he came to an unexpected step and tripped and fell. As he did so pools and

islands amidst the darkness about him leapt to vivid light again, the uproar surged louder and the glare of the

He rolled over among some seats, heard a shouting and the whirring rattle of weapons, struggled up and was

knocked back again, perceived that a number of blackbadged men were all about him firing at the rebels

below, leaping from seat to seat, crouching among the seats to reload. Instinctively he crouched amidst the

seats, as stray shots ripped the pneumatic cushions and cut bright slashes on their soft metal frames.

Instinctively he marked the direction of the gangways, the most plausible way of escape for him so soon as

A young man in faded blue garments came vaulting over the seats. "Hullo!" he said, with his flying feet

He stared without any sign of recognition, turned to fire, fired, and, shouting, "To hell with the Council!" was

about to fire again. Then it seemed to Graham that the half of this man's neck had vanished. A drop of

moisture fell on Graham's cheek. The green weapon stopped half raised. For a moment the man stood still

with his face suddenly expressionless, then he began to slant forward. His knees bent. Man and darkness fell

together. At the sound of his fall Graham rose up and ran for his life until a step down to the gangway tripped

When the sixth star glared he was already close to the yawning throat of a passage. He ran on the swifter for

the light, entered the passage and turned a corner into absolute night again. He was knocked sideways, rolled

over, and recovered his feet. He found himself one of a crowd of invisible fugitives pressing in one direction.

His one thought now was their thought also; to escape out of this fighting. He thrust and struck, staggered,

For some minutes he was running through the darkness along a winding passage, and then he crossed some

wide and open space, passed down a long incline, and came at last down a flight of steps to a level place.

Many people were shouting, "They are coming! The guards are coming. They are firing. Get out of the

fighting. The guards are firing. It will be safe in Seventh Way. Along here to Seventh Way!" There were

women and children in the crowd as well as men. Men called names to him. The crowd converged on an

archway, passed through a short throat and emerged on a wider space again, lit dimly. The black figures

about him spread out and ran up what seemed in the twilight to be a gigantic series of steps. He followed. The

people dispersed to the right and left. . . . He perceived that he was no longer in a crowd. He stopped near the

highest step. Before him, on that level, were groups of seats and a little kiosk. He went up to this and,

Everything was vague and gray, but he recognised that these great steps were a series of platforms of the

"ways," now motionless again. The platform slanted up on either side, and the tall buildings rose beyond, vast

dim ghosts, their inscriptions and advertisements indistinctly seen, and up through the girders and cables was

a faint interrupted ribbon of pallid sky. A number of people hurried by. From their shouts and voices, it

seemed they were hurrying to join the fighting. Other less noisy figures flitted timidly among the shadows.

From very far away down the street he could hear the sound of a struggle. But it was evident to him that this

was not the street into which the theatre opened. That former fight, it seemed, had suddenly dropped out of

For a space he was like a man who pauses in the reading of a vivid book, and suddenly doubts what he has

been taking unquestioningly. At that time he had little mind for details; the whole effect was a huge

astonishment. Oddly enough, while the flight from the Council prison, the great crowd in the hall, and the

attack of the red police upon the swarming people were clearly present in his mind, it cost him an effort to

piece in his awakening and to revive the meditative interval of the Silent Rooms. At first his memory leapt

these things and took him back to the cascade at Pentargen quivering in the wind, and all the sombre

splendours of the sunlit Cornish coast. The contrast touched everything with unreality. And then the gap

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 half the world, and great political parties were fighting to

possess him. On the one hand was the White Council, with its red police, set resolutely, it seemed, on the

usurpation of his property and perhaps his murder; on the other, the revolution that had liberated him, with

this unseen "Ostrog" as its leader. And the whole of this gigantic city was convulsed by their struggle. Frantic

development of his world! "I do not under stand," 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 redclad men as busily hunting him, driving the blackbadged

At any rate chance had given him a breathing space. He could lurk unchallenged by the passersby, and

watch the course of things. His eye followed up the intricate dim immensity of the twilight buildings, and it

came to him as a thing infinitely wonderful, that above there the sun was rising, and the world was lit and

glowing with the old familiar light of day. In a little while he had recovered his breath. His clothing had

He wandered for miles along these twilight ways, speaking to no one, accosted by no onea dark figure

among dark figuresthe coveted man out of the past, the inestimable unintentional owner of half the world.

Wherever there were lights or dense crowds, or exceptional excitement he was afraid of recognition, and

watched and turned back or went up and down by the middle stairways, into some transverse system of ways

at a lower or higher level. And though he came on no more fighting, the whole city stirred with battle. Once

he had to run to avoid a marching multitude of men that swept the street. Everyone abroad seemed involved.

For the most part they were men, and they carried what he judged were weapons. It seemed as though the

struggle was concentrated mainly in the quarter of the city from which he came. Ever and again a distant

roaring, the remote suggestion of that conflict, reached his ears. Then his caution and his curiosity struggled

together. But his caution prevailed, and he continued wandering away from the fightingso 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 Titanic streets became deserted. The

frontges of the buildings grew plain and harsh; he seemed to have come to a district of vacant warehouses.

He became aware of a growing fatigue. At times he would turn aside and seat himself on one of the numerous

seats of the upper ways. But a feverish restlessness, the knowledge of his vital implication in his struggle,

would not let him rest in any place for long. Was the struggle on his behalf alone?

And then in a desolate place came the shock of an earthquakea roaring and thunderinga mighty wind of

cold air pouring through the city, the smash of glass, the slip and thud of falling masonrya sieries of

gigantic concussions. A mass of glass and ironwork fell from the remote roofs into the middle gallery, not a

hundred yards away from him, and in the distance were shouts and running. He, too, was startled to an

A man came running towards him. His selfcontrol returned. "What have they blown up?" asked the man

breathlessly. "That was an explosion," and before Graham could speak he had hurried on.

The great buildings rose dimly, veiled by a perplexing twilight, albeit the rivulet of sky above was now bright

with day. He noted many strange features, understanding none at the time; he even spelt out many of the

inscriptions in Phonetic lettering. But what profits it to decipher a confusion of oddlooking letters resolving

itself, after painful strain of eye and mind, into "Here is Eadhamite," or, "Labour Bureau Little Side?"

Grotesque thought, that in all probability some or all of these clifflike houses were his!

The perversity of his experience came to him vividly. In actual fact he had made such a leap in time as

romancers have imagined again and again. And that fact realised, he had been prepared, his mind had, as it

were, seated itself for a spectacle. And no spectacle, 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 shadowy corner his destruction ambushed. A great

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

He squeezed his knuckles into his weary eyes. Suppose when he looked again he found the dark through of

parallel ways and that intolerable altitude of edifice, gone? Suppose he were to discover the whole story of

these last few days, the awakening, the shouting multitudes, the darkness and the fighting, a phantasmagoria,

a new and more vivid sort of dream. It must be a dream; it was so inconsecutive, so reasonless. Why were the

people fighting for him? Why should this saner world regard him as Owner and Master?

So he thought, sitting blinded, and then he looked again, half hoping in spite of his ears to see some familiar

aspect of the life of the nineteenth century, to see, perhaps, the little harbour of Boscastle about him, the cliffs

of Pentargen, or the bedroom of his home. But fact takes no heed of human hopes. A squad of men with a

black banner tramped athwart the nearer shadows, intent on conflict, and beyond rose that giddy wall of

frontage, vast and dark, with the dim incomprehensible lettering showing faintly on its face.

He turned sharply, and peering, saw a small, hunchedup figure sitting a couple of yards off in the shadow of

"I stay here till the lights come again," said the old man." These blue scoundrels are everywhere

Graham's answer was inarticulate assent. He tried to see the old man but the darkness hid his face. He wanted

"Dark and damnable," said the old man suddenly. "Dark and damnable. Turned out of my room among all

"Darkness. An old man lost in the darkness. And all the world gone mad. War and fighting. The police beaten

and rogues abroad. Why don't they bring some negroes to protect us? . . . No more dark passages for me. I

"You're safer with company," said the old man, "if it's company of the right sort," and peered frankly. He rose

Apparently the scrutiny was satisfactoy. The old man sat down as if relieved to be no longer alone. "Eh!" he

said, "but this is a terrible time! War and fighting, and the dead Iying theremen, strong men, dying in the

Graham stood revolving a question that should not betray his ignorance. Again the old man's voice ended the

"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 windvanes, all three. One of my daughtersinlaw was his mistress for a while. His

mistress! Were not common people. Though they've sent me to wander tonight 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

Graham ransacked his mind. "The Council has few friends among the people," he hazarded.

"Few friends. And poor ones at that. They've had their time. Eh! They should have kept to the clever ones.

But twice they held election. And Ostrog. And now it has burst out and nothing can stay it, nothing can stay

it. Twice they rejected OstrogOstrog the Boss. I heard of his rages at the timehe 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."

The senile voice sank to a confidential whisper, the dim, pale face came close. "The real Sleeper"

"I do. I do say so. He died. This Sleeper who's woke upthey changed in the night. A poor, drugged

For a little while he muttered inaudibly. His secret was too much for him. "I don't know the ones that put him

to sleepthat was before my timebut I know the man who injected the stimulants and woke him again. It

Graham was so astonished at these things that he had to interrupt, to make the old man repeat his words, to

requestion vaguely, before he was sure of the meaning and folly of what he heard. And his awakening had

not been natural! Was that an old man's senile superstition, too, or had it any truth in it? Feeling in the dark

corners of his memory, he presently came on something that might conceivably be an impression of some

such stimulating effect. It dawned upon him that he had happened upon a lucky encounter, that at last he

might learn something of the new age. The old man wheezed a while and spat, and then the piping,

"Sleeper? No. Ostrog. He was terribleterrible! And he was promised then, promised certainly the next

time. Fools they werenot 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 workthe 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!

The old man said something about clipping his words, and made him repeat this a third time. "Fighting and

slaying, and weapons in hand, and fools bawling freedom and the like," said the old man. "Not in all my life

has there been that. These are like the old daysfor surewhen the Paris people broke out three gross of

years ago. That's what I mean hasn't been. But it's the world's way. It had to come back. I know. I know. This

five years Ostrog has been working, and there has been trouble and trouble, and hunger and threats and high

talk and arms. Blue canvas and murmurs. No one safe. Everything sliding and slipping. And now here we

"No," said Graham, wondering what Babble Machine might be. "And you are certain this Ostrog you are

certain Ostrog organised this rebellion and arranged for the waking of the Sleeper? Just to assert

"Everyone knows that, I should think," said the old man. "Exceptjust fools. He meant to be master

somehow. In the Council or not. Everyone who knows anything knows that. And here we are with dead

bodies Iying 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

"I'm a dull man, older than I look, and forgetful," said Graham." Lots of things that have happened

especially of late years. If I was the Sleeper, to tell you the truth, I couldn't know less about them."

"Eh!" said the voice." Old, are you? You don't sound so very old! But its not everyone keeps his memory to

my time of lifetruly. But these notorious things! But you're not so old as menot nearly so old as me.

Well! I ought not to judge other men by myself, perhaps. I'm youngfor so old a man. Maybe you're old for

"That's it," said Graham. "And I've a queer history. I know very little. And history! Practically I know no

history. The Sleeper and Julius Caesar are all the same to me. It's interesting to hear you talk of these things."

The two men became silent, listening. There was heavy thud, a concussion that made their seat shiver. The

passersby stopped, shouted to one another. The old man was full of questions; he shouted to a man who

passed near. Graham, emboldened by his example, got up and accosted others. None knew what had

He returned to the seat and found the old man muttering vague interrogations in an undertone. For a while

The sense of this gigantic struggle, so near and yet so remote oppressed Graham's imagination. Was this old

man right, was the report of the people right, and were the revolutionaries winning? Or were they all in error,

and were the red guards driving all before them? At any time the flood of warfare might pour into this silent

quarter of the city and seize upon him again. It behooved 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

"Eh! but how things work together!" said the old man." This Sleeper that all the fools put their trust in! I've

the whole history of itI 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 nonethey rot and dust soand the Sanitary

Company burns them to make ashlarite. But they were convenient in their dirty way. Oh I learnt a lot. These

newfangled Babble Machines they don't seem newfangled to you, eh?they're easy to hear, easy to

"You will scarcely believe it," said Graham slowly, "I'm so ignorantI've been so preoccupied in my own

little affairs, my circumstances have been so odd I know nothing of this Sleeper's history. Who was he?"

"Eh!" said the old man. "I know. I know. He was a poor nobody, and set on a playful woman, poor soul! And

he fell into a trance. There's the old things they had, those brown thingssilver photo graphsstill

showing him as he lay, a gross and a half years agoa gross and a half of years."

"Set on a playful woman, poor soul," said Graham softly to himself, and then aloud, "Yeswell! go on."

"You must know he had a cousin named Warming a solitary man without children, who made a big fortune

speculating in roadsthe 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 railroadsthe old thingsin two dozen years;

he bought up and Eadhaillited' the tracks. And because he didn't want to break up his great property or let in

shareholders, he left it all to the Sleeper, and put it under a Board of Trustees that he had picked and trained.

He knew then the Sleeper wouldn't wake, that he would go on sleeping, sleeping till he died. He knew that

quite well! And plump! a man in the United States, who had lost two sons in a boat accident, followed that up

with another great bequest. His trustees found themselves with a dozen myriads of lions'worth or more of

"Of course not," said the old man. "Of course not. People don't learn much in the schools nowadays. But I

know all about him. He was a rich American who went from England, and he left the Sleeper even more than

Warming. How he made it? That I don't know. Something about pictures by machinery. But he made it and

left it, and so the Council had its start. It was just a council of trustees at first."

"Eh!but you're not up to things. Money attracts moneyand twelve brains are better than one. They

played it cleverly. They worked politics with money, and kept on adding to the money by working currency

and tariffs. They grewthey grew. And for years the twelve trustees hid the growing of the Sleeper's estate,

under double names and company titles and all that. The Council spread by title deed, mortgage, share, every

political party, every newspaper, they bought. If you listen to the old stories you will see the Council growing

and growing Billions and billions of lions at lastthe Sleeper's estate. And all growing out of a whimout

"Men are strange," said the old man. "The strange, thing to me is how the Council worked together so long.

As many as twelve. But they worked in cliques from the first. And they've slipped back. In my young days

speaking of the Council was like an ignorant man speaking of God. We didn't think they could do wrong. We

"Men are strange," said the old man. "Here are you, young and ignorant, and mesevendy years old, and I

"Sevendy," he said, "sevendy, and I hear and see hear better than I see. And reason clearly, and keep

"Life is strange. I was twaindy before Ostrog was a baby. I remember him long before he'd pushed his way to

the head of the Wind Vanes Control. I've seen many changes. Eh! I've worn the blue. And at last I've come to

see this crush and darkness and tumult and dead men carried by in heaps on the ways. And all his doing! All

He extended a hand and ticked off points upon his fingers. "The Sleeper has been asleep"

"Perhaps. And meanwhile the Sleeper's property grew in the hands of Twelve Trustees, until it swallowed up

nearly all the great ownership of the world. The Twelve Trusteesby virtue of this property have become

virtually masters of the world. Because they are the paying powerjust as the old English Parliament used to

"And now this Ostroghas suddenly revolutionised the world by waking the Sleeperwhom no one but the

superstitious, common people had ever dreamt would wake againraising the Sleeper to claim his property

The old man endorsed this statement with a cough. "It's strange," he said, "to meet a man who learns these

"Have you been in a Pleasure City?" said the old man. "All my life I've longed" He laughed. "Even now,"

he said, "I could enjoy a little fun. Enjoy seeing things, anyhow. "He mumbled a sentence Graham did not

"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 marketswhere the fighting has been. All the city was screaming about it. All the

Babble Machines! Everywhere it was shouted. Even the fools who speak for the Council were admitting it.

Everyone was rushing off to see himeveryone was getting arms. Were you drunk or asleep? And even

then! But you're joking! Surely you're pretending. It was to stop the shouting of the Babble Machines and

prevent the people gathering that they turned off the electricityand put this damned darkness upon us. Do

"I had heard the Sleeper was rescued," said Graham. "Butto come back a minute. Are you sure Ostrog has

"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

"I suppose there's no chance of this Sleeper asserting himself. I suppose he's certain to be a puppet in

"In Ostrog's handscertainly. Why shouldn't he be a puppet? Look at his position. Everything done for him,

The old man made him repeat the question. When at last he was assured of Graham's words, he nudged him

violently. "That's too much," said he. "You're poking fun at an old man. I've been suspecting you know more

"Perhaps I do," said Graham. "But no! why should I go on acting? No, I do not know what a Pleasure City

"What is more, I do not know how to read your letters, I do not know what money you use, I do not know

what foreign countries there are. I do not know where I am. I cannot count. I do not know where to get food,

"Come, come," said the old man, "if you had a glass of drink, now, would you put it in your ear or your eye?"

"He, he! Well, gentlemen who dress in silk must have their fun." A withered hand caressed Graham's arm for

a moment." Silk. Well, well! But, all the same, I wish I was the man who was put up as the Sleeper. He'll

have a fine time of it. All the pomp and pleasure. He's a queer looking face. When they used to let anyone go

to see him, I've got tickets and been. The image of the real one, as the photographs show him, this substitute

used to be. Yellow. But he'll get fed up. It's a queer world. Think of the luck of it. The luck of it. I expect he'll

His cough overtook him again. Then he began mumbling enviously of pleasures and strange delights. "The

luck of it, the luck of it! All my life I've been in London, hoping to get my chance."

"Men don't live beyond ten dozen. It's not in the order of things," said the old man. "I'm not a fool. Fools may

Graham became angry with the old man's assurance. "Whether you are a fool or not," he said, "it happens you

"You are wrong about the Sleeper. I haven't told you before, but I will tell you now. You are wrong about the

"How do you know? I thought you didn't know anythingnot even about Pleasure Cities."

There was a brief pause. "There's a silly thing to say, sir, if you'll excuse me. It might get you into trouble in a

time like this," said the old man. Graham, slightly dashed, repeated his assertion.

"I was saying I was the Sleeper. That years and years ago I did, indeed, fall asleep, in a little stonebuilt

village, in the days when there were hedgerows, and villages, and inns, and all the countryside cut up into

little pieces, little fields. Have you never heard of those days? And it is II who speak to you who

"Four days since!the Sleeper! But they've got the Sleeper. They have him and they won't let him go.

Nonsense! You've been talking sensibly enough up to now. I can see it as though I was there. There will be

Lincoln like a keeper just behind him; they won't let him go about alone. Trust them. You're a queer fellow.

One of these fun pokers. I see now why you have been clipping your words so oddly, but"

"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."

"You're an odd man," said the old man, "to sit here in the dark, talking clipped, and telling a lie of that sort.

Graham's exasperation fell to laughter. "It is preposterous," he cried. "Preposterous. The dream must end. It

gets wilder and wilder. Here am Iin this damned twilightI never knew a dream in twilight beforean

anachronism by two hundred years and trying to persuade an old fool that I am myself, and meanwhile

He moved in gusty irritation and went striding. In a moment the old man was pursuing him. "Eh! but don't

go!" cried the old man. "I'm an old fool, I know. Don't go. Don't leave me in all this darkness."

Graham hesitated, stopped. Suddenly the folly of telling his secret flashed into his mind.

"I didn't mean to offend youdisbelieving you," said the old man coming near. "It's no manner of harm. Call

For a time he heard the old man's hobbling pursuit and his wheezy cries receding. But at last the darkness

Graham could now take a clearer view of his position. For a long time yet he wandered, but after the talk of

the old man his discovery of this Ostrog was clear in his mind as the final inevitable decision. One thing was

evident, those who were at the headquarters of the revolt had succeeded very admirably in suppressing the

fact of his disappearance. But every moment he expected to hear the report of his death or of his recapture by

A number of men and a girl passed in the darkness, gesticulating and shouting: "Capitulated! Given up!" A

dozand of men." "Two dozand of men." "Ostrog, Hurrah! Ostrog, Hurrah!" These cries receded, became

Other shouting men followed. For a time his attention was absorbed in the fragments of speech he heard. He

had a doubt whether all were speaking English. Scraps floated to him, scraps like Pigeon English, like 'nigger'

dialect, blurred and mangled distortions. He dared accost no one with questions. The impression the people

gave him jarred altogether with his preconceptions of the struggle and confirmed the old man's faith in

Ostrog. It was only slowly he could bring himself to believe that all these people were rejoicing at the defeat

of the Council, that the Council which had pursued him with such power and vigour was after all the weaker

of the two sides in conflict. And if that was so, how did it affect him? Several times he hesitated on the verge

of fundamental questions. Once he turned and walked for a long way after a little man of rotund inviting

It was only slowly that it came to him that he might ask for the "windvane offices," whatever the "wind

vane offices" might be. His first enquiry simply resulted in a direction to go on towards Westminster. His

second led to the discovery of a short cut in which he was speedily lost. He was told to leave the ways to

which he had hitherto confined himself knowing no other means of transitand to plunge down one of the

middle staircases into the blackness of a crossway. Thereupon came some trivial adventures; chief of these an

ambiguous encounter with a gruffvoiced 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

latterday vile. Then another voice drew near, a girl's voice singing, "tralala tralala." She spoke to Graham,

her English touched with something of the same quality. She professed to have lost her sister, she blundered

needlessly into him he thought, caught hold of him and laughed. But a word of vague remonstrance sent her

The sounds about him increased. Stumbling people passed him, speaking excitedly. "They have surrendered!"

"The Council! Surely not the Council!" "They are saying so in the Ways." The passage seemed wider.

Suddenly the wall fell away. He was in a great space and people were stirring remotely. He inquired his way

of an indistinct figure. "Strike straight across," said a woman's voice. He left his guiding wall, and in a

moment had stumbled against a little table on which were utensils of glass. Graham's eyes, now attuned to

darkness, made out a long vista with pallid tables on either side. He went down this. At one or two of the

tables he heard a clang of glass and a sound of eating. There were people then cool enough to dine, or daring

enough to steal a meal in spite of social convulsion and darkness. Far off and high up he presently saw a

pallid light of a semicircular shape. As he approached this, a black edge came up and hid it. He stumbled at

steps and found himself in a gallery. He heard a sobbing, and found two scared little girls crouched by a

railing. These children became silent at the near sound of feet. He tried to console them, but they were very

Presently he found himself at the foot of a staircase and near a wide opening. He saw a dim twilight above

this and ascended out of the blackness into a street of moving Ways again. Along this a disorderly swarm of

people marched shouting. They were singing snatches of the song of the revolt, most of them out of tune.

Here and there torches flared creating brief hysterical shadows. He asked his way and was twice puzzled by

that same thick dialect. His third attempt won an answer he could understand. He was two miles from the

When at last he did approach the district of the windvane offices it seemed to him, from the cheering

processions that came marching along the Ways, from the tumult of rejoicing, and finally from the restoration

of the lighting of the city, that the overthrow of the Council must already be accomplished. And still no news

The reillumination of the city came with startling abruptness. Suddenly he stood blinking, all about him men

halted dazzled, and the world was incandescent. The light found him already upon the outskirts of the excited

crowds that choked the Ways near the windvane offices, and the sense of visibility and exposure that came

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 windvane offices was illuminated by

some moving picture, but what it was he could not see, because in spite of his strenuous attempts the density

of the crowd prevented his approaching it. From the fragments of speech he caught, he judged it conveyed

news of the fighting about the Council House. Ignorance and indecision made him slow and ineffective in his

movements. For a time he could not conceive how he was to get within the unbroken facade of this place. He

made his way slowly into the midst of this mass of people, until he realised that the descending staircase of

the central Way led to the interior of the buildings. This gave him a goal, but the crowding in the central path

was so dense that it was long before he could reach it. And even then he encountered intricate obstruction,

and had an hour of vivid argument first in this guard room and then in that before he could get a note taken to

the one man of all men who was most eager to see him. His story was laughed to scorn at one place, and

wiser for that, when at last he reached a second stairway he professed simply to have news of extraordinary

importance for Ostrog. What it was he would not say. They sent his note reluctantly. For a long time he

waited in a little room at the foot of the lift shaft, and thither at last came Lincoln, eager, apologetic,

astonished. He stopped in the doorway scrutinising Graham, then rushed forward effusively.

"My brother is waiting," explained Lincoln. "He is alone in the windvane offices. We feared you had been

killed in the theatre. He doubtedand things are very urgent still in spite of what we are telling them

They ascended a lift, passed along a narrow passage, crossed a great hall, empty save for two hurrying

messengers, and entered a comparatively little room, whose only furniture was a long settee and a large oval

disc of cloudy, shifting grey, hung by cables from the wall. There Lincoln left Graham for a space, and he

remained alone without understanding the shifting smoky shapes that drove slowly across this disc.

His attention was arrested by a sound that began abruptly. It was cheering, the frantic cheering of a vast but

very remote crowd, a roaring exultation. This ended as sharply as it had begun, like a sound heard between

the opening and shutting of a door. In the outer room was a noise of hurrying steps and a melodious clinking

Then he heard the voice of a woman, the rustle of unseen garments. "It is Ostrog!" he heard her say. A little

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,

whitehaired man, clad in garments of cream coloured silk, appeared, regarding Graham from under his

For a moment the white form remained holding the curtain, then dropped it and stood before it. Graham's first

impression was of a very broad forehead, very pale blue eyes deep sunken under white brows, an aquiline

nose, and a heavilylined resolute mouth. The folds of flesh over the eyes, the drooping of the corners of the

mouth contradicted the upright bearing, and said the man was old. Graham rose to his feet instinctively, and

Graham felt the inconvenience of the silence. "I have to thank you chiefly, I understand, for my safety," he

"Or sent to sleep againfor ever. We have been doing everything to keep our secretthe secret of your

He smiled faintly. "Do you know what I was doing when they came to tell me you had come? "

"A man as like you as we could find. We were going to hypnotise him, to save him the difficulty of acting. It

was imperative. The whole of this revolt depends on the idea that you are awake, alive, and with us. Even

now a great multitude of people has gathered in the theatre clamouring to see you. They do not trust . . . You

"It is like this." Ostrog walked a pace or two into the room and turned. "You are absolute owner," he said, "of

more than half the world. As a result of that you are practically King. Your powers are limited in many

intricate ways, but you are the figure head, the popular symbol of government. This White Council, the

"I see . . . Our massesthe word comes from your daysyou know of course, that we still have

massesregard you as our actual ruler. Just as a great number of people in your days regarded the Crown as

the ruler. They are discontentedthe masses all over the earthwith the rule of your Trustees. For the most

part it is the old discontent, the old quarrel of the common man with his commonnessthe misery of work

and discipline and unfitness. But your Trustees have ruled ill. In certain matters, in the administration of the

Labour Companies, for example, they have been unwise. They have given endless opportunities. Already we

of the popular party were agitating for reformswhen your waking came. Came! If it had been contrived it

could not have come more opportunity." 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, andFlash!"

He indicated the outbreak by a gesture, and Graham moved his head to show that he understood.

"The Council muddledquarreled. They always do. They could not decide what to do with you. You know

"We win. Indeed we win. Tonight, in five swift hours. Suddenly we struck everywhere. The windvane

people, the Labour Company and its millions, burst the bonds. We got the pull of the aeropiles."

"That was, of course, essential. Or they could have got away. All the city rose, every third man almost was in

it! All the blue, all the public services, save only just a few aeronauts and about half the red police. You were

rescued, and their own police of the Waysnot half of them could be massed at the Council Househave

been broken up, disarmed or killed. All London is oursnow. Only the Council House remains.

"Half of those who remain to them of the red police were lost in that foolish attempt to recapture you. They

lost their heads when they lost you. They flung all they had at the theatre. We cut them off from the Council

House there. Truly tonight has been a night of victory. Everywhere your star has blazed. A day agothe

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

"I am very ignorant," said Graham. "I suppose. I do not clearly understand the conditions of this fighting.

Ostrog stepped across the room, something clicked, and suddenly, save for an oval glow, they were in

Then he saw that the cloudy grey disc had taken depth and colour, had assumed the appearance of an oval

At the first glance he was unable to guess what this scene might be. It was a daylight scene, the daylight of a

wintry day, grey and clear. Across the picture and halfway as it seemed between him and the remoter view, a

stout cable of twisted white wire stretched vertically. Then he perceived that the rows of great windwheels he

saw, the wide intervals, the occasional gulfs of darkness, were akin to those through which he had fled from

the Council House. He distinguished an orderly file of red figures marching across an open space between

files of men in black, and realised before Ostrog spoke that he was looking down on the upper surface of

latterday London. The overnight snows had gone. He judged that this mirror was some modern replacement

of the camera obscura, but that matter was not explained to him. He saw that though the file of red figures

was trotting from left to right, yet they were passing out of the picture to the left. He wondered momentarily,

and then saw that the picture was passing slowly, panorama fashion, across the oval.

"In a moment you will see the fighting," said Ostrog at his elbow. "Those fellows in red you notice are

prisoners. This is the roof space of Londonall the houses are practically continuous now. The streets and

public squares are covered in. The gaps and chasms of your time have disappeared."

Something out of focus obliterated half the picture. Its form suggested a man. There was a gleam of metal, a

flash, something that swept across the oval, as the eyelid of a bird sweeps across its eye, and the picture was

clear again. And now Graham beheld men running down among the windwheels, pointing weapons from

which jetted out little smoky flashes. They swarmed thicker and thicker to the right, gesticulatingit might

be they were shouting, but of that the picture told nothing. They and the windwheels passed slowly and

"Now," said Ostrog, "comes the Council House," and slowly a black edge crept into view and gathered

Graham's attention. Soon it was no longer an edge but a cavity, a huge blackened space amidst the clustering

edifices, and from it thin spires of smoke rose into the pallid winter sky. Gaunt ruinous masses of the

building, mighty truncated piers and girders, rose dismally out of this cavernous darkness. And over these

vestiges of some splendid place, countless minute men were clambering, leaping, swarming.

"This is the Council House," said Ostrog. "Their last stronghold. And the fools wasted enough ammunition to

hold out for a month in blowing up the buildings all about themto stop our attack. You heard the smash? It

And while he spoke, Graham saw that beyond this sea of ruins, overhanging it and rising to a great height,

was a ragged mass of white building. This mass had been isolated by the ruthless destruction of its

surroundings. Black gaps marked the passages the disaster had torn apart; big halls had been slashed open

and the decoration of their interiors showed dismally in the wintry dawn, and down the jagged wall hung

festoons of divided cables and twisted ends of lines and metallic rods. And amidst all the vast details moved

little red specks, the redclothed defenders of the Council. Every now and then faint flashes illuminated the

bleak shadows. At the first sight it seemed to Graham that an attack upon this isolated white building was in

progress, but then he perceived that the party of the revolt was not advancing, but sheltered amidst the

colossal wreckage that encircled this last ragged stronghold of the redgarbed men, was keeping up a fitful

And not ten hours ago he had stood beneath the ventilating fans in a little chamber within that remote

Looking more attentively as this warlike episode moved silently across the centre of the mirror, Graham saw

that the white building was surrounded on every side by ruins, and Ostrog proceeded to describe in concise

phrases how its defenders had sought by such destruction to isolate themselves from a storm. He spoke of the

loss of men that huge downfall had entailed in an indifferent tone. He indicated an improvised mortuary

among the wreckage showed ambulances swarming like cheesemites along a ruinous groove that had once

been a street of moving ways. He was more interested in pointing out the parts of the Council House, the

distribution of the besiegers. In a little while the civil contest that had convulsed London was no longer a

mystery to Graham. It was no tumultuous revolt had occurred that night, no equal warfare, but a splendidly

organised __coup d'etat__. Ostrog's grasp of details was astonishing; he seemed to know the business of even

He stretched a huge black arm across the luminous picture, and showed the room whence Graham had

escaped, and across the chasm of ruins the course of his flight. Graham recognised the gulf across which the

gutter ran, and the windwheels 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.

"That is the flag of the Councilthe flag of the Rule of the World. It will fall. The fight is over. Their attack

on the theatre was their last frantic struggle. They have only a thousand men or so, and some of these men

will be disloyal. They have little ammunition. And we are reviving the ancient arts. We are casting guns."

" Practically this is all they have left to them of their empire. Abroad the cities have either revolted with us or

"They had. But the greater part of the aeronauts were in the revolt with us. They wouldn't take the risk of

fighting on our side, but they would not stir against us. We had to get a pull with the aeronauts. Quite half

were with us, and the others knew it. Directly they knew you had got away, those looking for you dropped.

We killed the man who shot at youan hour ago. And we occupied the flying stages at the outset in every

city we could, and so stopped and captured the airplanes, and as for the little flying machines that turned

outfor some did we kept up too straight and steady a fire for them to get near the Council House. If they

dropped they couldn't rise again, because there's no clear space about there for them to get up. Several we

have smashed, several others have dropped and surrendered, the rest have gone off to the Continent to find a

friendly city if they can before their fuel runs out. Most of these men were only too glad to be taken prisoner

and kept out of harm's way. Upsetting in a flying machine isn't a very attractive prospect. There's no chance

He laughed and turned to the oval reflection again to show Graham what he meant by flying stages. Even the

four nearer ones were remote and obscured by a thin morning haze. But Graham could perceive they were

And then as these dim shapes passed to the left there came again the sight of the expanse across which the

disarmed men in red had been marching. And then the black ruins, and then again the beleaguered white

fastness of the Council. It appeared no longer a ghostly pile, but glowing amber in the sunlight, for a cloud

shadow had passed. About it the pigmy struggle still hung in suspense, but now the red defenders were no

So, in a dusky stillness, the man from the nineteenth century saw the closing scene of the great revolt, the

forcible establishment of his rule. With a quality of startling discovery it came to him that this was his world,

and not that other he had left behind; that this was no spectacle to culminate and cease; that in this world lay

whatever life was still before him, lay all his duties and dangers and responsibilities. He turned with fresh

questions. Ostrog began to answer them, and then broke off abruptly. "But these things I must explain more

fully later. At present there are duties. The people are coming by the moving ways towards this ward from

every part of the city the markets and theatres are densely crowded. You are just in time for them. They are

clamouring to see you. And abroad they want to see you. Paris, New York, Chicago, Denver,

Caprithousands of cities are up and in a tumult, undecided, and clamouring to see you. They have

clamoured that you should be awakened for years, and now it is done they will scarcely believe"

Ostrog answered from the other side of the room, 1. and the picture on the oval disc paled and vanished ' as

the light jerked back again." There are kinetotelephotographs," he said. "As you bow to the people hereall

over the world myriads of myriads of people, packed and still in darkened halls, will see you also. In black

and white, of coursenot like this. And you will hear their shouts reinforcing the shouting in the hall.

"And there is an optical contrivance we shall use," said Ostrog, "used by some of the posturers and women

dancers. It may be novel to you. You stand in a very bright light, and they see not you but a magnified image

of you thrown on a screenso that even the furtherest man in the remotest gallery can, if he chooses, count

Graham clutched desperately at one of the questions in his mind. "What is the population of London?"

These figures went beyond Graham's imagination "You will be expected to say something," said Ostrog. "Not

what you used to call a Speech, but what our people call a Wordjust one sentence, six or seven words.

Something formal. If I might suggest' I have awakened and my heart is with you.' That is the sort of thing

"'I am awakened and my heart is with you.' And bowbow royally. But first we must get you black

robesfor black is your colour. Do you mind? And then they will disperse to their homes."

Ostrog was clearly of that opinion. He thought for a moment, turned to the curtain and called brief directions

to some unseen attendants. Almost immediately a black robe, the very fellow of the black robe Graham had

worn in the theatre, was brought. And as he threw it about his shoulders there came from the room without

the shrilling of a highpitched bell. Ostrog turned in interrogation to the attendant, then suddenly seemed to

For a moment Graham stood with the deferential attendant listening to Ostrog's retreating steps. There was a

sound of quick question and answer and of men running. The curtain was snatched back and Ostrog

reappeared, his massive face glowing with excitement. He crossed the room in a stride, clicked the room into

Graham saw his index finger, black and colossal, above the mirrored Council House. For a moment he did

not understand. And then he perceived that the flagstaff that had carried the white banner was bare.

"Look!" and Ostrog pointed to a coil of black that crept in little jerks up the vacant flagstaff, unfolding as it

"We have raised the people," he said. "We have given them arms. For today at least their wishes must be

On his way to the markets Graham had a transitory glance of a long narrow whitewalled room in which men

in the universal blue canvas were carrying covered things like biers, and about which men in medical purple

hurried to and fro. From this room came groans and wailing. He had an impression of an empty

bloodstained couch, of men on other couches, bandaged and bloodstained. It was just a glimpse from a

railed footway and then a buttress hid the place and they were going on towards the markets.

The roar of the multitude was near now: it leapt to thunder. And, arresting his attention, a fluttering of black

banners, the waving of blue canvas and brown rags, and the swarming vastness of the theatre near the public

markets came into view down a long passage. The picture opened out. He perceived they were entering the

great theatre of his first appearance, the Freat theatre he had last seen as a chequerwork of glare and

blackness in his flight from the red police. This time he entered it along a gallery at a level high above the

stage. The place was now brilliantly lit again. He sought the gangway up which he had fled, but he could not

tell it from among its dozens of fellows; nor could he see anything of the smashed seats, deflated cushions,

and such like traces of the fight because of the density of the people. Except the stage the whole place was

closely packed. Looking down the effect was a vast area of stippled pink, each dot a still upturned face

regarding him. At his appearance with Ostrog the cheering died away, the singing died away, a common

interest stilled and unified the disorder. It seemed as though every individual of those myriads was watching

So far as Graham was able to judge, it was near midday when the white banner of the Council fell. But some

hours had to elapse before it was possible to effect the formal capitulation, and so after he had spoken his

"Word" he retired to his new apartments in the windvane offices. The continuous excitement of the last

twelve hours had left him inordinately fatigued, even his curiosity was exhausted; for a space he sat inert and

passive with open eyes, and for a space he slept. He was roused by two medical attendants, come prepared

with stimulants to sustain him through the next occasion. After he had taken their drugs and bathed by their

advice in cold water, he felt a rapid return of interest and energy, and was presently able and willing to

accompany Ostrog through several miles (as it seemed) of passages, lifts, and slides to the closing scene of

The way ran deviously through a maze of buildings. They came at last to a passage that curved about, and

showed broadening before him an oblong opening, clouds hot with sunset, and the ragged skyline of the

ruinous Council House. A tumult of shouts came drifting up to him. In another moment they had come out

high up on the brow of the cliff of torn buildings that overhung the wreckage. The vast area opened to

Graham's eyes, none the less strange and wonderful for the remote view he had had of it in the oval mirror.

This rudely amphitheatral space seemed now the better part of a mile to its outer edge. It was gold lit on the

left hand, catching the sunlight, and below and to the right clear and cold in the shadow. Above the shadowy

grey Council House that stood in the midst of it, the great black banner of the surrender still hung in sluggish

folds against the blazing sunset. Severed rooms, halls and passages gaped strangely, broken masses of metal

projected dismally from the complex wreckage, vast masses of twisted cable dropped like tangled seaweed,

and from its base came a tumult of innumerable voices, violent concussions, and the sound of trumpets. All

about this great white pile was a ring of desolation; the smashed and blackened masses, the gaunt foundations

and ruinous lumber of the fabric that had been destroyed by the Council's orders, skeletons of girders, Titanic

masses of wall, forests of stout pillars. Amongst the sombre wreckage beneath, running water flashed and

glistened, and far away across the space, out of the midst of a vague vast mass of buildings, there thrust the

twisted end of a watermain, two hundred feet in the air, thunderously spouting a shining cascade. And

Wherever there was space and foothold, people swarmed, little people, small and minutely clear, except

where the sunset touched them to indistinguishable gold. They clambered up the tottering walls, they clung in

wreaths and groups about the highstanding pillars. They swarmed along the edges of the circle of ruins. The

air was full of their shouting, and were pressing and swaying towards the central space.

The upper storeys of the Council House seemed deserted, not a human being was visible. Only the drooping

banner of the surrender hung heavily against the light. The dead were within the Council House, or hidden by

the swarming people, or carried away. Graham could see only a few neglected bodies in gaps and corners of

"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 I stood

Very slowly the swarming ruins became aware of him. And as they did so little bands of black uniformed

men appeared remotely, thrusting through the crowds towards the Council House. He saw little black heads

become pink, looking at him, saw by that means a wave of recognition sweep across the space. It occurred to

him that he should accord them some recognition. He held up his arm, then pointed to the Council House and

dropped his hand. The voices below became unanimous, gathered volume, came up to him as multitudinous

The western sky was a pallid bluish green, and Jupiter shone high in the south, before the capitulation was

accomplished. Above was a slow insensible change, the advance of night serene and beautiful; below was

hurry, excitement, conflicting orders, pauses, spasmodic developments of organisation, a vast ascending

clamour and confusion. Before the Council came out, toiling perspiring men, directed by a conflict of shouts,

carried forth hundreds of those who had perished in the handtohand conflict within those long passages

Guards in black lined the way that the Council would come, and as far as the eye could reach into the hazy

blue twilight of the ruins, and swarming now at every possible point in the captured Council House and along

the shattered cliff of its circumadjacent buildings, were innumerable people, and their voices even when they

were not cheering, were as the soughing of the sea upon a pebble beach. Ostrog had chosen a huge

commanding pile of crushed and over thrown masonry, and on this a stage of timbers and metal girders was

being hastily constructed. Its essential parts were complete, but humming and clangorous machinery still

The stage had a small higher portion on which Graham stood with Ostrog and Lincoln close beside him, a

little in advance of a group of minor officers. A broader lower stage surrounded this quarter deck, and on this

were the blackuniformed guards of the revolt armed with the little green weapons whose very names

Graham still did not know. Those standing about him perceived that his eyes wandered perpetually from the

swarming people in the twilight ruins about him to the darkling mass of the White Council House, whence

the Trustees would presently come, and to the gaunt cliffs of ruin that encircled him, and so back to the

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 blinking in a black archway. In the Council House they had been in darkness. He

watched them approaching, drawing nearer past first this blazing electric star and then that; the minatory roar

of the crowd over whom their power had lasted for a hundred and fifty years marched along beside them. As

they drew still nearer their faces came out weary, white and anxious. He saw them blinking up through the

glare about him and Ostrog. He contrasted their strange cold looks in the Hall of Atlas.. .. Presently he could

recognise several of them; the man who had rapped the table at Howard, a burly man with a red beard, and

one delicatefeatured, short, dark man with a peculiarly long skull. He noted that two were whispering

together and looking behind him at Ostrog. Next there came a tall, dark and handsome man, walking

downcast. Abruptly he glanced up, his eyes touched Graham for a moment, and passed beyond him to Ostrog.

The way that had been made for them was so contrived that they had to march past and curve about before

they came to the sloping path of planks that ascended to the stage where their surrender was to be made.

"The Master, the Master! God and the Master," shouted the people." To hell with the Council!" Graham

looked at their multitudes, receding beyond counting into a shouting haze, and then at Ostrog beside him,

white and steadfast and still. His eye went again to the little group of White Councillors. And then he looked

up at the familiar quiet stars overhead. The marvellous element in his fate was suddenly vivid. Could that be

his indeed, that little life in his memory two hundred years gone byand this as well?

And so after strange delays and through an avenue of doubt and battle, this man from the nineteenth century

At first when he rose from the long deep sleep that followed his rescue and the surrender of the Council, he

did not recognise his surroundings. By an effort he gained a clue in his mind, and all that had happened came

back to him, at first with a quality of insincerity like a story heard, like something read out of a book. And

even before his memories were clear, the exultation of his escape, the wonder of his prominence were back in

his mind. He was owner of half the world; Master of the Earth. This new great age was in the completest

sense his. He no longer hoped to discover his experiences a dream; he became anxious now to convince

An obsequious valet assisted him to dress under the direction of a dignified chief attendant, a little man

whose face proclaimed him Japanese, albeit he spoke English like an Englishman. From the latter he learnt

something of the state of affairs. Already the revolution was an accepted fact; already business was being

resumed throughout the city. Abroad the downfall of the Council had been received for the most part with

delight. Nowhere was the Council popular, and the thousand cities of Western America, after two hundred

years still jealous of New York, London, and the East, had risen almost unanimously two days before at the

news of Graham's imprisonment. Paris was fighting within itself. The rest of the world hung in suspense.

While he was breaking his fast, the sound of a telephone bell jetted from a corner, and his chief attendant

called his attention to the voice of Ostrog making polite enquiries. Graham interrupted his refreshment to

reply. Very shortly Lincoln arrived, and Graham at once expressed a strong desire to talk to people and to be

shown more of the new life that was opening before him. Lincoln informed him that in three hours' time a

representative gathering of officials and their wives would be held in the state apartments of the windvane

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 windvane keeper. To this accordingly Graham was conducted by his

attendant. Lincoln, with a graceful compliment to the attendant, apologised for not accompanying them, on

Higher even than the most gigantic windwheels hung this crow's nest, a clear thousand feet above the roofs,

a little discshaped speck on a spear of metallic filigree, cable stayed. To its summit Graham was drawn in a

little wirehung cradle. Halfway down the frailseeming stem was a light gallery about which hung a cluster

of tubesminute they looked from aboverotating slowly on the ring of its outer rail. These were the

specula, __en rapport__ with the windvane keeper's mirrors, in one of which Ostrog had shown him the

coming of his rule. His Japanese attendant ascended before him and they spent nearly an hour asking and

It was a day full of the promise and quality of spring. The touch of the wind warmed. The sky was an intense

blue and the vast expanse of London shone dazzling under the morning sun. The air was clear of smoke and

Save for the irregular oval of ruins about the House of the Council and the black flag of the surrender that

fluttered there, the mighty city seen from above showed few signs of the swift revolution that had, to his

imagination, in one night and one day, changed the destinies of the world. A multitude of people still

swarmed over these ruins, and the huge openwork stagings in the distance from which started in times of

peace the service of aeroplanes to the various great cities of Europe and America, were also black with the

victors. Across a narrow way of planking raised on trestles that crossed the ruins a crowd of workmen were

busy restoring the connection between the cables and wires of the Council House and the rest of the city,

preparatory to the transfer thither of Ostrog's headquarters from the WindVane buildings.

For the rest the luminous expanse was undisturbed. So vast was its serenity in comparison with the areas of

disturbance, that presently Graham, looking beyond them, could almost forget the thousands of men Iying out

of sight in the artificial glare within the quasisubterranean labyrinth, dead or dying of the overnight wounds,

forget the improvised wards with the hosts of surgeons, nurses, and bearers feverishly busy, forget, indeed,'

all the wonder, consternation and novelty under the electric lights. Down there in the hidden ways of the

anthill he knew that the revolution triumphed, that black everywhere carried the day, black favours, black

banners, black festoons across the streets. And out here, under the fresh sunlight, beyond the crater of the

fight, as if nothing had happened to the earth, the forest of Wind Vanes that had grown from one or two while

Far away, spiked, jagged and indented by the wind vanes, the Surrey Hills rose blue and faint; to the north

and nearer, the sharp contours of Highgate and Muswell Hill were similarly jagged. And all over the

countryside, he knew, on every crest and hill, where once the hedges had interlaced, and cottages, churches,

inns, and farmhouses had nestled among their trees, wind wheels similar to those he saw and bearing like vast

advertisements, gaunt and distinctive symbols of the new age, cast their whirling shadows and stored

incessantly the energy that flowed away incessantly through all the arteries of the city. And underneath these

wandered the countless flocks and herds of the British Food Trust with their lonely guards and keepers.

Not a familiar outline anywhere broke the cluster of gigantic shapes below. St. Paul's he knew survived, and

many of the old buildings in Westminster, embedded out of sight, arched over and covered in among the

giant growths of this great age. The Themes, too, made no fall and gleam of silver to break the wilderness of

the city; the thirsty water mains drank up every drop of its waters before they reached the walls. Its bed and

estuary scoured and sunken, was now a canal of sea water and a race of grimy bargemen brought the heavy

materials of trade from the Pool thereby beneath the very feet of the workers. Faint and dim in the eastward

between earth and sky hung the clustering masts of the colossal shipping in the Pool. For all the heavy traffic,

for which there was no need of haste, came in gigantic sailing ships from the ends of the earth, and the heavy

goods for which there was urgency in mechanical ships of a smaller swifter sort.

And to the south over the hills, came vast aqueducts with sea water for the sewers and in three separate

directions, ran pallid linesthe roads, stippled with moving grey specks. On the first occasion that offered he

was determined to go out and see these roads. That would come after the flying ship he was presently to try.

His attendant officer described them as a pair of gently curving surfaces a hundred yards wide, each one for

the traffic going in one direction, and made of a substance called Eadhamitean artificial substance,. so far

as he could gather, resembling toughened glass. Along this shot a strange traffic of narrow rubbershod

vehicles, great single wheels, two and four wheeled vehicles, sweeping along at velocities of from one to six

miles a minute. Railroads had vanished; a few embankments remained as rustcrowned trenches here and

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 aeroplanes

were to be seen. Their passages had ceased, and only one littleseeming aeropile circled high in the blue

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

hotellike edifice stood amid square miles of some single cultivation and preserved the name of a townas

Bournemouth, Wareham, or Swanage. Yet the officer had speedily convinced him how inevitable such a

change had been. The old order had dotted the country with farmhouses, and every two or three miles was the

ruling landlord's estate, and the place of the inn and cobbler, the grocer's shop and churchthe village. Every

eight miles or so was the country town, where lawyer, corn merchant, woolstapler, saddler, veterinary

surgeon, doctor, draper, milliner and so forth lived. Every eight milessimply 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 substancesthe necessity of having such frequent market towns disappeared.

And the big towns grew. They drew the worker with the gravitational force of seemingly endless work, the

And as the standard of comfort rose, as the complexity of the mechanism of living increased life in the

country had become more and more costly, or narrow and impossible. The disappearance of vicar and squire,

the extinction of the general practitioner by the city specialist, had robbed the village of its last touch of

culture. After telephone, kinematograph and phonograph had replaced newspaper, book, schoolmaster, and

letter, to live outside the range of the electric cables was to live an isolated savage. In the country were

neither means of being clothed nor fed (according to the refined conceptions of the time), no efficient doctors

Moreover, mechanical appliances in agriculture made one engineer the equivalent of thirty labourers. So,

inverting the condition of the city clerk in the days when London was scarce inhabitable because of the coaly

foulness of its air, the labourers now came hurrying by road or air to the city and its life and delights at night

to leave it again in the morning. The city had swallowed up humanity; man had entered upon a new stage in

his development. First had come the nomad, the hunter, then had followed the agriculturist of the agricultural

state, whose towns and cities and ports were but the headquarters and markets of the countryside. And now,

logical consequence of an epoch of invention, was this huge new aggregation of men. Save London, there

were only four other cities in Britain Edinburgh, Portsmouth, Manchester and Shrewsbury. Such things as

these, simple statements of fact though they were to contemporary men, strained Graham's imagination to

picture. And when he glanced "over beyond there" at the strange things that existed on the Continent, it failed

He had a vision of city beyond city, cities on great plains, cities beside great rivers, vast cities along the sea

margin, cities girdled by snowy mountains. Over a great part of the earth the English tongue was spoken;

taken together with its Spanish American and Hindoo and Negro and "Pidgin" dialects, it was the everyday

language of twothirds of the people of the earth. On the Continent, save as remote and curious survivals,

three other languages alone held sway German, which reached to Antioch and Genoa and jostled

SpanishEnglish at Gdiz, 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 cityset earth, save in the administered "black belt" territories of the

tropics, the same cosmopolitan social organisatior prevailed, and everywhere from Pole to Equator his

property and his responsibilities extended. The whole world was civilised; the whole world dwelt in cities;

the whole world was property. Over the British Empire and throughout America his ownership was scarcely

disguised, Congress and Parliament were usually regarded as antique, curious gatherings. And even in the

two Empires of Russia and Germany, the influence of his wealth was conceivably of enormous weight.

There, of course, came problemspossibilities, but, uplifted as he was, even Russia and Germany seemed

sufficiently remote. And of the quality of the black belt administration, and of what that might mean for him

he thought, after the fashion of his former days, not at all. That it should hang like a threat over the spacious

vision before him could not enter his nineteenth century mind. But his mind turned at once from the scenery

to the thought of a vanished dread. "What of the yellow peril?" he asked and Asano made him explain. The

Chinese spectre had vanished. Chinaman and European were at peace. The twentieth century had discovered

with reluctant certainty that the average Chinaman was as civilised, more moral, and far more intelligent than

the average European serf, and had repeated on a gigantic scale the fraternisation of Scot and Englishman that

happened in the seventeenth century. As Asano put it; "They thought it over. They found we were white men

after all." Graham turned again to the view and his thoughts took a new direction.

Out of the dim southwest, glittering and strange, voluptuous, and in some way terrible, shone those Pleasure

Cities, of which the kinematographphonograph and the old man in the street had spoken. Strange places

reminiscent of the legendary Sybaris, cities of art and beauty, mercenary art and mercenary beauty, sterile

wonderful cities of motion and music, whither repaired all who profited by the fierce, inglorious, economic

Fierce he knew it was. How fierce he could judge from the fact that these latterday people referred back to

the England of the nineteenth century as the figure of an idyllic easygoing life. He turned his eyes to the

scene immediately before him again, trying to conceive the big factories of that intricate maze.

Northward he knew were the potters, makers not only of earthenware and china, but of the kindred pastes and

compounds a subtler mineralogical chemistry had devised; there were the makers of statuettes and wall

ornaments and much intricate furniture; there too were the factories where feverishly competitive authors

devised their phonograph discourses and advertisements and arranged the groupings and developments for

their perpetually startling and novel kinematographic dramatic works. Thence, too, flashed the worldwide

messages, the worldwide falsehoods of the newstellers, the chargers of the telephonic machines that had

To the westward beyond the smashed Council House were the voluminous offices of municipal control and

government; and to the eastward, towards the port, the trading quarters, the huge public markets, the theatres,

houses of resort, betting palaces, miles of billiard saloons, baseball and football circuses, wild beast rings and

the innumerable temples of the Christian and quasiChristian sects, the Mahomedans, Buddhists, Gnostics,

Spook Worshippers, the Incubus Worshippers, the Furniture Worshippers, and so forth; and to the south

again a vast manufacture of textiles, pickles, wines and condiments. And from point to point tore the

countless multitudes along the roaring mechanical ways. A gigantic hive, of which the winds were tireless

He thought of the unprecedented population that had been sucked up by this sponge of halls and

galleriesthe thirtythree million lives that were playing out each its own brief ineffectual drama below

him, and the complacency that the brightness of the day and the space and splendour of the view, and above

all the sense of his own importance had begotten, dwindled and perished. Looking down from this height

over the city it became at last possible to conceive this overwhelming multitude of thirtythree millions, the

reality of the responsibility he would take upon himself, the vastness of the human Maelstron over which his

He tried to figure the individual life. It astonished him to realise how little the common man had changed in

spite of the visible change in his conditions. Life and property, indeed, were secure from violence almost all

over the world, zymotic diseases, bacterial diseases of all sorts had practically vanished, everyone had a

sufficiency of food and clothing, was warmed in the city ways and sheltered from the weatherso much the

almost mechanical progress of science and the physical organisation of society had accomplished. But the

crowd, he was already beginning to discover, was a crowd still, helpless in the hands of demagogue and

organiser, individually cowardly, individually swayed by appetite, collectively incalculable. The memory of

countless figures in pale blue canvas came before his mind. Millions of such men and women below him, he

knew, had never been out of the city, had never seen beyond the little round of unintelligent grudging

participation in the world's business, and unintelligent dissatisfied sharing in its tawdrier pleasures. He

thought of the hopes of his vanished contemporaries, and for a moment the dream of London in Morris's

quaint old __News from Nowhere__, and the perfect land of Hudson's beautiful __Crystal Age_ appeared

For in the latter days of that passionate life that lay now so far behind him, the conception of a free and equal

manhood had become a very real thing to him. He had hoped, as indeed his age had hoped, rashly taking it

for granted, that the sacrifice of the many to the few would some day cease, that a day was near when every

child born of woman should have a fair and assured chance of happiness. And here, after two hundred years,

the same hope, still unfulfilled, cried passionately through the city. After two hundred years, he knew, greater

than ever, grown with the city to gigantic proportions, were poverty and helpless labour and all the sorrows of

Already he knew something of the history of the intervening years. He had heard now of the moral decay that

had followed the collapse of supernatural religion in the minds of ignoble man, the decline of public honour,

the ascendency of wealth. For men who had lost their belief in God had still kept their faith in property, and

His Japanese attendant, Asano, in expounding the political history of the intervening two centuries, drew an

apt image from a seed eaten by insect parasites. First there is the original seed, ripening vigorously enough.

And then comes some insect and lays an egg under the skin, and behold! in a little while the seed is a hollow

shape with an active grub inside that has eaten out its substance. And then comes some secondary parasite,

some ichneumon fly, and lays an egg within this grub, and behold! that, too, is a hollow shape, and the new

living thing is inside its predecessor's skin which itself is snug within the seed coat. And the seed coat still

keeps its shape, most people think it a seed still, and for all one knows it may still think itself a seed, vigorous

and alive. "Your Victorian kingdom," said Asano, "was like thatking ship with the heart eaten out. "The

landowners the barons and gentrybegan ages ago with King John; there were lapses, but they beheaded

King Charles, and ended practically with King George mere husk of a king . . . the real power in the hands of

their parliament. But the Parliamentthe organ of the landholding tenantruling gentrydid not keep its

power long. The change had already come in the nineteenth century. The franchises had been broadened until

it included masses of ignorant men, "urban myriads," who went in their featureless thousands to vote

together. And the natural consequence of a swarming constituency is the rule of the party organisation. Power

was passing even in the Victorian time to the party machinery, secret, complex, and corrupt. Very speedily

power was in the hands of great men of business who financed the machines. A time came when the real

power and interest of the Empire rested visibly between the two party councils, ruling by newspapers and

electoral organisationstwo small groups of rich and able men, working at first in opposition, then presently

There was a reaction of a genteel ineffectual sort. There were numberless books in existence, Asano said, to

prove thatthe publication of some of them was as early as Graham's sleepa whole literature of reaction

in fact. The party of the reaction seems to have locked itself into its study and rebelled with unflinching

determinationon paper. The urgent necessity of either capturing or depriving the party councils of power is

a common suggestion underlying all the thoughtful work of the early twentieth century, both in America and

England. In most of these things America was a little earlier than England, though both countries drove the

That counterrevolution never came. It could never organise and keep pure. There was not enough of the old

sentimentality, the old faith in righteousness, left among men. Any organisation that became big enough to

influence the polls became complex enough to be undermined, broken up, or bought outright by capable rich

men. Socialistic and Popular, Reactionary and Purity Parties were all at last mere Stock Exchange counters,

selling their principles to pay for their electioneering. And the great concern of the rich was naturally to keep

property intact, the board clear for the game of trade. Just as the feudal concern had been to keep the board

clear for hunting and war. The whole world was exploited, a battle field of businesses; and financial

convulsions, the scourge of currency manipulation, tariff wars, made more human misery during the

twentieth century because the wretchedness was dreary life instead of speedy deaththan had war,

His own part in the development of this time he now knew clearly enough. Through the successive phases in

the development of this mechanical civilisation, aiding and presently directing its development, there had

grown a new power, the Council, the board of his trustees. At first it had been a mere chance union of the

millions of Isbister and Warming, a mere property holding company, the creation of two childless testators'

whims, but the collective talent of its first constitution had speedily guided it to a vast influence, until by title

deed, loan and share, under a hundred disguises and pseudonyms it had ramified through the fabric of the

Wielding an enormous influence and patronage, the Council had early assumed a political aspect; and in its

development it had continually used its wealth to tip the beam of political decisions and its political

advantages to grasp yet more and more wealth. At last the party organisations of two hemispheres were in its

hands; it became an inner council of political control. Its last struggle was with the tacit alliance of the great

Jewish families. But these families were linked only by a feeble sentiment, at any time inheritance might

fling a huge fragment of their resources to a minor, a woman or a fool, marriages and legacies alienated

hundreds of thousands at one blow. The Council had no such breach in its continuity. Steadily, steadfastly it

The original Council was not simply twelve men of exceptional ability; they fused, it was a council of genius.

It struck boldly for riches, for political influence, and the two subserved each other. With amazing foresight it

spent great sums of money on the art of flying, holding that invention back against an hour foreseen. It used

the patent laws, and a thousand halflegal expedients, to hamper all investigators who refused to work with

it. In the old days it never missed a capable man. It paid his price. Its policy in those days was

vigorousunerring, and against it as it grew steadily and incessantly was only the chaotic selfish rule of the

casually rich. In a hundred years Graham had become almost exclusive owner of Africa, of South America,

of France, of London, of England and all its influencefor all practical purposes, that isa power in North

Americathen the dominant power in America. The Council bought and organised China, drilled Asia,

crippled the Old World empires, undermined them financially, fought and defeated them.

And this spreading usurpation of the world was so dexterously performeda proteushundreds of banks,

companies, syndicates, masked the Council's operationsthat it was already far advanced before common

men suspected the tyranny that had come. The Council never hesitated, never faltered. Means of

communication, land, buildings, governments, municipalities, the territorial companies of the tropics, every

human enterprise, it gathered greedily. And it drilled and marshalled its men, its railway police, its roadway

police, its house guards, and drain and cable guards, its hosts of landworkers. Their unions it did not fight,

but it undermined and betrayed and bought them. It bought the world at last. And, finally, its culminating

When the Council, in conflict with the workers in some of its huge monopolies, did something flagrantly

illegal and that without even the ordinary civility of bribery, the old Law, alarmed for the profits of its

complaisance, looked about it for weapons. But there were no more armies, no fighting navies; the age of

Peace had' come. The only possible war ships were the great steam vessels of the Council's Navigation Trust.

The police forces they controlled; the police of the railways, of the ships, of their agricultural estates, their

timekeepers and orderkeepers, outnumbered the neglected little forces of the old country and municipal

organisations ten to one. And they produced flying machines. There were men alive still who could

remember the last great debate in the London House of Commonsthe legal party, the party against the

Council was in a minority, but it made a desperate fightand how the members came crowding out upon the

terrace to see these great unfamiliar winged shapes circling quietly overhead. The Council had soared to its

power. The last sham of a democracy that had permitted unlimited irresponsible property was at an end.

Within one hundred and fifty years of Graham's falling asleep, his Council had thrown off its disguises and

ruled openly, supreme in his name. Elections had become a cheerful formality, a septennial folly, an ancient

unmeaning custom; a social Parliament as inefectual as the convocation of the Established Church in

Victorian times assembled now and then; and a legitimate King of England, disinherited, drunken and

witless, played foolishly in a secondrate musichall. So the magnificent dream of the nineteenth century, the

noble project of universal individual liberty and universal happiness, touched by a disease of honour, crippled

by a superstition of absolute property, crippled by the religious feuds that had robbed the common citizens of

education, robbed men of standards of conduct, and brought the sanctions of morality to utter contempt, had

worked itself out in the face of invention and ignoble enterprise, first to a warring plutocracy, and finally to

the rule of a supreme plutocrat. His Council at last had ceased even to trouble to have its decrees endorsed by

the constitutional authorities, and he a motionless, sunken, yellowskinned figure had lain, neither dead nor

living, recognisably and immediately Master of the Earth. And awoke at last to find himselfMaster of that

inheritance! Awoke to stand under the cloudless empty sky and gaze down upon the greatness of his

To what end had he awakened? Was this city, this hive of hopeless toilers, the final refutation of his ancient

hopes? Or was the fire of liberty, the fire that had blazed and waned in the years of his past life, still

smouldering below there? He thought of the stir and impulse of the song of the revolution. Was that song

merely the trick of a demagogue, to be forgotten when its purpose was served? Was the hope that still stirred

within him only the memory of abandoned things, the vestige of a creed outworn? Or had it a wider meaning,

an import interwoven with the destiny of man? To what end had he awakened, what was there for him to do?

Humanity was spread below him like a map. He thought of the millions and millions of humanity following

each other unceasingly for ever out of the darkness of nonexistence into the darkness of death. To what end?

Aim there must be, but it transcended his power of thought. He saw for the first time clearly his own infinite

littleness, saw stark and terrible the tragic contrast of human strength and the craving of the human heart. For

that little while he knew himself for the petty accident he was, and knew therewith the greatness of his desire.

And suddenly his littleness was intolerable, his aspiration was intolerable, and there came to him an

irresistible impulse to pray. And he prayed. He prayed vague, incoherent, contradictory things, his soul

strained up through time and space and all the fleeting multitudinous confusion of being, towards

somethinghe scarcely knew what towards something that could comprehend his striving and endure.

A man and a woman were far below on a roof space to the southward enjoying the freshness of the morning

air. The man had brought out a perspective glass to spy upon the Council House and he was showing her how

to use it. Presently their curiosity was satisfied, they could see no traces of bloodshed from their position, and

after a survey of the empty sky she came round to the crow's nest. And there she saw two little black figures,

so small it was hard to believe they were men, one who watched and one who gesticulated with hands

He lowered the glass and looked at her. "Waving his hands about almost as if he was praying. I wonder what

he is up to. Worshipping the sun? There weren't Parses in this country in his time, were there?"

He looked again. "He's stopped it now. It was a chance attitude, I suppose." He put down the glass and

became meditative. "He won't have anything to do but enjoy himselfjust enjoy himself. Ostrog will boss

the show of course. Ostrog will have to, because of leeping all these Labourer fools in bounds. Them and

their song! And got it all by sleeping, dear eyes just sleeping. It's a wonderful world."

The state apartments of the Wind Vane Keeper would have seemed astonishingly intricate to Graham had he

entered them fresh from his nineteenth century life, but already he was growing accustomed to the scale of

the new time. They can scarcely be described as halls and rooms, seeing that a complicated system of arches,

bridges, passages and galleries divided and united every part of the great space. He came out through one of

the now familiar sliding panels upon a. plateau of landing at the head of a flight of very broad and gentle

steps, with men and women far more brilliantly dressed than any he had hitherto seen ascending and

descending. From this position he looked down a vista of intricate ornament in lustreless white and mauve

and purple, spanned by bridges that seemed wrought of porcelain and filigree, and terminating far off in a

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

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 straightcut masses that

would have charmed Rossetti abounded, and one gentleman, who was pointed out to Graham under the

mysterious title of an "amorist", wore his hair in two becoming plaits a la Marguerite. The pigtail was in

evidence; it would seem that citizens of Chinese extraction were no longer ashamed of their race. There was

little uniformity of fashion apparent in the forms of clothing worn. The more shapely men displayed their

symmetry in trunk hose, and here were puffs and slashes, and there a cloak and there a robe. The fashions of

the days of Leo the Tenth were perhaps the prevailing influence, but the aesthetic conceptions of the far east

were also patent. Masculine embonpoint, which, in Victorian times, would have been subjected to the tightly

buttoned perils, the ruthless exaggeration of tightlegged tightarmed evening dress, now formed but the

basis of a wealth of dignity and drooping folds. Graceful slenderness abounded' also. To Graham, a typically

stiff man from a typically stiff period, not only did these men seem altogether too graceful in person, but

altogether too expressive in their vividly expressive faces. They gesticulated, they expressed surprise,

interest, amusement, above all, they expressed the emotions excited in their minds by the ladies about them

with astonishing frankness. Even at the first glance it was evident that women were in a great majority.

The ladies in the company of these gentlemen displayed in dress, bearing and manner alike, less emphasis

and more intricacy. Some affected a classical simplicity of robing and subtlety of fold, after the fashion of the

First French Empire, and flashed conquering arms and shoulders as Graham passed. Others had

closelyfitting 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

Everyone's movements seemed graceful. Graham remarked to Lincoln that he saw men as Raphael's cartoons

walking, and Lincoln told him that the attainment of an appropriate set of gestures was part of every rich

person's education. The Master's entry was greeted with a sort of tittering applause, but these people showed

their distinguished manners by not crowding upon him nor annoying him by any persistent scrutiny, as he

He had already learnt from Lincoln that these were the leaders of existing London society; almost every

person there that night was either a powerful official or the immediate connexion of a powerful official.

Many had returned from the European Pleasure Cities expressly to welcome him. The aeronautic authorities,

whose defection had played a part in the overthrow of the Council only second to Graham's were very

prominent, and so, too, was the Wind Vane Control. Amongst others there were several of the more

prominent officers of the Food Trust; the controller of the European Piggeries had a particularly melancholy

and interesting countenance and a daintily cynical manner. A bishop in full canonicals passed athwart

Graham's vision, conversing with a gentleman dressed exactly like the traditional Chaucer, including even the

"He doesn't make poetry, of course. He's a cousin of Wottonone of the Councillors. But he's one of the Red

"The King doesn't belong. They had to expel him. It's the Stuart blood, I suppose; but really"

Graham did not quite follow all this, but it seemed part of the general inversion of the new age. He bowed

condescendingly to his first introduction. It was evident that subtle distinctions of class prevailed even in this

assembly, that only to a small proportion of the guests, to an inner group, did Lincoln consider it appropriate

to introduce him. This first introduction was the Master Aeronaut, a man whose suntanned face contrasted

oddly with the delicate complexions about him. Just at present his critical defection from the Council made

His manner contrasted very favourably, according to Graham's ideas, with the general bearing. He made 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 latterday English. He made it admirably clear to Graham

that he was a bluff "aerial dog"he used that phrasethat there was no nonsense about him, that he was a

thoroughly manly fellow and oldfashioned at that, that he didn't profess to know much, and that what he did

not know was not worth knowing He made a manly bow, ostentatiously free from obsequiousness and

"Phonographs and kinematographs," said Lincoln, a little spitefully. "He has studied from the life." Graham

"As a matter of fact we bought him," said Lincoln. "Partly. And partly he was afraid of Ostrog Everything

He turned sharply to introduce the SurveyorGeneral of the Public School Trust. This person was a willowy

figure in a bluegrey academic gown, he beamed down upon Graham through __pincenez__ of a Victorian

pattern, and illustrated his remarks by gestures of a beautifully manicured hand. Graham was immediately

interested in this gentleman's functions, and asked him a number of singularly direct questions. The

SurveyorGeneral seemed quietly amused at the Master's fundamental bluntness. He was a little vague as to

the monopoly of education his Company possessed; it was done by contract with the syndicate that ran the

numerous London Municipalities, but he waxed enthusiastic over educational progress since the Victorian

times. "We have conquered Cram," he said, "completely conquered Cramthere is not an examination left in

"We make it attractiveas attractive as possible. And if it does not attract thenwe let it go. We cover an

He proceeded to details, and they had a lengthy conversation. The SurveyorGeneral mentioned the names of

Pestalozzi and Froebel with profound respect, although he displayed no intimacy with their epochmaking

works. 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 studieswhen they are not too difficult you know. We cater for them by the thousand. At this

moment," he said with a Napoleonic touch, "nearly five hundred phonographs are lecturing in different parts

of London on the influence exercised by Plato and Swift on the love affairs of Shelley, Hazlitt, and Burns.

And afterwards they write essays on the lectures, and the names in order of merit are put in conspicuous

places. You see how your little germ has grown? The illiterate middleclass of your days has quite passed

The SurveyorGeneral did, "entirely." Now, Graham, in his later democratic days, had taken a keen interest

in these and his questioning quickened. Certain casual phrases that had fallen from the old man with whom he

had talked in the darkness recurred to him. The SurveyorGeneral, in effect, endorsed the old man's words.

"We have abolished Cram," he said, a phrase Graham was beginning to interpret as the abolition of all

sustained work. The Surveyor General became sentimental. "We try and make the elementary schools very

pleasant for the little children. They will have to work so soon. Just a few simple

"Why should we? It only leads to trouble and discontent. We amuse them. Even as it isthere are

troublesagitations. Where the labourers get the ideas, one cannot tell. They tell one another. There are

socialistic dreamsanarchy even! Agitators will get to work among them. I take itI have always taken

itthat my foremost duty is to fight against popular discontent. Why should people be made unhappy?"

"I wonder," said Graham thoughtfully. "But there are a great many things I want to know."

Lincoln, who had stood watching Graham's face throughout the conversation, intervened. "There are others,"

The SurveyorGeneral of schools gesticulated him self away. "Perhaps," said Lincoln, intercepting a casual

The daughter of the Manager of the Piggeries of the European Food Trust 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 times," 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 timesto 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 old times, the little isolated houses built of bricks made out of burnt mud and all black with soot from

your fires, the railway bridges, the simple advertisements, the solemn savage Puritanical men in strange black

coats and those tall hats of theirs, iron railway trains on iron bridges overhead, horses and cattle, and even

dogs running half wild about the streets. And suddenly, you have come into this!"

She looked at him quickly. There was a brief pause. She sighed encouragingly. "No? "

"No," said Graham. "It was a little lifeand 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 timethe mere beginning of this new order. The mere

beginning of this new order. You will find it hard to understand how little I know."

"Then tell me who these people are. I'm still very much in the dark about them. It's puzzling. Are there any

"Of course not. No. I suppose they are the men who control the great public businesses. Who is that

"That? He's a most important officer. That is Morden. He is managing director of the Antibilious Pill

Company. I have heard that his workers sometimes turn out a myriad myriad pills a day in the twentyfour

"A myriad myriad. No wonder he looks proud," said Graham. "Pills! What a wonderful time it is! That man

"He is not quite one of the inner circle, you know. But we like him. He is really clever and very amusing. He

is one of the heads of the Medical Faculty of our London University. All medical men, you know, are

shareholders in the Medical Faculty Company, and wear that purple. You have to beto be qualified. But of

course, people who are paid' by fees for doing something" She smiled away the social pretensions of all

"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

"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

She looked at him doubtfully. Then laughed. "For a moment," she said, "I thought you meant" She laughed

again. "You mean, of course, those good men you used to think so much of because they could cover great

spaces of canvas with oilcolours? Great oblongs. And people used to put the things in gilt frames and hang

them up in rows in their square rooms. We haven't any. People grew tired of that sort of thing."

She put a finger significantly on a cheek whose glow was above suspicion, and smiled and looked very arch

Graham had an adventurous moment. Then a grotesque memory of a picture he had somewhere seen of Uncle

Toby and the Widow flashed across his mind. An archaic shame came upon him. He became acutely aware

that he was visible to a great number of interested people. "I see," he remarked inadequately. He turned

awkwardly away from her, fascinating facility. He looked about him to meet a number of eyes that

immediately occupied themselves with other things. Possibly he coloured a little. "Who is that talking with

The person in question he learnt was one of the great organisers of the American theatres just fresh from a

gigantic production at Mexico. His face reminded Graham of a bust of Caligula. Another striking looking

man was the Black Labour Master. The phrase at the time made no deep impression, but afterwards it

recurred;the Black Labour Master? The little lady, in no degree embarrassed, pointed out to him a

charming little woman as one of the subsidiary wives of the Anglican Bishop of London. She added

encomiums on the episcopal couragehitherto there had been a rule of clerical monogamy" neither a

natural nor an expedient condition of things. Why should the natural development of the affections be

"And, bye the bye," she added, "are you an Anglican?" Graham was on the verge of hesitating inquiries about

the status of a "subsidiary wife," apparently an euphemistic phrase, when Lincoln's return broke off this very

suggestive and interesting conversation. They crossed the aisle to where a tall man in crimson, and two

charming persons in Burmese costume (as it seemed to him) awaited him diffidently. From their civilities he

In a little while his multitudinous impressions began to organise themselves into a general effect. At first the

glitter of the gathering had raised all the democrat in Graham; he had felt hostile and satirical. But it is not in

human nature to resist an atmosphere of courteous regard. Soon the music, the light, the play of colours, the

shining arms and shoulders about him, the touch of hands, the transient interest of smiling faces, the frothing

sound of skillfully 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 me position that was conceded him, his manner became less conscious, more

convincingly regal, his feet walked assuredly, the black robe fell with a bolder fold and pride ennobled his

His glance went approvingly over the shifting colours of the people, it rested here and there in kindly

criticism upon a face. Presently it occurred to him that he owed some apology to the charming little person

with the red hair and blue eyes. He felt guilty of a clumsy snub. It was not princely to ignore her advances,

even if his policy necessitated their rejection. He wondered if he should see her again. And suddenly a little

thing touched all the glamour of this brilliant gathering and changed its quality.

He looked up and saw passing across a bridge of porcelain and looking down upon him, a face that was

almost immediately hidden, the face of the girl he had seen overnight in the little room beyond the theatre

after his escape from the Council. And she was looking with much the same expression of curious

expectation, of uncertain intentness, upon his proceedings. For the moment he did not remember when he had

seen her, and then with recognition came a vague memory of the stirring emotions of their first encounter.

But the dancing web of melody about him kept the air of that great marching song from his memory.

The lady to whom he was talking repeated her remark, and Graham recalled himself to the quasiregal

But from that moment a vague restlessness, a feeling that grew to dissatisfaction, came into his mind. He was

troubled as if by some half forgotten duty, by the sense of things important slipping from him amidst this

light and brilliance. The attraction that these bright ladies who crowded about him were beginning to exercise

ceased. He no longer made vague and clumsy responses to the subtly amorous advances that he was now

assured were being made to him, and his eyes wandered for another sight of that face that had appealed so

strongly to his sense of beauty. But he did not see her again until he was awaiting Lincoln's return to leave

this assembly. In answer to his request Lincoln had promised that an attempt should be made to fly that

afternoon, if the weather permitted. He had gone to make certain necessary arrangements.

Graham was in one of the upper galleries in conversation with a brighteyed lady on the subject of

Eadhamitethe subject was his choice and not hers. He had interrupted her warm assurances of personal

devotion with a matteroffact inquiry. He found her, as he had already found several other latterday

women that night, less well informed than charming. Suddenly, struggling against the eddying drift of nearer

melody, the song of the Revolt, the great song he had heard in the Hall, hoarse and massive, came beating

He glanced up startled, and perceived above him an __oeil de boeuf__ through which this song had come,

and beyond, the upper courses of cable, the blue haze, and the pendant fabric of the lights of the public ways.

He heard the song break into a tumult of voices and cease. But now he perceived quite clearly the drone and

tumult of the moving platforms and a murmur of many people. He had a vague persuasion that he could not

account for, a sort of instinctive feeling that outside in the ways a huge crowd' must be watching this place in

Though the song had stopped so abruptly, though the special music of this gathering reasserted itself, the

The brighteyed lady was still struggling with the mysteries of Eadhamite when he perceived the girl he had

seen in the theatre again. She was coming now along the gallery towards him; he saw her first before she saw

him. She was dressed in a faintly luminous grey, her dark hair about her brows was like a cloud, and as he

saw her the cold light from the circular opening into the ways fell upon her downcast face.

The lady in trouble about the Eadhamite saw the change in his expression, and grasped her opportunity to

escape. Would you care to know that girl, Sire?" she asked boldly. "She is Helen Wottona niece of

Ostrog's. She knows a great many serious things. She is one of the most serious persons alive. I am sure you

In another moment Graham was talking to the girl, and the brighteyed lady had fluttered away.

"I remember you quite well," said Graham. "You were in that little room. When all the people were singing

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.

Her face glowed. She glanced swiftly aside to see that no other heard her words.

Lincoln appeared some way off along the gallery, making his way through the press towards them. She saw

him and turned to Graham strangely eager, with a swift change to confidence and intimacy. "Sire," she said

quickly, "I cannot tell you now and here. But the common people are very unhappy; they are

oppressedthey are misgoverned. Do not forget the people, who faced deathdeath that you might live."

"You find the new world pleasant, 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."

"Wait till you are in the air," said Lincoln. "The wind has fallen; even now an aeropile awaits you."

Graham glanced at her face, was on the verge of a question, found a warning in her expression, bowed to her

For a while, as Graham went through the passages of the WindVane offices with Lincoln, he was

preoccupied. But, by an effort, he attended to the things which Lincoln was saying. Soon his preoccupation

vanished. Lincoln was talking of flying. Graham had a strong desire to know more of this new human

attainment. He began to ply Lincoln with questions. He had followed the crude beginnings of aerial

navigation very keenly in his previous life; he was delighted to find the familiar names of Maxim and Pilcher,

Langley and Chanute, and, above all, of the aerial protomartyr Lillienthal, still honoured by men.

Even during his previous life two lines of investigation had pointed clearly to two distinct types of

contrivance as possible, and both of these had been realised. On the one hand was the great enginedriven

aeroplane, a double row of horizontal floats with a big aerial screw behind, and on the other the nimbler

aeropile. The aeroplanes flew safely only in a calm or moderate wind, and sudden storms, occurrences that

were now accurately predictable, rendered them for all practical purposes useless. They were built of

enormous sizethe usual stretch of wing being six hundred feet or more, and the length of the fabric a

thousand feet. They were for passenger traffic alone. The lightly swung car they carried was from a hundred

to a hundred and fifty feet in length. It Was hung in a peculiar manner in order to minimise the complex

vibration that even a moderate wind produced, and for the same reason the little seats within the careach

passenger remained seated during the voyagewere slung with great freedom of movement. The starting of

the mechanism was only possible from a gigantic car on the rail of a specially constructed stage. Graham had

seen these vast stages, the flying stages, from the crow's nest very well. Six huge blank areas they were, with

The choice of descent was equally circumscribed, an accurately plane surface being needed for safe

grounding. Apart from the destruction that would have been caused by the descent of this great expanse of

sail and metal, and the impossibility of its rising again, the concussion of an irregular surface, a treeset

hillside, for instance, or an embankment, would be sufficient to pierce or damage the framework, to smash

At first Graham felt disappointed with these cumbersome contrivances, but he speedily grasped the fact that

smaller machines would have been unremunerative, for the simple reason that their carrying power would be

disproportionately diminished with deminished size. Moreover, the huge size of these things enabled

themand it was a consideration of primary importanceto traverse the air at enormous speeds, and so run

no risks of unanticipated weather. The briefest journey performed, that from London to Paris, took about

threequarters of an hour, but the velocity attained was not high; the leap to New York occupied about two

hours, and by timing oneself carefully at the intermediate stations it was possible in quiet weather to go

The little aeropiles (as for no particular reason they were distinctively called) were of an altogether different

type. Several of these were going to and fro in the air. They were designed to carry only one or two persons,

and their manufacture and maintenance was so costly as to render them the monopoly of the richer sort of

people. Their sails, which were brilliantly coloured, consisted only of two pairs of lateral air floats in the

same plane, and of a screw behind. Their small size rendered a descent in any open space neither difficult nor

disagreeable, and it was possible to attach pneumatic wheels or even the ordinary motors for terrestrial tragic

to them, and so carry them to a convenient starting place. They required a special sort of swift car to throw

them into the air, but such a car was efficient in any open place clear of high buildings or trees. Human

aeronautics, Graham perceived, were evidently still a long way behind the instinctive gift of the albatross or

the flycatcher. One great influence that might have brought the aeropile to a more rapid perfection had been

withheld; these inventions had never been used in warfare. The last great international struggle had occurred

The Flying Stages of London were collected together in an irregular crescent on the southern side of the river.

They formed three groups of two each and retained the names of ancient suburban hills or villages. They

were named in order, Roehampton, Wimhledon 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 aluminium 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 portionsthe starting carriersthat could be

raised and were then able to run on very slightly inclined rails to the end of the fabric. Save for any aeropiles

or aeroplanes that were in port these open surfaces were kept clear for arrivals.

During the adjustment of the aeroplanes it was the custom for passengers to wait in the system of theatres,

restaurants, newsrooms, and places of pleasure and indulgence of various sorts that interwove with the

prosperous shops below. This portion of London was in consequence commonly the gayest of all its districts,

with something of the meretricious gaiety of a seaport or city of hotels. And for those who took a more

serious view of aeronautics, the religious quarters had flung out an attractive colony of devotional chapels,

while a host of brilliant medical establishments competed to supply physical preparatives for the journey. At

various levels through the mass of chambers and passages beneath these, ran, in addition to the main moving

ways of the city which laced and gathered here, a complex system of special passages and lifts and slides, for

the convenient interchange of people and luggage between stage and stage. And a distinctive feature of the

architecture of this section was the ostentatious massiveness of the metal piers and girders that everywhere

broke the vistas and spanned the halls and passages, crowding and twining up to meet the weight of the stages

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

WindVane police awaited the Master outside the WindVane offices, and they cleared a space for him on

the upper moving platform. His passage to the flying stages was unexpected, nevertheless a considerable

crowd gathered and followed him to his destination. As he went along, he could hear the people shouting his

name, and saw numberless men and women and children in blue come swarming up the staircases in the

central path, gesticulating and shouting. He could not hear what they shouted. He was struck again by the

evident existence of a vulgar dialect among the poor of the city. When at last he descended, his guards were

immediately surrounded by a dense excited crowd. Afterwards it occurred to him that some had attempted to

He found an aeropile 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 aluminium body skeleton was as big as the hull of a twentyton 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 windguard and guarded about with metallic rods carrying

air cushions. It could, if desired, be completely closed in, but Graham was anxious for novel experiences, and

desired that it should be left open. The aeronaut sat behind a glass that sheltered his face. The passenger could

secure himself firmly in his seat, and this was almost unavoidable on landing, or he could move along by

means of a little rail and rod to a locker at the stem of the machine, where his personal luggage, his wraps and

restoratives were placed, and which also with the seats, served as a makeweight to the parts of the central

The engine was very simple in appearance. Asano, pointing out the parts of this apparatus to him, told him

that, like the gasengine of Victorian days, it was of the explosive type, burning a small drop of a substance

called "fomile" at each stroke. It consisted simply of reservoir and piston about the long fluted crank of the

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. He then drank a mixture containing ergota dose, he learnt, invariably

administered to those about to fly, and designed to counteract the possible effect of diminished air pressure

upon the system. Having done so, he declared himself ready for the journey. Asano took the empty glass from

him, stepped through the bars of the hull, and stood below on the stage waving his hand. Suddenly he seemed

The engine was beating, the propeller spinning, and for a second the stage and the buildings beyond were

gliding swiftly and horizontally past Graham's eye; then these things seemed to tilt up abruptly. He gripped

the little rods on either side of him instinctively. He felt himself moving upward, heard the air whistle over

the top of the wind screen. The propeller screw moved round with powerful rhythmic impulsesone, two,

three, pause; one, two, three which the engineer controlled very delicately. The machine began a quivering

vibration that continued throughout the flight, and the roof areas seemed running away to starboard very

quickly and growing rapidly smaller. He looked from the face of the engineer through the ribs of the

machine. Looking sideways, there was nothing very startling in what he saw a rapid funicular railway

might have given the same sensations. He recognised the Council House and the Highgate Ridge. And then

For a moment physical terror possessed him, a passionate sense of insecurity. He held tight. For a second or

so he could not lift his eyes. Some hundred feet or more sheer below him was one of the big windvanes of

southwest London, and beyond it the southernmost flying stage crowded with little black dots. These things

seemed to be falling away from him. For a second he had an impulse to pursue the earth. He set his teeth, he

He remained for a space with his teeth set hard, his eyes staring into the sky. Throb, throb, throbbeat, went

the engine; throb, throb, throb,beat. He gripped his bars tightly, glanced at the aeronaut, and saw a smile

upon his suntanned face. He smiled in returnperhaps a little artificially. "A little strange at first," he

shouted before he recalled his dignity. But he dared not look down again for some time. He stared over the

aeronaut's head to where a rim of vague blue horizon crept up the sky. For a little while he could' not banish

the thought of possible accidents from his mind. Throb, throb, throbbeat; suppose some trivial screw went

wrong in that supporting engine! Suppose! He made a grim effort to dismiss all such suppositions. After a

while they did at least abandon the foreground of his thoughts. And up he went steadily, higher and higher

Once the mental shock of moving unsupported through the air was over, his sensations ceased to be

unpleasant, became very speedily pleasurable. He had been warned of air sickness. But he found the pulsating

movement of the aeropile as it drove up the faint southwest breeze was very little in excess of the pitching

of a boat head on to broad rollers in a moderate gale, and he was constitutionally a good sailor. And the

keenness of the more rarefied air into which they ascended produced a sense of lightness and exhilaration. He

looked up and saw the blue sky above fretted with cirrus clouds. His eye came cautiously down through the

ribs and bars to a shining flight of white birds that hung in the lower sky. For a space he watched these. Then

going lower and less apprehensively, he saw the slender figure of the WindVane keeper's crow's nest

shining golden in the sunlight and growing smaller every moment. As his eye fell with more confidence now,

there came a blue line of hills, and then London, already to leeward, an intricate space of roofing. Its near

edge came sharp and clear, and banished his last apprehensions in a shock of surprise. For the boundary of

London was like a wall, like a cliff, a steep fall of three or four hundred feet, a frontage broken only by

That gradual passage of town into country through an extensive sponge of suburbs, which was so

characteristic a feature of the great cities of the nineteenth century, existed no longer. Nothing remained of it

but a waste of ruins here, variegated and dense with thickets of the heterogeneous growths that had once

adorned the gardens of the belt, interspersed among levelled brown patches of sown ground, and verdant

stretches of winter greens. The latter even spread among the vestiges of houses. But for the most part the

reefs and skerries of ruins, the wreckage of suburban villas, stood among their streets and roads, queer islands

amidst the levelled expanses of green and brown, abandoned indeed by the inhabitants years since, but too

substantial, it seemed', to be cleared out of the way of the wholesale horticultural mechanisms of the time.

The vegetation of this waste undulated and frothed amidst the countless cells of crumbling house walls, and

broke along the foot of the city wall in a surf of bramble and holly and ivy and teazle and tall grasses. Here

and there gaudy pleasure palaces towered amidst the puny remains of Victorian times, and cable ways slanted

to them from the city. That winter day they seemed deserted. Deserted, too, were the artificial gardens among

the ruins. The city limits were indeed as sharply defined as in the ancient days when the gates were shut at

nightfall and the robber foreman prowled to the very walls. A huge semicircular throat poured out a

vigorous traffic upon the Eadhamite Bath Road. So the first prospect of the world beyond the city flashed on

Graham, and dwindled. And when at last he could look vertically downward again, he saw below him the

vegetable fields of the Thames valley innumerable minute oblongs of ruddy brown, intersected by shining

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.

The machine had now risen as high as was customary with aeropiles, and they began to curve about towards

the south. Steering, Graham perceived, was effected by the opening or closing of one or two thin strips of

membrane in one or other of the otherwise rigid wings, and by the movement of the whole engine backward

or forward along its supports. The aeronaut set the engine gliding slowly forward along its rail and opened the

valve of the leeward wing until the stem of the aeropile was horizontal and pointing southward. And in that

direction they drove with a slight list to leeward, and with a slow alternation of movement, first a short, sharp

ascent and' then a long downward glide that was very swift and pleasing. During these downward glides the

propellor was inactive altogether. These ascents gave Graham a glorious sense of successful effort; the

descents through the rarefied air were beyond all experience. He wanted never to leave the upper air again.

For a time he was intent upon the minute details of the landscape that ran swiftly northward beneath him. Its

minute, clear detail pleased him exceedingly. He was impressed by the ruin of the houses that had once

dotted the country, by the vast treeless expanse of country from which all farms and villages had gone, save

for crumbling ruins. He had known the thing was so, but seeing it so was an altogether different matter. He

tried to make out places he had known within the hollow basin of the world below, but at first he could

distinguish no data now that the Thames valley was left behind. Soon, however, they were driving over a

sharp chalk hill that he recognised as the Guildford Hog's Back, because of the familiar outline of the gorge at

its eastward end, and because of the ruins of the town that rose steeply on either lip of this gorge. And from

that he made out other points, Leith Hill, the sandy wastes of Aldershot, and so forth. The Downs escarpment

was set with gigantic slowmoving windwheels. Save where the broad Eadhamite Portsmouth Road, thickly

dotted with rushing shapes, followed the course of the old railway, the gorge of the Wey was choked with

The whole expanse of the Downs escarpment, so far as the grey haze permitted him to see, was set with

windwheels to which the largest of the city was but a younger brother. They stirred with a stately motion

before the southwest wind. And here and there were patches dotted with the sheep of the British Food Trust,

and here and there a mounted shepherd made a spot of black. Then rushing under the stern of the aeropile

came the Wealden Heights, the line of Hindhead, Pitch Hill, and Leith Hill, with a second row of

windwheels that seemed striving to rob the downland whirlers of their share of breeze. The purple heather

was speckled with yellow gorse, and on the further side a drove of black oxen stampeded before a couple of

mounted men. Swiftly these swept behind, and dwindled and lost colour, and became scarce moving specks

And when these had vanished in the distance Graham heard a peewit wailing close at hand. He perceived he

was now above the South Downs, and staring over his shoulder saw the battlements of Portsmouth Landing

Stage towering over the ridge of Portsdown Hill. In another moment there came into sight a spread of

shipping like floating cities, the little white cliffs of the Needles dwarfed and sunlit, and the grey and

glittering waters of the narrow sea. They seemed to leap the Solent in a moment, and in a few seconds the Isle

of Wight was running past, and then beneath him spread a wider and wide extent of sea, here purple with the

shadow of a cloud, here grey, here a burnished mirror, and here a spread of cloudy greenish blue. The Isle of

Wight grew smaller and smaller. In a few more minutes a strip of grey haze detached itself from other strips

that were clouds, descended out of the sky and became a coast linesunlit and pleasantthe coast of

northern France. It rose, it took colour, became definite and detailed, and the counterpart of the Downland of

In a little time, as it seemed, Paris came above the horizon, and hung there for a space, and sank out of sight

again as the aeropile circled about to the north again. But he perceived the Eiffel Tower still standing, and

beside it a huge dome surmounted by a pinpoint Colossus. And he perceived, too, though he did not

understand it at the time, a slanting drift of smoke. The aeronaut said something about "trouble in the

underways," that Graham did not heed at the time. But he marked the minarets and towers and slender masses

that streamed skyward above the city windvanes, and knew that in the matter of grace at least Paris still kept

in front of her larger rival. And even as he looked a pale blue shape ascended very swiftly from the city like a

dead leaf driving up before a gale. It curved round and soared towards them growing rapidly larger and

larger. The aeronaut was saying something. "What?" said Graham, loath to take his eyes from this.

They rose and curved about northward as it drew nearer. Nearer it came and nearer, larger and larger. The

throb, throb, throbbeat, of the aeropile's flight, that had seemed so potent and so swift, suddenly appeared

slow by comparison with this tremendous rush. How great the monster seemed, how swift and steady! It

passed quite closely beneath them, driving along silently, a vast spread of wirenetted translucent wings, a

thing alive. Graham had a momentary glimpse of the rows and rows of wrappedup passengers, slung in their

little cradles behind windscreens, of a whiteclothed engineer crawling against the gale along a ladder way,

of spouting engines beating together, of the whirling wind screw, and of a wide waste of wing. He exulted in

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

They beat across the Channel, slowly as it seemed now, to Graham's enlarged ideas, and Beachy Head rose

"Land," called the aeronaut, his voice small against the whistling of the air over the windscreen.

"Not yet," bawled Graham, laughing. "Not land yet. I want to learn more of this machine."

"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 windscreen and blew his hair in streamers past his

cheek. The aeronaut made some hasty adjustments for the shifting of the centres of gravity and pressure.

"I want to have these things explained," said Graham." What do you do when you move that engine

"I know. But I'm the Master, and I mean to know." He laughed, full of this novel realisation of power that

The aeropile curved about, and the keen fresh wind cut across Graham's face and his garment lugged at his

body as the stem pointed round to the west. The two men looked into each other's eyes.

The aeronaut scrutinised his face. "No," he said. "I do not forget, Sire. But in all the earthno man who is

"I have heard something of the sort. But I'm not going to argue these points. Do you know why I have slept

"No," said Graham, swaying and gripping tight as the machine lifted its nose again for an ascent. "That's not

my game. I want to do it myself. Do it myself if I smash for it! No! I will. See. I am going to clamber by this

to come and share your seat. Steady! I mean to fly of my own accord if I smash at the end of it. I will have

something to pay for my sleep. Of all other things. In my past it was my dream to fly. Nowkeep your

Graham's temper was at end. Perhaps he chose it should be. He swore. He swung himself round the

"Am I Master of the earth?" he said. "Or is your Society? Now. Take your hands off those levers, and hold

And with that promise Graham bought his first lesson in aerial navigation. "It's clearly to your advantage, this

journey," he said with a loud laughfor the air was like strong wine "to teach me quickly and well. Do I

And now the machine began to dance the strangest figures in the air. Now it would sweep round a spiral of

scarcely a hundred yards diameter, now it would rush up into the air and swoop down again, steeply, swiftly,

falling like a hawk, to recover in a rushing loop that swept it high again. In one of these descents it seemed

driving straight at the drifting park of balloons in the southeast, and only curved about and cleared them by a

sudden recovery of dexterity. The extraordinary swiftness and smoothness of the motion, the extraordinary

effect of the rarefied air upon his constitution, threw Graham into a careless fury.

But at last a queer incident came to sober him, to send him flying down once more to the crowded life below

with all its dark insoluble riddles. As he swooped, came a tap and something flying past, and a drop like a

drop of rain. Then as he went on down he saw something like a white rag whirling down in his wake. "What

The aeronaut glanced, and then clutched at the lever to recover, for they were sweeping down. When the

aeropile was rising again he drew a deep breath and replied. "That," and he indicated the white thing still

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 windscrew whirling to check their fall, and the flying stage

growing broad and dark before them. The sun, sinking over the chalk hills in the west, fell with them, and left

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 dark with his people rejoicing

over his safe return. A dark mass was crushed together under the stage, a darkness stippled with innumerable

faces, and quivering with the minute oscillation of waved white handkerchiefs and waving hands.

Lincoln awaited Graham in an apartment beneath the flying stages. He seemed curious to learn all that had

happened, pleased to hear of the extraordinary delight and interest which Graham took in flying Graham was

in a mood of enthusiasm. "I must learn to fly," he cried. "I must master that. I pity all poor souls who have

died without this opportunity. The sweet swift air! It is the most wonderful experience in the world."

"You will find our new times full of wonderful experiences," said Lincoln. "I do not know what you will care

"For the present," said Graham, "flying holds me. Let me learn more of that. Your aeronaut was saying there

"There is, I believe," said Lincoln. "But for you! If you would' like to occupy yourself with that, we can

Graham expressed his wishes vividly and talked of his sensations for a while. "And as for affairs," he asked

Lincoln waved affairs aside. "Ostrog will tell you that tomorrow," he said. "Everything is settling down. The

Revolution accomplishes itself all over the world. Friction is inevitable here and there, of course; but your

"Would it be possible for me to be made a sworn aeronaut, as you call it, forthwithbefore I sleep?" said

"It would be possible," said Lincoln thoughtfully. "Quite possible. Indeed, it shall be done." He laughed." I

came prepared to suggest amusements, but you have found one for yourself. I will telephone to the

aeronautical offices from here and we will return to your apartments in the WindVane 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

"We had prepared a show of dancers they have been brought from the Capri theatre."

"I hate ballets," said Graham, shortly. "Always did. That other. That's not what I want to see. We had

dancers in the old days. For the matter of that, they had them in ancient Egypt. But flying"

"They can afford to wait," said Graham; "they can afford to wait. I know. I'm not a Latin. There's questions I

"You have the world to choose from," said Lincoln; " whatever you want is yours."

Asano appeared, and under the escort of a strong guard they returned through the city streets to Graham's

apartments. Far larger crowds had assembled to witness his return than his departure had gathered, and the

shouts and cheering of these masses of people sometimes drowned Lincoln's answers to the endless questions

Graham's aerial journey had suggested. At first Graham had acknowledged the cheering and cries of the

crowd by bows and gestures, but Lincoln warned him that such a recognition would be considered incorrect

behaviour. Graham, already a little wearied by rhythmic civilities, ignored his subjects for the remainder of

Directly they arrived at his apartments Asano departed in search of kinematographic renderings of machinery

in motion, and Lincoln despatched Graham's commands for models of machines and small machines to

illustrate the various mechanical advances of the last two centuries. The little group of appliances for

telegraphic communication attracted the Master so strongly that his delightfully prepared dinner, served by a

number of charmingly dexterous girls, waited for a space. The habit of smoking had almost ceased from the

face of the earth, but when he expressed a wish for that indulgence, inquiries were made and some excellent

cigars were discovered in Florida, and sent to him by pneumatic dispatch while the dinner was still in

progress. Afterwards came the aeronauts, and a feast of ingenious wonders in the hands of a latterday

engineer. For the time, at any rate, the neat dexterity of counting and numbering machines, building

machines, spinning engines, patent doorways, explosive motors, grain and water elevators, slaughterhouse

machines and harvesting appliances, was more fascinating to Graham than any bayadere. "We were savages,"

was his refrain, "we were savages. We were in the stone agecompared with this. . . . And what else have

There came also practical psychologists with some very interesting developments in the art of hypnotism.

The names of Milne Bramwell, Fechner, Liebault, William James, Myers and Gurney, he found, bore a value

now that would have astonished their contemporaries. Several practical applications of psychology were now

in general use; it had largely supersceeded drugs, antiseptics and anaesthetics in medicine; was employed by

almost all who had any need of mental concentration. A real enlargement of human faculty seemed to have

been effected in this direction. The feats of "calculating boys," the wonders, as Graham had been wont to

regard them, of mesmerisers, were now within the range of anyone who could afford the services of a skilled

hypnotist. Long ago the old examination methods in education had been destroyed by these expedients.

Instead of years of study, candidates had substituted a few weeks of trances, and during the trances expert

coaches had simply to repeat all the points necessary for adequate answering, adding a suggestion of the post

hypnotic recollection of these points. In process mathematics particularly, this aid had been of singular

service, and it was now invariably invoked by such players of chess and games of manual dexterity as were

still to be found. In fact, all operations conducted under finite rules, of a quasimechanical sort that is, were

now systematically relieved from the wanderings of imagination and emotion, and brought to an unexampled

pitch of accuracy. Little children of the labouring classes, so soon as they were of sufficient age to be

hypnotised, were thus converted into beautifully punctual and trustworthy machine minders, and released

forthwith from the long, long thoughts of youth. Aeronautical pupils, who gave way to giddiness, could be

relieved from their imaginary terrors. In every street were hypnotists ready to print permanent memories upon

the mind. If anyone desired to remember a name, a series of numbers, a song or a speech, it could be done by

this method, and conversely memories could be effaced, habits removed, and desires eradicateda sort of

psychic surgery was, in fact, in general use. Indignities, humbling experiences, were thus forgotten, amorous

widows would obliterate their previous husbands, angry lovers release themselves from their slavery. To graft

desires, however, was still impossible, and the facts of thought transference were yet unsystematised. The

psychologists illustrated their expositions with some astounding experiments in mnemonics made through the

Graham, like most of the people of his former time, distrusted the hypnotist, or he might then and there have

eased his mind of many painful preoccupations. But in spite of Lincoln's assurances he held to the old theory

that to be hypnotised was in some way the surrender of his personality, the abdication of his will. At the

banquet of wonderful experiences that was beginning, he wanted very keenly to remain absolutely himself.

The next day, and another day, and yet another day passed in such interests as these. Each day Graham spent

many hours in the glorious entertainment of flying. On the third day he soared across middle France, and

within sight of the snowclad Alps. These vigorous exercises gave him restful sleep, and each day saw a

great stride in his health from the spiritless anaemia of his first awakening. And whenever he was not in the

air, and awake, Lincoln was assiduous in the cause of his amusement; all that was novel and curious in

contemporary invention was brought to him, until at last his appetite for novelty was wellnigh glutted. One

might fill a dozen inconsecutive volumes with the strange things they exhibited. Each afternoon he held his

court for an hour or so. He speedily found his interest in his contemporaries becoming personal and intimate.

At first he had been alert chiefly for unfamiliarity and peculiarity; any foppishness in their dress, any

discordance with his preconceptions of nobility in their status and manners had jarred upon him, and it was

remarkable to him how soon that strangeness and the faint hostility that arose from it, disappeared; how soon

he came to appreciate the true perspective of his position, and see the old Victorian days remote and quaint.

He found himself particularly amused by the redhaired daughter of the Manager of the European Piggeries.

On the second day after dinner he made the acquaintance of a latterday dancing girl, and found her an

astonishing artist. And after that, more hypnotic wonders. On the third day Lincoln was moved to suggest that

the Master should repair to a Pleasure City, but this Graham declined, nor would he accept the services of the

hypnotists in his aeronautical experiments. The link of locality held him to London; he found a perpetual

wonder in topographical identifications that he would have missed abroad. "Hereor a hundred feet below

here," he could say, "I used to eat my midday cutlets during my London University days. Underneath here

was Waterloo and the perpetual 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 an aeropile."

During those three days Graham was so occupied with such 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

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 WindVane Keeper's gathering. The impression she had

made was a deep one, albeit the incessant surprise of novel circumstances had kept him from brooding upon

it for a space. But now her memory was coming to its own. He wondered what she had meant by those

broken halfforgotten sentences; the picture of her eyes and the earnest passion of her face became more

vivid as his mechanical interests faded. Her beauty came compellingly between him and certain immediate

temptations of ignoble passion. But he did not see her again until three full days were past.

She came upon him at last in a little gallery that ran from the Wind Vane Offices toward his state apartments.

The gallery was long and narrow, with a series of recesses, each with an arched fenestration that looked upon

a court of palms. He came upon her suddenly in one of these recesses. She was seated. She turned her head at

the sound of his footsteps and started at the sight of him. Every touch of colour vanished from her face. She

rose instantly, made a step toward him as if to address him, and hesitated. He stopped and stood still,

expectant. Then he perceived that a nervous tumult silenced her, perceived too, that she must have sought

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 somethingyou wanted to tell me of the people. What was it you had to tell me?"

She looked at him with a face of hesitation. She spoke with an effort. "You forget," she said, drawing a deep

"Yes. I know you are surprised. For you do not understand what you are. You do not know the things that are

She turned to him with sudden resolution." It is so hard to explain. I have meant to, I have wanted to. And

nowI cannot. I am not ready with words. But about youthere is something. It is Wonder. Your

sleepyour awakening. These things are miracles. To me at leastand 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

"Master of the earth," he said. "So they tell me. But try and imagine how little I know of it."

"Principalities, powers, dominionsthe power and the glory. Yes, I have heard them shout. I know. I am

"That is what we have begun to fear." For a moment she said no more. "No," she said slowly. "You will take

She spoke softly." Listen! For at least half the years of your sleepin every generationmultitudes of

people, in every generation greater multitudes of people, have prayed that you might awake prayed."

She hesitated, and a faint colour crept back to her cheek. "Do you know that you have been to myriads

King Arthur, Barbarossathe King who would come in his own good time and put the world right for

"Have you not heard our proverb, 'When the Sleeper wakes?' While you lay insensible and motionless

therethousands came. Thousands. Every first of the month you lay in state with a white robe upon you and

the people filed by you. When I was a little girl I saw you like that, with your face white and calm."

She turned her face from him and looked steadfastly at the painted wall before her. Her voice fell. "When I

was a little girl I used to look at your face. . . .it seemed to me fixed and waiting, like the patience of God."

She turned shining eyes to him, her voice was clear and strong." In the city, in the earth, a myriad myriad

men and women are waiting to see what you will do, full of strange incredible expectations."

Graham looked at her in surprise, at her face lit with emotion. She seemed at first to have spoken with an

"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

"I know how great this kingship of mine is," he said haltingly. "I know how great it seems. But is it real? It is

"After all, like all kingship, my kingship is Belief. It is an illusion in the minds of men."

"But I know nothing. That is what I had in mind. I know nothing. And these othersthe Councillors, Ostrog.

They are wiser, cooler, they know so much, every detail. And, indeed, what are these miseries of which you

"I am still hardly more than a girl," she said. "But to me the world seems full of wretchedness. The world has

altered since your day, altered very strangely. I have prayed that I might see you and tell you these things.

The world has changed. As if a canker had seized itand robbed life ofeverything worth having."

She turned a flushed face upon him, moving suddenly. "Your days were the days of freedom. Yes I have

thought. I have been made to think, for my lifehas not been happy. Men are no longer free no greater,

no better than the men of your time. That is not all. This cityis 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 befor ever? Yes, far worse than in your time. All about us, beneath us, sorrow and pain. All

the shallow delight of such life as you find about you, is separated by just a little from a life of wretchedness

beyond any telling Yes, the poor know itthey know they suffer. These countless multitudes who faced

"You come," she said, "from the days when this new tyranny of the cities was scarcely beginning. It is a

tyrannya tyranny. In your days the feudal war lords had gone, and the new lordship of wealth had still to

come. Half the men in the world still lived out upon the free countryside. The cities had still to devour them. I

have heard the stories out of the old booksthere was nobility! Common men led lives of love and

"Worse. That is what I want you to know, what I want you to see. I know you do not know. They will keep

things from you, they will take you presently to a Pleasure City. But you have noticed men and women and

"They are the slavesyour slaves. They are the slaves of the Labour Company you own."

"The Labour Company! In some waythat is familiar. Ah! now I remember. I saw it when I was wandering

about the city, after the lights returned, great fronts of buildings coloured pale blue. Do you really mean?"

"Yes. How can I explain it to you? Of course the blue uniform struck you. Nearly a third of our people wear

"Workhouse! Yesthere was something. In our history lessons. I remember now. The Labour Company

ousted the workhouse. It grewpartly out of somethingyou, perhaps, may remember it an emotional

religious organisation called the Salvation Armythat became a business company. In the first place it was

almost a charity. To save people from workhouse rigours. Now I come to think of it, it was one of the earliest

properties your Trustees acquired. They bought the Salvation Army and reconstructed it as this. The idea in

"Nowadays there are no workhouses, no refuges and charities, nothing but that Company. Its offices are

everywhere. That blue is its colour. And any man, woman or child who comes to be hungry and weary and

with neither home nor friend nor resort, must go to the Company in the endor seek some way of death. The

Euthanasy is beyond their means for the poor there is no easy death. And at any hour in the day or night

there is food, shelter and a blue uniform for all comersthat is the first condition of the Company s

incorporationand in return for a day's shelter the Company extracts a day's work, and then returns the

"Perhaps that does not seem so terrible to you. In your days men starved in your streets. That was bad. But

they diedmen. These people in blue. The proverb runs: 'Blue canvas once and ever.' The Company

trades in their labour, and it has taken care to assure itself of the supply. People come to it starving and

helplessthey 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 soenough for a theatre or a cheap dancing place, or a

kinematograph story, or a dinner or a bet. They wander about after that is spent. Begging is prevented by the

police of the ways. Besides, no one gives. They come back again the next day or the day afterbrought back

by the same incapacity that brought them first. At last their proper clothing wears out, or their rags get so

shabby that they are ashamed. Then they must work for months to get fresh. If they want fresh. A great

number of children are born under the Company's care. The mother owes them a month thereafterthe

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 Company works."

" Most people will work at that pitch, and the Company has powers. There are stages of unpleasantness in the

workstoppage of foodand a man or woman who has refused to work once is known by a

thumbmarking system in the Company'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 prisonsdark and miserableout of sight

"More than a third. Toilers, living without pride or delight or hope, with the stories of Pleasure Cities ringing

in their ears, mocking their shameful lives, their privations and hardships. Too poor even for the Euthanasy,

the rich man's refuge from life. Dumb, crippled millions, countless millions, all the world about, ignorant of

anything but limitations and unsatisfied desires. They are born, they are thwarted and they die. That is the

"But there has been a revolution," he said. "All these things will be changed." Ostrog"

"That is our hope. That is the hope of the world. But Ostrog will not do it. He is a politician. To him it seems

things must be like this. He does not mind. He takes it for granted. All the rich, all the influential, all who are

happy, come at last to take these miseries for granted. They use the people in their politics, they live in ease

by their degradation. But you you who come from a happier ageit is to you the people look. To you."

He looked at her face. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He felt a rush of emotion. For a moment he

forgot this city, he forgot the race, and all those vague remote voices, in the immediate humanity of her

"Rule," she answered, bending towards him and speaking in a low tone. "Rule the world as it has never been

ruled, for the good and happiness of men. For you might rule ityou could rule it.

"The people are stirring. All over the world the people are stirring. It wants but a wordbut a word from

youto bring them all together. Even the middle sort of people are restless unhappy.

"They are not telling you the things that are happening. The people will not go back to their drudgerythey

refuse to be disarmed. Ostrog has awakened something greater than he dreamt ofhe has awakened hopes."

He sat, no longer regarding her. Presently he spoke." The old dreams, and the thing I have dreamt, liberty,

"Not one man, but all mengive them only a leader to speak the desire of their hearts."

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. Nolet me speak. I want to donot rightI have not the strength for thatbut

something rather right than wrong. It will bring no millenium, but I am resolved now that I will rule. What

you have said has awakened me. . . . You are right. Ostrog must know his place. And I will learn. . . . One

She started and for an instant her eyes had pity. "Need you ask whether I will help you?" she said.

She stood before him, beautiful, worshipful, and her enthusiasm and the greatness of their theme was like a

great gulf fixed between them. To touch her, to clasp her hand, was a thing beyond hope. "Then I will rule

There came a tense silence, and then the beating a clock striking the hour. She made him no answer. Graham

Even now," he said, "Ostrog will be waiting. "He hesitated, facing her. "When I have asked him certain

questions. There is much I do not know. It may be, that I will go to see with my own eyes the things of

He waited, but she said no more. They regarded one another steadfastly, questioningly, and then he turned

Graham found Ostrog waiting to give a formal account of his day's stewardship. On previous occasions he

had passed over this ceremony as speedily as possible, in order to resume his aerial experiences, but now he

began to ask quick short questions. He was very anxious to take up his empire forthwith. Ostrog brought

flattering reports of the development of affairs abroad. In Paris and Berlin, Graham perceived that he was

saying, there had been trouble, not organised resistance indeed, but insubordinate proceedings. "After all

these years," said Ostrog, when Graham pressed enquiries; "the Commune has lifted its head again. That is

the real nature of the struggle, to be explicit." But order had been restored in these cities. Graham, the more

deliberately judicial for the stirring emotions he felt, asked if there had been any fighting. "A little," said

Ostrog. "In one quarter only. But the Senegalese division of our African agricultural police the

Consolidated African Companies have a very well drilled policewas ready, and so were the aeroplanes.

We expected a little trouble in the continental cities, and in America. But things are very quiet in America.

"You are learning," said Ostrog with a touch of surprise. "Yes. It is chiefly the discontent with the Labour

Company. It was that discontent supplied the motive force of this overthrowthat and your awakening."

Ostrog smiled. He became explicit. "We had to stir up their discontent, we had to revive the old ideals of

universal happinessall men equalall men happyno 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

"Our revolution is accomplished, and the Council is overthrown, and people whom we have stirred up remain

surging. There was scarcely enough fighting . . . We made promises, of course. It is extraordinary how

violently and rapidly this vague outofdate humanitarianism has revived and spread. We who sowed the

seed even, have been astonished. In Paris, as I saywe have had to call in a little external help."

"There is trouble. Multitudes will not go back to work. There is a general strike. Half the factories are empty

and the people are swarming in the Ways. They are talking of a Commune. Men in silk and satin have been

insulted in the streets. The blue canvas is expecting all sorts of things from you.... Of course there is no need

for you to trouble. We are setting the Babble Machines to work with counter suggestions in the cause of law

Graham thought. He perceived a way of asserting himself. But he spoke with restraint.

"They are useful," said Ostrog. "They are fine loyal brutes, with no wash of ideas in their heads such as

our rabble has. The Council should have had them as police of the Ways, and things might have been

different. Of course, there is nothing to fear except rioting and wreckage. You can manage your own wings

now, and you can soar away to Capri if there is any smoke or fuss. We have the pull of all the great things;

the aeronauts are privileged and rich, the closest trades union in the world, and so are the engineers of the

wind vanes. We have the air, and the mastery of the air is the mastery of the earth. No one of any ability is

organising against us. They have no leadersonly the sectional leaders of the secret society we organised

before your very opportune awakening. Mere busy bodies and sentimentalists they are and bitterly jealous of

each other. None of them is man enough for a central figure. The only trouble will be a disorganised

upheaval. To be frankthat may happen. But it won't interrupt your aeronautics. The days when the People

"I suppose they are," said Graham. "I suppose they are." He mused. "This world of yours has been full of

surprises to me. In the old days we dreamt of a wonderful democratic life, of a time when all men would be

Ostrog looked at him steadfastly. "The day of democracy is past," he said. "Past for ever. That day began with

the bowmen of Crecy, it ended when marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win the

battles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategic railways became the means of power.

Today is the day of wealth. Wealth now is power as it never was power before it commands earth and sea

and sky. All power is for those who can handle wealth.... You must accept facts, and these are facts. The

world for the Crowd! The Crowd as Ruler! Even in your days that creed had been tried and condemned.

"No," said Ostrog." The day of the common man is past. On the open countryside one man is as good as

another, or nearly as good. The earlier aristocracy had a precarious tenure of strength and audacity. They

were temperedtempered. There were insurrections, duels, riots. The first real aristocracy, the first

permanent aristocracy, came in with castles and armour, and vanished before the musket and bow. But this is

the second aristocracy. The real one. Those days of gunpowder and democracy were only an eddy in the

stream. The common man now is a helpless unit. In these days we have this great machine of the city, and an

"Yet," said Graham, "there is something resists, something you are holding downsomething that stirs and

"You will see," said Ostrog, with a forced smile that would brush these difficult questions aside. "I have not

"Must the world go this way?" said Graham, with his emotions at the speaking point. "Must it indeed go in

"Well," said Ostrog, "take the general question. It is the way that change has always travelled. Aristocracy,

the prevalence of the bestthe suffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to better things."

"Oh! not those!" said Ostrog. "But for the most part they go to their death. Vice and pleasure! They have no

children. That sort of stuff will die out. If the world keeps to one road, that is, if there is no turning back. An

easy road to excess, convenient Euthanasia for the pleasure seekers singed in the flame, that is the way to

"Pleasant extinction," said Graham. "Yet." He thought for an instant." There is that other thing the

Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Will that die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its suffering is a

Ostrog moved impatiently, and when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenly than before.

"Don't you trouble about these things," he said. Everything will be settled in a few days now. The Crowd is a

huge foolish beast. What if it does not die out? Even if it does not die, it can still be tamed and driven. I have

no sympathy with servile men. You heard those people shouting and singing two nights ago. They were

taught that song. If you had taken any man there in cold blood and asked why he shouted, he could not have

told you. They think they are shouting for you, that they are loyal and devoted to you. Just then they were

ready to slaughter the Council. Todaythey are already murmuring against those who have overthrown the

"No, no," said Graham. "They shouted because their lives were dreary, without joy or pride, and because in

"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 mankindwhat is it? That some day the Overman may

come, that some day the inferior, the weak and the bestial may be subdued or eliminated. Subdued if not

eliminated. The world is no place for the bad, the stupid, the enervated. Their dutyit's a fine duty too!is

to die. The death of the failure! That is the path by which the beast rose to manhood, by which man goes on

Ostrog took a pace, seemed to think, and turned on Graham. "I can imagine how this great world state of ours

seems to a Victorian Englishman. You regret all the old forms of representative governmenttheir spectres

still haunt the world, the voting councils and parliaments and all that eighteenth century tomfoolery You feel

moved against our Pleasure Cities. I might have thought of that,had I not been busy. But you will learn

better. The people are mad with envythey would be in sympathy with you. Even in the streets now, they

clamour to destroy the Pleasure Cities. But the Pleasure Cities are the excretory organs of the State, attractive

places that year after year draw together all that is weak and vicious, all that is lascivious and lazy, all the

easy roguery of the world, to a graceful destruction. They go there, they have their time, they die childless, all

the pretty silly lascivious women die childless, and mankind is the better. If the people were sane they would

not envy the rich their way of death. And you would emancipate the silly brainless workers that we have

enslaved, and try to make their lives easy and pleasant again. Just as they have sunk to what they are fit for.

"He smiled a smile that irritated Graham oddly. "You will learn better. I know those ideas; in my boyhood I

read your Shelley and dreamt of Liberty. There is no liberty, save wisdom and self control. Liberty is

withinnot without. It is each man's own affair. Supposewhich is impossiblethat these swarming

yelping fools in blue get the upper hand of us, what then? They will only fall to other masters. So long as

there are sheep Nature will insist on beasts of prey. It would mean but a few hundred years' delay. The

coming of the aristocrat is fatal and assured. The end will be the Overmanfor all the mad protests of

humanity. Let them revolt, let them win and kill me and my like. Others will ariseother masters. The end

"But I must see these things for myself," he said, suddenly assuming a tone of confident mastery. "Only by

seeing can I understand. I must learn. That is what I want to tell you, Ostrog. I do not want to be King in a

Pleasure City; that is not my, pleasure. I have spent enough time with aeronautics and those other things. I

must learn how people live now, how the common life has developed. Then I shall understand these things

better. I must learn how common people livethe labour people more especiallyhow they work, marry,

"You get that from our realistic novelists," suggested Ostrog, suddenly preoccupied.

"I had thought. And yet, perhaps. You say you want to go through the Ways of the city and see the

Suddenly he came to some conclusion. "You would need to go disguised," he said. "The city is intensely

excited, and the discovery of your presence among them might create a fearful tumult. Still this wish of yours

to go into this citythis 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 for this excursion Asano will be able to manage. He would go with you. After all it is not

"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

"I have been thinking about these negroes. I don't believe the people intend any hostility to me, and, after all,

I am the Master. I do not want any negroes brought to London. It is an archaic prejudice perhaps, but I have

Ostrog stood watching him from under his drooping brows." I am not bringing negroes to London," he said

"You are not to bring armed negroes to London, whatever happens," said Graham. "In that matter I am quite

And that night, unknown and unsuspected, Graham, dressed in the costume of an inferior windvane official

keeping holiday, and accompanied by Asano in Labour Company canvas, surveyed the city through which he

had wandered when it was veiled in darkness. But now he saw it lit and waking, a whirlpool of life. In spite

of the surging and swaying of the forces of revolution, in spite of the unusual discontent, the mutterings of

the greater struggle of which the first revolt was but the prelude, the myriad streams of commerce still flowed

wide and strong. He knew now something of the dimensions and quality of the new age, but he was not

prepared for the infinite surprise of the detailed view, for the torrent of colour and vivid impressions that

This was his first real contact with the people of these latter days. He realised that all that had gone before,

saving his glimpses of the public theatres and markets, had had its element of seclusion, had been a

movement within the comparatively narrow political quarter, that all his previous experiences had revolved

immediately about the question of his own position. But here was the city at the busiest hours of night, the

people to a large extent returned to their own immediate interests, the resumption of the real informal life, he

They emerged at first into a street whose opposite ways were crowded with the blue canvas liveries. This

swarm Graham saw was a portion of a procession it was odd to see a procession parading the city seated

They carried banners of coarse red stuff with red letters. "No disarmament," said the banners, for the most

part in crudely daubed letters and with variant spelling, and "Why should we disarm?" "No disarming." "No

disarming." Banner after banner went by, a stream of banners flowing past, and at last at the end, the song of

the revolt and a noisy band of strange instruments." They all ought to be at work," said Asano. "They have

Presently Asano made a detour to avoid the congested crowd that gaped upon the occasional passage of dead

bodies from hospital to a mortuary, the gleanings after death's harvest of the first revolt.

That night few people were sleeping, everyone was abroad. A vast excitement, perpetual crowds perpetually

changing, surrounded Graham; his mind was confused and darkened by an incessant tumult, by the cries and

enigmatical fragments of the social struggle that was as yet only beginning. Everywhere festoons and banners

of black and strange decorations, intensified the quality of his popularity. Everywhere he caught snatches of

that crude thick dialect that served the illiterate class, the class, that is, beyond the reach of phonograph

culture, in their commonplace intercourse. Everywhere this trouble of disarmament was in the air, with a

quality of immediate stress of which he had no inkling during his seclusion in the WindVane quarter. He

perceived that as soon as he returned he must discuss this with Ostrog, this and the greater issues of which it

was the expression, in a far more conclusive way than he had so far done. Perpetually that night, even in the

earlier hours of their wanderings about the city, the spirit of unrest and revolt swamped his attention, to the

This preoccupation made his impressions fragmeary. Yet amidst so much that was strange and vivid, no

subject, however personal and insistent, could exert undivided sway. There were spaces when the

revolutionary movement passed clean out of his mind, was drawn aside like a curtain from before some

startling new aspect of the time. Helen had swayed his mind to this intense earnestness of enquiry, but there

came times when she, even, receded beyond his conscious thoughts. At one moment, for example, he found

they were traversing the religious quarter, for the easy transit about the city afforded by the moving ways

rendered sporadic churches and chapels no longer necessaryand his attention was vividly arrested by the

They were travelling seated on one of the swift upper ways, the place leapt upon them at a bend and advanced

rapidly towards them. It was covered with inscriptions from top to base, in vivid white and blue, save where a

vast and glaring kinematograph transparency presented a realistic New Testament scene, and where a vast

festoon of black to show that the popular religion followed the popular politics, hung across the lettering

Graham had already become familiar with the phonotype writing and these inscriptions arrested him, being to

his sense for the most part almost incredible blasphemy. Among the less offensive were "Salvation on the

First Floor and turn to the Right." "Put your Money on your Maker." "The Sharpest Conversion in London,

Expert Operators! Look Slippy!" "What Christ would say to the Sleeper;Join the Uptodate Saints!" "Be

a Christianwithout hindrance to your present Occupation." "All the Brightest Bishops on the Bench

"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

"Oh __that!__" Asano looked at Graham. "Does it shock you?" he said in the tone of one who makes a

discovery. "I suppose it would, of course. I had forgotten. Nowadays the competition for attention is so keen.

and people simply haven't the leisure to attend to their souls, you know, as they used to do." He smiled. "In

the old days you had quiet Sabbaths and the countryside. Though somewhere I've read of Sunday afternoons

"But, __that__," said Graham, glancing back at the receding blue and white. "That is surely not the only"

"There are hundreds of different ways. But, of course, if a sect doesn't tell it doesn't pay. Worship has moved

with the times. There are high class sects with quieter wayscostly incense and personal attentions and all

that. These people are extremely popular and prosperous. They pay several dozen lions for those apartments

Graham still felt a difficulty with the coinage, and this mention of a dozen lions brought him abruptly to that

matter. In a moment the screaming temples and their swarming touts were forgotten in this new interest. A

turn of a phrase suggested, and an answer confirmed the idea that gold and silver were both demonetised, that

stamped gold which had begun its reign amidst the merchants of Phoenicia was at last dethroned. The change

had been graduated but swift, brought about by an extension of the system of cheques that had even in his

previous life already practically superseded gold in all the larger business transactions. The common traffic of

the city, the common currency indeed of all the world, was conducted by means of the little brown, green and

pink council cheques for small amounts, printed with a blank payee. Asano had several with him, and at the

first opportunity he supplied the gaps in his set. They were printed not on tearable paper, but on a

semitransparent fabric of silken, flexibility, interwoven with silk. Across them all sprawled a facsimile of

Graham's signature, his first encounter with the curves and turns of that familiar autograph for two hundred

Some intermediary experiences made no impression sufficiently vivid to prevent the matter of the

disarmament claiming his thoughts again; a blurred picture of a Theosophist temple that promised

MIRACLES in enormous letters of unsteady fire was least submerged perhaps, but then came the view of the

By the energy and thought of Asano he was able to view this place from a little screened gallery reserved for

the attendants of the tables. The building was pervaded by a distant muffled hooting, piping and bawling, of

which he did not at first understand the import, but which recalled a certain mysterious leathery voice he had

heard after the resumption of the lights on the night of his solitary wandering.

He had grown accustomed now to vastness and great numbers of people, nevertheless this spectacle held him

for a long time. It was as he watched the table service more immediately beneath, and interspersed with many

questions and answers concerning details, that the realisation of the full significance of the feast of several

It was his constant surprise to find that points that one might have expected to strike vividly at the very outset

never occurred to him until some trivial detail suddenly shaped as a riddle and pointed to the obvious thing he

had overlooked. In this matter, for instance, it had not occurred to him that this continuity of the city, this

exclusion of weather, these vast halls and ways, involved the disappearance of the household; that the typical

Victorian "home," the little brick cell containing kitchen and scullery, living rooms and bedrooms, had, save

for the ruins that diversified the countryside, vanished as surely as the wattle hut. But now he saw what had

indeed been manifest from the first, that London, regarded as a living place, was no longer an aggregation of

houses but a prodigious hotel, an hotel with a thousand classes of accommodation, thousands of dining halls,

chapels, theatres, markets and places of assembly, a synthesis of enterprises, of which he chiefly was the

owner. People had their sleeping rooms, with, it might be, antechambers, rooms that were always sanitary at

least whatever the degree of comfort and privacy, and for the rest they lived much as many people had lived

in the newmade giant hotels of the Victorian days, eating, reading, thinking, playing, conversing, all in

places of public resort, going to their work in the industrial quarters of the city or doing business in their

He perceived at once how necessarily this state of affairs had developed from the Victorian city. The

fundamental reason for the modern city had ever been the economy of cooperation. The chief thing to

prevent the merging of the separate households in his own generation was simply the still imperfect

civilisation of the people, the strong barbaric pride, passions, and prejudices, the jealousies, rivalries, and

violence of the middle and lower classes, which had necessitated the entire separation of contiguous

households. But the change, the taming of the people, had been in rapid progress even then. In his brief thirty

years of previous life he had seen an enormous extension of the habit of consuming meals from home, the

casually patronised horsebox coffeehouse had given place to the open and crowded Aerated Bread Shop

for instance, women's clubs had had their beginning, and an immense development of reading rooms, lounges

and libraries had witnessed to the growth of social confidence. These promises had by this time attained to

These people below him belonged, he learnt, to the lower middle class, the class just above the blue

labourers, a class so accustomed in the Victorian period to feed with every precaution of privacy that its

members, when occasion confronted them with a public meal, would usually hide their embarrassment under

horseplay or a markedly militant demeanour. But these gaily, if lightly dressed people below, albeit

vivacious, hurried and uncommunicative, were dexterously mannered and certainly quite at their ease with

He noted a slight significant thing; the table, as far as he could see, was and remained delightfully neat, there

was nothing to parallel the confusion, the broadcast crumbs, the splashes of viand and condiment, the

overturned drink and displaced ornaments, which would have marked the stormy progress of the Victorian

meal. The table furniture was very different. There were no ornaments, no flowers, and the table was without

a cloth, being made, he learnt, of a solid substance having the texture and appearance of damask. He

discerned that this damask substance was patterned with gracefully designed trade advertisements.

In a sort of recess before each diner was a complete apparatus of porcelain and metal. There was one plate of

white porcelain, and by means of taps for hot and cold volatile fluids the diner washed this himself between

the courses; he also washed his elegant white metal knife and fork and spoon as occasion required.

Soup and the chemical wine that was the common drink were delivered by similar taps, and the remaining

covers travelled automatically in tastefully arranged dishes down the table along silver rails. The diner

stopped these and helped himself at his discretion. They appeared at a little door at one end of the table, and

vanished at the other. That turn of democratic sentiment in decay, that ugly pride of menial souls, which

renders equals loth to wait on one another, was very strong he found among these people. He was so

preoccupied with these details that it was only just as he was leaving the place that he remarked the huge

advertisement dioramas that marched majestically along the upper walls and proclaimed the most remarkable

Beyond this place they came into a crowded hall, and he discovered the cause of the noise that had perplexed

Graham's attention was immediately arrested by a violent, loud hoot, followed by a vast leathery voice. "The

Master is sleeping peacefully," it vociferately. "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

officersall patronage will be in his hands. All patronage in the hands of Boss Ostrog! The Councillors have

Graham stopped at the first sentence, and, looking up, beheld a foolish trumpet face from which this was

brayed. This was the General Intelligence Machine. For a space it seemed to be gathering breath, and a

regular throbbing from its cylindrical body was audible. Then it trumpeted "Galloop, Galloop," and broke out

"Paris is now pacified. All resistance is over. Galloop! The black police hold every position of importance in

the city. They fought with great bravery, singing songs written in praise of their ancestors by the poet

Kipling. Once or twice they got out of hand, and tortured and mutilated wounded and captured insurgents,

men and women. Moraldon'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!

The voice ceased. There was a confused murmur of disapproval among the crowd. "Damned niggers." A man

began to harangne near them. "Is this the Master's doing, brothers? Is this the Master's doing?"

Asano touched his arm and gave him a warning look, and forthwith another of these mechanisms I screamed

deafeningly and gave tongue in a shrill voice. "Yahaha, Yahah, Yap! Hear a live paper yelp! Live paper.

Yaha! Shocking outrage in Paris. Yahahah! The Parisians exasperated by the black police to the pitch of

assassination. Dreadful reprisals. Savage times come again. Blood! Blood! Yaha!" The nearer Babble

Machine hooted stupendously, "Galloop, Galloop," drowned the end of the sentence, and proceeded in a

rather flatter note than before with novel comments on the horrors of disorder. "Law and order must be

"Don't ask questions here," said Asano, "or you will be involved in an argument."

As he and his companion pushed their way through the excited crowd that swarmed beneath these voices,

towards the exit, Graham conceived more clearly the proportion and features of this room. Altogether, great

and small, there must have been nearly a thousand of these erections, piping, hooting, bawling and gabbling

in that great space, each with its crowd of excited listeners, the majority of them men dressed in blue canvas.

There were all sizes of machines, from the little gossipping mechanisms that chuckled out mechanical

sarcasm in odd corners, through a number of grades to such fiftyfoot giants as that which had first hooted

This place was unusually crowded, because of the intense public interest in the course of affairs in Paris.

Evidently the struggle had been much more savage than Ostrog had represented it. All the mechanisms were

discoursing upon that topic, and the repetition of the people made the huge hive buzz with such phrases as

"Lynched policemen," "Women burnt alive," "Fuzzy Wuzzy." "But does the Master allow such things? "

Is __this__ the beginning of the Master's rule? For a long time after he had left the place, the hooting,

whistling and braying of the machines pursued him; "Galloop, Galloop," "Yahahah, Yaha, Yap! Yaha!" Is

Directly they were out upon the ways he began to question Asano closely on the nature of the Parisian

struggle. "This disarmament! What was their trouble? What does it all mean?" Asano seemed chiefly anxious

to reassure him that it was "all right." "But these outrages!" "You cannot have an omelette," said Asano,

"without breaking eggs. It is only the rough people. Only in one part of the city. All the rest is all right. The

"A Commune!" said Asano. "They would rob you of your property. They would do away with property and

give the world over to mob rule. You are Master, the world is yours. But there will be no Commune here.

"And every consideration has been shown. It is their own negroesFrench speaking negroes. Senegal

"I did not think," he began and stopped abruptly He went off at a tangent to ask for information about these

Babble Machines. For the most part, the crowd present had been shabbily or even raggedly dressed, and

Graham learnt that so far as the more prosperous classes were concerned, in all the more comfortable private

apartments of the city were fixed Babble Machines that would speak directly a lever was pulled. The tenant

of the apartment could connect this with the cables of any of the great News Syndicates that he preferred.

When he learnt this presently, he demanded the reason of their absence from his own suite of apartments.

He found a difficulty in understanding that this news room and the dining hall were not great central places,

that such establishments were repeated almost beyond counting all over the city. But ever and again during

the night's expedition his ears, in some new quarter would pick out from the tumult of the ways the peculiar

hooting of the organ of Boss Ostrog, "Galloop, Galloop!" or the shrill "Yahaha, Yaha, Yap!Hear a live

Repeated, too, everywhere, were such __creches__ as the one he now entered. It was reached by a lift, and by

a glass bridge that flung across the dining hall and traversed the ways at a slight upward angle. To enter the

first section of the place necessitated the use of his solvent signature under Asano's direction. They were

immediately attended to by a man in a violet robe and gold clasp, the insignia of practising medical men. He

perceived from this man's manner that his identity was known, and proceeded to ask questions on the strange

On either side of the passage, which was silent and padded, as if to deaden the footfall, were narrow little

doors, their size and arrangement suggestive of the cells of a Victorian prison. But the upper portion of each

door was of the same greenish transparent stuff that had enclosed him at his awakening, and within, dimly

seen, lay, in every case, a very young baby in a little nest of wadding. Elaborate apparatus watched the

atmosphere and rang a bell far away in the central office at the slightest departure from the optimum of

temperature and moisture. A system of such __creches__ had almost entirely replaced the hazardous

adventures of the oldworld 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

Of all the strange things that Graham came upon that night, none jarred more upon his habits of thought than

this place. The spectacle of the little pink creatures, their feeble limbs swaying uncertainly in vague first

movements, left alone, without embrace or endearment, was wholly repugnant to him. The attendant doctor

was of a different opinion. His statistical evidence showed beyond dispute that in the Victorian times the

most dangerous passage of life was the arms of the mother, that there human mortality had ever been most

terrible. On the other hand this __creche__ company, the International Creche Syndicate, lost not onehalf

per cent of the million babies or so that formed its peculiar care. But Graham's prejudice was too strong even

Along one of the many passages of the place they presently came upon a young couple in the usual blue

canvas peering through the transparency and laughing hysterically at the bald head of their firstborn.

Graham's face must have showed his estimate of them, for their merriment ceased and they looked abashed.

But this little incident accentuated his sudden realisation of the gulf between his habits of thought and the

ways of the new age. He passed on to the crawling rooms and the Kindergarten, perplexed and distressed. He

found the endless long playrooms were empty! the latterday children at least still spent their nights in sleep.

As they went through these, the little officer pointed out the nature of the toys, developments of those devised

by that inspired sentimentalist Froebel. There were nurses here, but much was done by machines that sang

Graham was still not clear upon many points. "But so many orphans," he said perplexed, reverting to a first

So soon as they had left the __creche__ 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

"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 politicsexcept a few

here and there. You will see the mothersmost young women in London are mothers. In that class it is

considered a creditable thing to have one childa proof of animation. Few middle class people have more

than one. With the Labour Company it is different. As for motherhood They still take an immense pride in

"Is falling? Yes. Except among the people under the Labour Company. They are reckless."

The air was suddenly dancing with music, and down a way they approached obliquely, set with gorgeous

pillars as it seemed of clear amethyst, flowed a concourse of gay people and a tumult of merry cries and

laughter. He saw curled heads, wreathed brows, and a happy intricate flutter of gamboge pass triumphant

"You will see," said Asano with a faint smile "The world has changed. In a moment you will see the mothers

They ascended a certain height in a swift lift, and changed to a slower one. As they went on the music grew

upon them, until it was near and full and splendid, and, moving with its glorious intricacies they could

distinguish the beat of innumerable dancing feet. They made a payment at a turnstile, and emerged upon the

wide gallery that overlooked the dancing place, and upon the full enchantment of sound and sight.

The hall was not so richly decorated as that of the Atlas, but saving that, it was, for its size, the most splendid

Graham had seen. The beautiful whitelimbed figures that supported the galleries reminded him once more of

the restored magnificence of sculpture; they seemed to writhe in engaging attitudes, their faces laughed. The

source of the music that filled the place was hidden, and the whole vast shining floor was thick with dancing

couples. "Look at them," said the little officer, "see how much they show of motherhood."

The gallery they stood upon ran along the upper edge of a huge screen that cut the dancing hall on one side

from a sort of outer hall that showed through broad arches the incessant onward rush of the city ways. In this

outer hall was a great crowd of less brilliantly dressed people, as numerous almost as those who danced

within, the great majority wearing the blue uniform of the Labour Company that was now so familiar to

Graham. Too poor to pass the turnstiles to the festival, they were yet unable to keep away from the sound of

its seductions. Some of them even had cleared spaces, and were dancing also, fluttering their rags in the air.

Some shouted as they danced, jests and odd allusions Graham did not understand. Once someone began

whistling the refrain of the revolutionary song, but it seemed as though that beginning was promptly

suppressed. The corner was dark and Graham could not see. He turned to the hall again. Above the caryatidae

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

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,

opennecked, as the universal warmth of the city permitted. The hair of the men was often a mass of

effeminate curls, their chins were always shaven, and many of them had flushed or coloured cheeks. Many of

the women were very pretty, and all were dressed with elaborate coquetry. As they swept by beneath, he saw

"Workersprosperous 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. Tonight is a holiday of course, and every dancing place in the city will be crowded, and every

"The same. There's a thousand forms of work for women now. But you had the beginning of the independent

workingwoman in your days. Most women are independent now. Most of these are married more or

lessthere are a number of methods of contractand that gives them more money, and enables them to

"I see," said Graham looking at the flushed faces, the flash and swirl of movement, and still thinking of that

"The more I see of these things the more complex I find your problems. This, for instance, is a surprise. That

"These are mothers. Presently, I suppose, I shall get into the modern way of seeing things. I have old habits of

mind clinging about mehabits based, I suppose, on needs that are over and done with. Of course, in our

time, a woman was supposed not only to bear children, but to cherish them, to devote herself to them, to

educate themall the essentials of moral and mental education a child owed its mother. Or went without.

Quite a number, I admit, went without. Nowadays, clearly, there is no more need for such care than if they

were butterflies. I see that! Only there was an idealthat figure of a grave, patient woman, silently and

serenely mistress of a home, mother and maker of mento love her was a sort of worship"

Graham awoke from an instant reverie and Asano repeated his words. Graham's mind returned to the thing at

"Of course I see the perfect reasonableness of this Restraint, soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish a

act, they are necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is man's tribute to unconquered

nature. But man has conquered nature now for all practical purposeshis political affairs are managed by

"They all look young. Down there I should be visibly the oldest man. And in my own time I should have

"Old people's lives are not so pleasant as they used to be, unless they are rich to hire lovers and helpers. And

"The easy death. It is the last pleasure. The Euthanasy Company does it well. People will pay the sumit is a

costly thinglong beforehand, go off to some pleasure city and return impoverished and weary, very

"There is a lot left for me to understand," said Graham after a pause. "Yet I see the logic of it all. Our array of

angry virtues and sour restraints was the consequence of danger and insecurity. The Stoic, the Puritan, even

in my time, were vanishing types. In the old days man was armed against Pain, now he is eager for Pleasure.

There lies the difference. Civilisation has driven pain and danger so far offfor welltodo people. And

For a minute they leant on the balustrading, following the intricate evolution of the dance. Indeed the scene

"Before God," said Graham, suddenly, "I would rather be a wounded sentinel freezing in the snow than one

" I am uncivilised," said Graham, not heeding him. "That is the trouble. I am primitivePalaeolithic. 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 fightingmen are dying in Paris to keep the

"You will see little work tonight. Half the workers are out or under arms. Half these people are keeping

For a time Graham watched the dancers, then suddenly turned away. "I want to see the workers. I have seen

Asano led the way along the gallery across the dancing hall. Presently they came to a transverse passage that

Asano glanced at this passage as they went past, stopped, went back to it, and turned to Graham with a smile.

"Here, Sire," he said, "is somethingwill be familiar to you at leastand yet. But I will not tell you.

He led the way along a closed passage that presently became cold. The reverberation of their feet told that

this passage was a bridge. They came into a circular gallery that was glazed in from the outer weather, and so

reached a circular chamber which seemed familiar, though Graham could not recall distinctly when he had

entered it before. In this was a ladderthe first ladder he had seen since his awakeningup which they

went, and came into a high, dark, cold place in which was another almost vertical ladder. This they ascended,

But at the top he understood, and recognized the metallic bars to which he clung. He was in the cage under

the ball of St. Paul's. The dome rose but a little way above the general contour of the city, into the still

twilight, and sloped away, shining greasily under a few distant lights, into a circumambient ditch of darkness.

Out between the bars he looked upon the windclear 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

He saw these stars in a clear gap of sky. To the east and south the great circular shapes of complaining

windwheels 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 ironwork and interlacing shapes

above a dazzling coruscation of lights. A bellowing and siren screaming that came from the flying stages

warned the world that one of the aeroplanes was ready to start. He remained for a space gazing towards the

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 Saint Paul's and look once more upon these familiar, silent stars!"

Thence Graham was taken by Asano along devious ways to the great gambling and business quarters where

the bulk of the fortunes in the city were lost and made. It impressed him as a wellnigh interminable series of

very high halls, surrounded by tiers upon tiers of galleries into which opened thousands of offices, and

traversed by a complicated multitude of bridges, footways, aerial motor rails, and trapeze and cable leaps.

And here more than anywhere the note of vehement vitality, of uncontrollable, hasty activity. rose high.

Everywhere was violent advertisement, until his brain swam at the tumult of light and colour. And Babble

Machines of a peculiarly rancid tone were abundant and filled the air with strenuous squealing and an idiotic

slang. "Skin your eyes and slide," "Gewhoop, Bonanza," "Gollipers come and hark!"

The place seemed to him to be dense with people either profoundly agitated or swelling with obscure

cunning, yet he learnt that the place was comparatively empty, that the great political convulsion of the last

few days had reduced transactions to an unprecedented minimum. In one huge place were long avenues of

roulette tables, each with an excited, undignified crowd about it; in another a yelping Babel of whitefaced

women and red necked leatherylunged men bought and sold the shares of an absolutely fictitious business

undertaking which, every five minutes, paid a dividend of ten per cent and cancelled a certain proportion of

These business activities were prosecuted with an energy that readily passed into violence, and Graham

approaching a dense crowd found at its centre a couple of prominent merchants in violent controversy with

teeth and nails on some delicate point of business etiquette. Something still remained in life to be fought for.

Further he had a shock at a vehement announcement in phonetic letters of scarlet flame, each twice the height

"YesInsurance. 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.

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'rx 5 pr. G." The people began to boo and shout at

this, a number of hard breathing, wildeyed men came running past, clawing with hooked fingers at the air.

Asano did a brief calculation. "Seventeen per cent per annum is their annuity on you. They would not pay so

much per cent if they could see you now, Sire. But they do not know. Your own annuities used to be a very

safe investment, but now you are sheer gambling, of course. This is probably a desperate bid. I doubt if

The crowd of wouldbe annuitants grew so thick about them that for some time they could move neither

forward no backward. Graham noticed what appeared to him to be a high proportion of women among the

speculators, and was reminded again of the economical 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 curlyheaded person caught in the pressure for a space, looked steadfastly at him several times,

almost as if she recognized him, and then, edging deliberately towards him, touched his hand with her arm in

a scarcely accidental manner, and made it plain by a look as ancient as Chaldea that he had found favour in

her eyes. And then a lank, grey bearded man, perspiring copiously in a noble passion of selfhelp, blind to

all earthly things save that glaring, bait, thrust between them in a cataclysmal rush towards that alluring " x 5

"I want to get out of this," said Graham to Asano. "This is not what I came to see. Show me the workers. I

He found himself wedged in a struggling mass c people, and this hopeful sentence went unfinished.

From the Business Quarter they presently passed by the running ways into a remote quarter of the city, where

the bulk of the manufactures was done. On their way the platforms crossed the Thames twice, and passed in a

broad viaduct across one of the great roads that entered the city from the North. In both cases his impression

was swift and in both very vivid. The river was a broad wrinkled glitter of black sea water, overarched by

buildings, and vanishing either way into a blackness starred with receding lights. A string of black barges

passed seaward, manned by blueclad men. The road was a long and very broad and high tunnel, along

which bigwheeled machines drove noiselessly and swiftly. Here, too, the distinctive blue of the Labour

Company was in abundance. The smoothness of the double tracks, the largeness and the lightness of the big

pneumatic wheels in proportion to the vehicular body, struck Graham most vividly. One lank and very high

carriage with longitudinal metallic rods hung with the dripping carcasses of many hundred sheep arrested his

attention unduly. Abruptly the edge of the archway cut and blotted out the picture.

Presently they left the way and descended by a lift and traversed a passage that sloped downward, and so

came to a descending lift again. The appearance of things changed. Even the pretence of architectural

ornament disappeared, the lights diminished in number and size, the architecture became more and more

massive in proportion to the spaces as the factory quarters were reached. And in the dusty biscuit making

place of the potters, among the felspar mills in the furnace rooms of the metal workers, among the

incandescent lakes of crude Eadhamite, the blue canvas clothing was on man, woman and child.

Many of these great and dusty galleries were silent avenues of machinery, endless raked out ashen furnaces

testified to the revolutionary dislocation, but wherever there was work it was being done by slow moving

workers in blue canvas. The only people not in blue canvas were the overlookers of the workplaces and the

orangeclad Labour Police. And fresh from the flushed faces of the dancing halls, the voluntary vigours of

the business quarter, Graham could note the pinched faces, the feeble muscles, and weary eyes of many of the

latterday workers. Such as he saw at work were noticeably inferior in physique to the few gaily dressed

managers and forewomen who were directing their labours. The burly labourers of the Victorian times had

followed the dray horse and all such living force producers, to extinction; the place of his costly muscles was

taken by some dexterous machine. The latterday labourer, male as well as female, was essentially a

machineminder and feeder, a servant and attendant, or an artist under direction.

The women, in comparison with those Graham remembered, were as a class distinctly plain and flat

chested. Two hundred years of emancipation from the moral restraints of Puritanical religion, two hundred

years of city life, had done their work in eliminating the strain of feminine beauty and vigour from the blue

canvas myriads. To be brilliant physically or mentally, to be in any way attractive or exceptional, had been

and was still a certain way of emancipation to the drudge, a line of escape to the Pleasure City and its

splendours and delights, and at last to the Euthanasy and peace. To be steadfast against such inducements was

scarcely to be expected of meanly nourished souls. In the young cities of Graham's former life, the newly

aggregated labouring mass had been a diverse multitude, still stirred by the tradition of personal honour and a

high morality; now it was differentiating into a distinct class, with a moral and physical difference of its

They penetrated downward, ever downward, towards the working places. Presently they passed underneath

one of the streets of the moving ways, and saw its platforms running on their rails far overhead, and chinks of

white lights between the transverse slits. The factories that were not working were sparsely lighted; to

Graham they and their shrouded aisles of giant machines seemed plunged in gloom, and even where work

Beyond the blazing lakes of Eadhamite he came to the warren of the jewellers, and, with some difficulty and

by using his signature, obtained admission to these galleries. They were high and dark, and rather cold. In the

first a few men were making ornaments of gold filigree, each man at a little bench by himself, and with a

little shaded light. The long vista of light patches, with the nimble fingers brightly lit and moving among the

gleaming yellow coils, and the intent face like the face of a ghost, in each shadow had the oddest effect.

The work was beautifully executed, but without any strength of modelling or drawing, for the most part

intricate grotesques or the ringing of the changes on a geometrical motif. These workers wore a peculiar

white uniform without pockets or sleeves. They assumed this on coming to work, but at night they were

stripped and examined before they left the premises of the Company. In spite of every precaution, the Labour

policeman told them in a depressed tone, the Company was not infrequently robbed.

Beyond was a gallery of women busied in cutting and setting slabs of artificial ruby, and next these were men

and women busied together upon the slabs of copper net that formed the basis of cloisonne 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 the offence of their faces, but excused

himself on the score of the convenience of this route. "This is what I wanted to see," said Graham; "this is

what I wanted to see," trying to avoid a start at a particularly striking disfigurement that suddenly stared him

"But, Sire, we simply could not stand that stuff without the purple," said Asano. "In your days people could

They continued along one of the lower galleries of this cloisonne factory, and came to a little bridge that

spanned a vault. Looking over the parapet, Graham saw that beneath was a wharf under yet more tremendous

archings than any he had seen. Three barges, smothered in floury dust, were being unloaded of their cargoes

of powdered felspar by a multitude of coughing men, each guiding a little truck; the dust filled the place with

a choking mist, and turned the electric glare yellow. The vague shadows of these workers gesticulated about

their feet, and rushed to and fro against a long stretch of whitewashed wall. Every now and then one would

A shadowy, huge mass of masonry rising out of the inky water, brought to Graham's mind the thought of the

multitude of ways and galleries and lifts, that rose floor above floor overhead between him and the sky. The

men worked in silence under the supervision of two of the Labour Police; their feet made a hollow thunder on

the planks along which they went to and fro. And as he looked at this scene, some hidden voice in the

"Stop that!" shouted one of the policemen, but the order was disobeyed, and first one and then all the

whitestained men who were working there had taken up the beating refrain, singing it defiantly, the Song of

the Revolt. The feet upon the planks thundered now to the rhythm of the song, tramp, tramp, tramp. The

policeman who had shouted glanced at his fellow, and Graham saw him shrug his shoulders. He made no

And so they went through these factories and places of toil, seeing many painful and grim things. But why

should the gentle reader be depressed? Surely to a refined nature our present world is distressing enough

without bothering ourselves about these miseries to come. We shall not suffer anyhow. Our children may, but

what is that to us? 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 illlit subterranean aisles of

sleeping places, illimitable vistas of pinpoint lights. And here the smell of tanning, and here the reek of a

brewery and here, unprecedented reeks. And everywhere were pillars and cross archings of such a

massiveness as Graham had never before seen, thick Titans of greasy, shining brickwork crushed beneath the

vast weight of that complex city world, even as these anemic millions were crushed by its complexity. And

Once and again, and again a third time, Graham heard the song of the revolt during his long, unpleasant

research in these places, and once he saw a confused struggle down a passage, and learnt that a number of

these serfs had seized their bread before their work was done. Graham was ascending towards the ways again

when he saw a number of blueclad children running down a transverse passage, and presently perceived the

reason of their panic in a company of the Labour Police armed with clubs, trotting towards some unknown

disturbance. And then came a remote disorder. But for the most part this remnant that worked, worked

hopelessly. All the spirit that was left in fallen humanity was above in the streets that night, calling for the

They emerged from these wanderings and stood blinking in the bright light of the middle passage of the

platforms again. They became aware of the remote hooting and yelping of the machines of one of the General

Intelligence Offices, and suddenly came men running, and along the platforms and about the ways

everywhere was a shouting and crying. Then a woman with a face of mute white terror, and another who

"What has happened now?" said Graham, puzzled, for he could not understand their thick speech. Then he

heard it in English and perceived that the thing that everyone was shouting, that men yelled to one another,

that women took up screaming, that was passing like the first breeze of a thunderstorm, chill and sudden

through the city, was this: "Ostrog has ordered the Black Police to London. The Black Police are coming

Asano's face was white and astonished; he hesitated, looked at Graham's face, and told him the thing he

Graham heard someone shouting. "Stop all work. Stop all work," and a swarthy hunchback, ridiculously gay

in green and gold, came leaping down the platforms toward him, bawling again and again in good English,

"This is Ostrog's doing, Ostrog, the Knave! The Master is betrayed." His voice was hoarse and a thin foam

dropped from his ugly shouting mouth. He yelled an unspeakable horror that the Black Police had done in

For a moment Graham stood still, for it had come upon him again that these things were a dream. He looked

up at the great cliff of buildings on either side, vanishing into blue haze at last above the lights, and down to

the roaring tiers of platforms, and the shouting, running people who were gesticulating past. "The Master is

Suddenly the situation shaped itself in his mind real and urgent. His heart began to beat fast and strong.

"You will lose time. They will doubt if it is you. But they will mass about the Council House. There you will

Asano shrugged his shoulders. "We had better get towards the Council House," he cried. "That is where they

They went up the stepped platforms to the swiftest one, and there Asano accosted a labourer. The answers to

"He knows little, but he told me that the Black Police would have arrived here before the people knewhad

" He said a girlhe did not know who she was. Who came out from the Council House crying aloud, and

And then another thing was shouted, something that turned an aimless tumult into determinate movements, it

came like a wind along the street. "To your Wards, to your Wards. Every man get arms. Every man to his

As Asano and Graham hurried along to the ruins about the Council House, they saw everywhere the

excitement of the people rising. "To your Wards To your Wards!" Everywhere men and women in blue were

hurrying from unknown subterranean employments, up the staircases of the middle path at one place

Graham saw an arsenal of the revolutionary committee besieged by a crowd of shouting men, at another a

couple of men in the hated yellow uniform of the Labour Police, pursued by a gathering crowd, fled

The cries of "To your Wards!" became at last a continuous shouting as they drew near the Government

quarter. Many of the shouts were unintelligible. "Ostrog has betrayed us," one man bawled in a hoarse voice,

again and again, dinning that refrain into Graham's ear until it haunted him. This person stayed close beside

Graham and Asano on the swift way, shouting to the people who swarmed on the lower platforms as he

rushed past them. His cry about Ostrog alternated with some incomprehensible orders Presently he went

Graham's mind was filled with the din. His plans were vague and unformed. He had one picture of some

commanding position from which he could address the multitudes, another of meeting Ostrog face to face. He

was full of rage, of tense muscular excitement, his hands gripped, his lips were pressed together.

The way to the Council House across the ruins was impassable, but Asano met that difficulty and took

Graham into the premises of the central postoffice. The postoffice 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,

They crossed to the Council House by a cable cradle. Already in the brief interval since the capitulation of the

Councillors a great change had been wrought in the appearance of the ruins. The spurting cascades of the

ruptured sea watermains had been captured and tamed, and huge temporary pipes ran overhead along a

flimsy looking fabric of girders. The sky was laced with restored cables and wires that served the Council

House, and a mass of new fabric with cranes and other building machines going to and fro upon it, projected

The moving ways that ran across this area had been restored, albeit for once running under the open sky.

These were the ways that Graham had seen from the little balcony in the hour of his awakening, not nine days

since, and the hall of his Trance had been on the further side, where now shapeless piles of smashed and

It was already high day and the sun was shining brightly. Out of their tall caverns of blue electric light came

the swift ways crowded with multitudes of people, who poured off them and gathered ever denser over the

wreckage and confusion of the ruins. The air was full of their shouting, and they were pressing and swaying

towards the central building. For the most part that shouting mass consisted of shapeless swarms, but here

and there Graham could see that a rude discipline struggled to establish itself. And every voice clamoured for

The cable carried them into a hall which Graham recognised as the antechamber 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.

" Then where is Ostrog? I must see Ostrog forthwith. He has disobeyed me. I have come back to take things

out of his hands." Without waiting for Asano, he went straight across the place, ascended the steps at the

further end, and, pulling the curtain aside, found himself facing the perpetually labouring Titan.

The hall was empty. Its appearance had changed very greatly since his first sight of it. It had suffered serious

injury in the violent struggle of the first outbreak. On the right hand side of the great figure the upper half of

the wall had been torn away for nearly two hundred feet of its length, and a sheet of the same glassy film that

had enclosed Graham at his awakening had been drawn across the gap. This deadened, but did not altogether

exclude the roar of the people outside. "Wards! Wards! Wards!" they seemed to be saying. Through it there

were visible the beams and supports of metal scaffoldings that rose and fell according to the requirements of

a great crowd of workmen. An idle building machine, with lank arms of red painted metal that caught the still

plastic blocks of mineral paste and swung them neatly into position, stretched gauntly across this green tinted

picture. On it were still a number of workmen staring at the crowd below. For a moment he stood regarding

"Ostrog," said Asano, "will be in the small offices beyond there." The little man looked livid now and his

They had scarcely advanced ten paces from the curtain before a little panel to the left of the Atlas rolled up,

and Ostrog, accompanied by Lincoln and followed by two black and yellow clad negroes, appeared crossing

the remote corner of the hall, towards a second panel that was raised and open. "Ostrog," shouted Graham,

Graham was the first to speak. His voice was loud and dictatorial. "What is this I hear?" he asked. "Are you

"It is none too soon," said Ostrog. "They have been getting out of hand more and more, since the revolt. I

"No wonder! Butafter what was said. You have taken too much on yourself, Ostrog." Ostrog said nothing,

"These negroes must not come to London," said Graham. "I am Master and they shall not come."

Ostrog glanced at Lincoln, who at once came towards them with his two attendants close behind him. "Why

"But that is not the question. I am the Master. I mean to be the Master. And I tell you these negroes shall not

"Because you are an anachronism. You are a man out of the Pastan accident. You are Owner perhaps of

half the property in the world. But you are not Master. You do not know enough to be Master."

He glanced at Lincoln again. "I know now what you thinkI can guess something of what you mean to do.

dream of human equalityof a socialistic order you have all those wornout dreams of the nineteenth

century fresh and vivid in your mind, and you would rule this age that you do not understand."

"Listen! " said Graham. "You can hear ita sound like the sea. Not voicesbut a voice. Do you altogether

" Perhaps. Can you teach them to forget it? But enough of this! These negroes must not come."

"No," said Ostrog. "Sorry as I am to follow the method of the Council. For your own good you must not

side with disorder. And now that you are here. It was kind of you to come here."

Lincoln laid his hand on Graham's shoulder. Abruptly Graham realized the enormity of his blunder in coming

to the Council House. He turned towards the curtains that separated the hall from the antechamber. The

clutching hand of Asano intervened. In another moment Lincoln had grasped Graham's cloak.

He turned and struck at Lincoln's face, and incontinently a negro had him by collar and arm. He wrenched

himself away, his sleeve tore noisily, and he stumbled back, to be tripped by the other attendant. Then he

struck the ground heavily and he was staring at the distant ceiling of the hall.

He shouted, rolled over, struggling fiercely, clutched an attendant's leg and threw him headlong, and

Lincoln appeared before him, went down heavily again with a blow under the point of the jaw and lay still.

Graham made two strides, stumbled. And then Ostrog's arm was round his neck, he was pulled over

backward, fell heavily, and his arms were pinned to the ground. After a few violent efforts he ceased to

"Youarea prisoner," panted Ostrog, exulting. "Youwere rather a foolto come back."

Graham turned his head about and perceived through the irregular green window in the walls of the hall the

men who had been working the building cranes gesticulating excitedly to the people below them. They had

Ostrog followed his eyes and started. He shouted something to Lincoln, but Lincoln did not move. A bullet

smashed among the mouldings above the Atlas The two sheets of transparent matter that had been stretched

across this gap were rent, the edges of the torn aperture darkened, curved, ran rapidly towards the framework,

and in a moment the Council chamber stood open to the air. A chilly gust blew in by the gap, bringing with it

a war of voices from the ruinous spaces without, an elvish babblement, "Save the Master!" "What are they

And then he realised that Ostrog's attention was distracted, that Ostrog's grip had relaxed, and, wrenching his

arms free, he struggled to his knees. In another moment he had thrust Ostrog back, and he was on one foot,

his hand gripping Ostrog's throat, and Ostrog's hands clutching the silk about his neck. But now men were

coming towards them from the daismen 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

He was lugged a dozen yards before he realised that they were not friendsthat they were dragging him

towards the open panel. When he saw this he pulled back, he tried to fling himself down, he shouted for help

The grip upon his neck relaxed, and behold! in the lower corner of the rent upon the wall, first one and then a

number of little black figures appeared shouting and waving arms. They came leaping down from the gap

into the light gallery that had led to the Silent Rooms. They ran along it, so near were they that Graham could

see the weapons in their hands, Then Ostrog was shouting in his ear to the men who held him, and once more

he was struggling with all his strength against their endeavours to thrust him towards the opening that

yawned to receive him. "They can't come down," panted Ostrog. "They daren't fire. It's all right." "We'll save

For long minutes as it seemed to Graham that inglorious struggle continued. His clothes were rent in a dozen

places, he was covered in dust, one hand had been trodden upon. He could hear the shouts of his supporters,

and once he heard shots. He could feel his strength giving way, feel his efforts wild and aimless. But no help

The pressure upon him relaxed and he struggled up. He saw Ostrog's grey head receding and perceived that

he was no longer held. He turned about and came full into a man in black. One of the green weapons cracked

close to him, a drift of pungent smoke came into his face, and a steel blade flashed. The huge chamber span

He saw a man in pale blue stabbing one of the black and yellow attendants not three yards from his face.

He was being pulled in two, directions now. It seemed as though people were shouting to him. He wanted to

understand and could not. Someone was clutching about his thighs, he was being hoisted in spite of his

vigorous efforts. He understood suddenly, he ceased to struggle. He was lifted up on men's shoulders and

He saw men in blue and black hurrying after the retreating Ostrogites and firing. Lifted up, he saw now

across the whole expanse of the hall beneath the Atlas image, saw that he was being carried towards the

raised platform in the centre of the place. The far end of the hall was already full of people running towards

He became aware that a sort of bodyguard surrounded him. Active men about him shouted vague orders. He

saw close at hand the black moustached man in yellow who had been among those who had greeted him in

the public theatre, shouting directions. The hall was already densely packed with swaying people, the little

metal gallery sagged with a shouting load, the curtains at the end had been torn away, and the antechamber

was revealed densely crowded. He could scarcely make the man near him hear for the tumult about them.

The man he questioned pointed over the heads towards the lower panels about the hall on the side opposite

the gap. They stood open and armed men, blue clad with black sashes, were running through them and

vanishing into the chambers and passages beyond. It seemed to Graham that a sound of firing drifted through

the riot. He was carried in a staggering curve across the great hall towards an opening beneath the gap.

He perceived men working with a sort of rude discipline to keep the crowd off him, to make a space clear

about him. He passed out of the hall, and saw a crude, new wall rising blankly before him topped by blue sky.

He was swung down to his feet; someone gripped his arm and guided him. He found the man in yellow close

at hand. They were taking him up a narrow stairway of brick, and close at hand rose the great red painted

masses, the cranes and levers and the still engines of the big building machine.

He was at the top of the steps. He was hurried across a narrow railed footway, and suddenly with a vast

shouting the amphitheatre of ruins opened again before him. "The Master is with us! The Master! The

Master!" The shout swept athwart the lake of faces like a wave, broke against the distant cliff of ruins, and

Graham perceived that he was no longer encompassed by people, that he was standing upon a little temporary

platform of white metal, part of a flimsy seeming scaffolding that laced about the great mass of the Council

House. Over all the huge expanse of the ruins, swayed and eddied the shouting people; and here and there the

black banners of the revolutionary societies ducked and swayed and formed rare nuclei of organisation in the

chaos. Up the steep stairs of wall and scaffolding by which his rescuers had reached the opening in the Atlas

Chamber, clung a solid crowd, and little energetic black figures clinging to pillars and projections were

strenuous to induce these congested masses to stir. Behind him, at a higher point on the scaffolding, a number

of men struggled upwards with the flapping folds of a huge black standard. Through the yawning gap in the

walls below him he could look down upon the packed attentive multitudes in the Hall of the Atlas. The

distant flying stages to the south came out bright and vivid, brought nearer as it seemed by an unusual

translucency of the air. A solitary aeropile beat up from the central stage as if to meet the coming aeroplanes.

"What had become of Ostrog?" asked Graham, and even as he spoke he saw that all eyes were turned from

him towards the crest of the Council House building. He looked also in this direction of universal attention.

For a moment he saw nothing but the jagged corner of a wall, hard and clear against the sky. Then in the

shadow he perceived the interior of a room and recognised with a start the green and white decorations of his

former prison. And coming quickly across this opened room and up to the very verge of the cliff of the ruins

came a little white clad figure followed by two other smaller seeming figures in black and yellow. He heard

the man beside him exclaim "Ostrog," and turned to ask a question. But he never did, because of the startled

exclamation of another of those who were with him and a lank finger suddenly pointing. He looked, and

behold the aeropile that had been rising from the flying stage when last he had looked in that direction, was

driving towards them. The swift steady flight was still novel enough to hold his attention.

Nearer it came, growing rapidly larger and larger, until it had swept over the further edge of the ruins and into

view of the dense multitudes below. It drooped across the space and rose and passed overhead, rising to clear

the mass of the Council House, a filmy translucent shape with the solitary aeronaut peering down through its

Graham transferred his attention to Ostrog. He was signalling with his hands, and his attendants busy

breaking down the wall beside him. In another moment the aeropile came into view again, a little thing far

Then suddenly the man in yellow shouted: "What are they doing? What are the people doing? Why is Ostrog

left there? Why is he not captured? They will lift himthe aeropile will lift him! Ah!"

The exclamation was echoed by a shout from the ruins. The rattling sound of the green weapons drifted

across the intervening gulf to Graham, and, looking down, he saw a number of black and yellow uniforms

running along one of the galleries that lay open to the air below the promontory upon which Ostrog stood.

They fired as they ran at men unseen, and then emerged a number of pale blue figures in pursuit. These

minute fighting figures had the oddest effect; they seemed as they ran like little model soldiers in a toy. This

queer appearance of a house cut open gave that struggle amidst furniture and passages a quality of unreality.

It was perhaps two hundred yards away from him, and very nearly fifty above the heads in the ruins below.

The black and yellow men ran into an open archway, and turned and fired a volley. One of the blue pursuers

striding forward close to the edge, flung up his arms, staggered sideways, seemed to Graham's sense to hang

over the edge for several seconds, and fell headlong down. Graham saw him strike a projecting corner, fly

out, head over heels, head over heels, and vanish behind the red arm of the building machine.

And then a shadow came between Graham and the sun. He looked up and the sky was clear, but he knew the

aeropile had passed. Ostrog had vanished. The man in yellow thrust before him, zealous and perspiring,

"They are grounding!" cried the man in yellow. "They are grounding. Tell the people to fire at him. Tell them

Graham could not understand. He heard loud voices repeating these enigmatical orders.

Suddenly over the edge of the ruins he saw the prow of the aeropile come gliding and stop with a jerk. In a

moment Graham understood that the thing had grounded in order that Ostrog might escape by it. He saw a

blue haze climbing out of the gulf, perceived that the people below him were now firing up at the projecting

A man beside him cheered hoarsely, and he saw that the blue rebels had gained the archway that had been

contested by the men in black and yellow a moment before, and were running in a continual stream along the

And suddenly the aeropile slipped over the edge of the Council House and fell. It dropped, tilting at an angle

of fortyfive degrees, and dropping so steeply that it seemed to Graham, it seemed perhaps to most of these

It fell so closely past him that he could see Ostrog clutching the guides of the seat, with his grey hair

streaming; see the whitefaced aeronaut wrenching over the lever that drove the engine along its guides. He

Graham clutched the railing before him and gasped. The second seemed an age. The lower van of the aeropile

passed within an ace of touching the people, who yelled and screamed and trampled one another below.

For a moment it looked as if it could not possibly clear the opposite cliff, and then that it could not possibly

And behold! it was clear and soaring, still heeling sideways, upward, upward into the windswept sky.

The suspense of the moment gave place to a fury of exasperation as the swarming people realised that Ostrog

had escaped them. With belated activity they renewed their fire, until the rattling wove into a roar, until the

whole area became dim and blue and the air pungent with the thin smoke of their weapons.

Too late! The aeropile dwindled smaller and smaller, and curved about and swept gracefully downward to the

For a while a confused babblement arose from the ruins, and then the universal attention came back to

Graham, perched high among the scaffolding. He saw the faces of the people turned towards him, heard their

shouts at his rescue. From the throat of the ways came the song of the revolt spreading like a breeze across

The little group of men about him shouted congratulations on his escape. The man in yellow was close to

him, with a set face and shining eyes. And the song was rising, louder and louder; tramp, tramp, tramp,

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 therethe antagonist. There was no one to rule for him any longer. Even the people about him, the

leaders and organisers of the multitude, looked to see what he would do, looked to him to act, awaited his

He was very intent to do the thing that was expected of him. His nerves and muscles were quivering, his mind

was perhaps a little confused, but he felt neither fear nor anger. His hand that had been trodden upon throbbed

and was hot. He was a little nervous about his bearing. He knew he was not afraid, but he was anxious not to

seem afraid. In his former life he had often been more excited in playing games of skill. He was desirous of

immediate action, he knew he must not think too much in detail of the huge complexity of the struggle about

him lest he should be paralysed by the sense of its intricacy. Over there those square blue shapes, the flying

For a time the Master of the Earth was not even master of his own mind. Even his will seemed a will not his

own, his own acts surprised him and were but a part of the confusion of strange experiences that poured

across his being. These things were definite, the aeroplanes were coming, Helen Wotton had warned the

people of their coming, and he was Master of the Earth. Each of these facts seemed struggling for complete

possession of his thoughts. They protruded from a background of swarming halls, elevated passages, rooms

jammed with ward leaders in council kinematograph and telephone rooms, and windows looking out on a

seething sea of marching men. The man in yellow, and men whom he fancied were called Ward Leaders,

were either propelling him forward or following him obediently; it was hard to tell. Perhaps they were doing

a little of both. Perhaps some power unseen and unsuspected, propelled them all. He was aware that he was

going to make a proclamation to the People of the Earth, aware of certain grandiose phrases floating in his

mind as the thing he meant to say. Many little things happened, and then he found himself with the man in

This room was grotesquely latterday in its appointments. In the centre was a bright oval lit by shaded

electric lights from above. The rest was in shadow, and the double finely fitting doors through which he came

from the swarming Hall of the Atlas made the place very still. The dead thud of these as they closed behind

him, the sudden cessation of the tumult in which he had been living for hours, the quivering circle of light,

the whispers and quick noiseless movements of vaguely visible attendants in the shadows, had a strange

effect upon Graham. The huge ears of a phonographic mechanism gaped in a battery for his words, the black

eyes of great photographic cameras awaited his beginning, beyond metal rods and coils glittered dimly, and

something whirled about with a droning hum. He walked into the centre of the light, and his shadow drew

The vague shape of the thing he meant to say was already in his mind. But this silence, this isolation, the

sudden withdrawal from that contagious crowd, this silent audience of gaping, glaring machines had not been

in his anticipation. All his supports seemed withdrawn together; he seemed to have dropped into this

suddenly, suddenly to have discovered himself. In a moment he was changed. He found that he now feared to

be inadequate, he feared to be theatrical, he feared the quality of his voice, the quality of his wit, astonished,

he turned to the man in yellow with a propitiatory gesture. "For a moment," he said, "I must wait. I did not

While he was still hesitating there came an agitated messenger with news that the foremost aeroplanes were

"Arawan?" he said." Where is that? But anyhow, they are coming. They will be here. When?"

"I suppose it must be a sort of speech. Would to God I knew certainly the thing that should be said!

Aeroplanes at Arawan! They must have started before the main fleet. And the people only ready! Surely . . ."

"Oh! what does it matter whether I speak well or ill?" he said, and felt the light grow brighter.

He had framed some vague sentence of democratic sentiment when suddenly doubts overwhelmed him. His

belief in his heroic quality and calling he found had altogether lost its assured conviction. The picture of a

little strutting futility in a windy waste of incomprehensible destinies replaced it. Abruptly it was perfectly

clear to him that this revolt against Ostrog was premature, foredoomed to failure, the impulse of passionate

inadequacy against inevitable things. He thought of that swift flight of aeroplanes like the swoop of Fate

towards him. He was astonished that he could have seen things in any other light. In that final emergency he

debated, thrust debate resolutely aside, determined at all costs to go through with the thing he had undertaken.

And he could find no word to begin. Even as he stood, awkward, hesitating, with an indiscrete apology for his

inability trembling on his lips, came the noise of many people crying out, the running to and fro of feet.

"Wait," cried someone, and a door opened. "She is coming," said the voices. Graham turned, and the

Through the open doorway he saw a slight grey figure advancing across a spacious hall. His heart leapt. It

was Helen Wotton. Behind and about her marched a riot of applause. The man in yellow came out of the

Her face was aflame, and the heavy coils of her black hair fell about her shoulders. The folds of the soft silk

robe she wore streamed from her and floated in the rhythm of her advance. She drew nearer and nearer, and

his heart was beating fast. All his doubts were gone. The shadow of the doorway fell athwart her face and she

"At the office of the southwest wards. Until ten minutes since I did not know you had returned. I went to the

office of the southwest wards to find the Ward Leaders in order that they might tell the people."

"I knew," she cried, " knew you would be with us. And it was Iit was I that told them. They have risen. All

the world is rising. The people have awakened. Thank God that I did not act in vain! You are Master still."

"You told them " he said slowly, and he saw that in spite of her steady eyes her lips trembled and her throat

"I told them. I knew of the order. I was here. I heard that the negroes were to come to London to guard you

and to keep the people downto keep you a prisoner. And I stopped it. I came out and told the people. And

Graham glanced at the black lenses of the cameras, the vast listening ears, and back to her face. "I am Master

still," he said slowly, and the swift rush of a fleet of aeroplanes passed across his thoughts.

"For you," she cried. "For you! That you for whom the world has waited should not be cheated of your

Graham stood for a space, wordless, regarding her. His doubts and questionings had fled before her presence.

He remembered the things that he had meant to say. He faced the cameras again and the light about him grew

"You have saved me," he said; "you have saved my power. And the battle is beginning. God knows. what this

He paused. He addressed himself to the unseen multitudes who stared upon him through those grotesque

black eyes. At first he spoke slowly. "Men and women of the new age," he said; "You have arisen to do battle

He stopped to gather words. The thoughts that had been in his mind before she came returned, but

transfigured, no longer touched with the shadow of a possible irrelevance. "This night is a beginning," he

cried. "This battle that is coming, this battle that rushes upon us tonight, is only a beginning. All your lives,

it may be, you must fight. Take no thought though I am beaten, though I am utterly overthrown."

He found the thing in his mind too vague for words. He paused momentarily, and broke into vague

exhortations, and then a rush of speech came upon him. Much that he said was but the humanitarian

commonplace of a vanished age, but the conviction of his voice touched it to vitality. He stated the case of

the old days to the people of the new age, to the woman 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 dreamsof beginnings, an age of noble

hopes; throughout the world we had made an end of slavery; throughout the world we had spread the desire

and anticipation that wars might cease, that all men and women might live nobly, in freedom and peace. . . .

So we hoped in the days that are past. And what of those hopes? How is it with man after two hundred years?

"Great cities, vast powers, a collective greatness beyond our dreams. For that we did not work, and that has

come. But how is it with the little lives that make up this greater life? How is it with the common lives? As it

has ever beensorrow 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

Things that he had long wished to believe, he found that he believed. He plunged at belief and seized it, and

clung for a time at her level. He spoke gustily, in broken incomplete sentences, but with all his heart and

strength, of this new faith within him. He spoke of the greatness of selfabnegation, 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 their hurried applause, dim attendants watched him out of the shadow.

Through all those doubtful places his sense of that silent spectator beside him sustained his sincerity. For a

few glorious moments he was carried away; he felt no doubt of his heroic quality, no doubt of his heroic

words, he had it all straight and plain. His eloquence limped no longer. And at last he made an end to

speaking. "Here and now," he cried, "I make my will. All that is mine in the world I give to the people of the

world. All that is mine in the world I give to the people of the world. I give it to you, and myself I give to

He ended with a florid gesture and turned about. 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. They seemed to be urged

towards each other. They clasped hands and stood gripped, facing one another, in an eloquent silence. She

whispered. "I knew," she whispered. "I knew." He could not speak, he crushed her hand in his. His mind was

The man in yellow was beside them. Neither had noted his coming. He was saying that the southwest wards

were marching. "I never expected it so soon," he cried. "They have done wonders. You must send them a

Graham dropped Helen's hand and stared at him absentmindedly. Then with a start he returned to his

"Yes," he said. "That is good, that is good." He weighed a message. "Tell them;well done South West."

He turned his eyes to Helen Wotton again. His face expressed his struggle between conflicting ideas. "We

must capture the flying stages," he explained. "Unless we can do that they will land negroes. At all costs we

He felt even as he spoke that this was not what had been in his mind before the interruption. He saw a touch

of surprise in her eyes. She seemed about to speak and a shrill bell drowned her voice.

It occurred to Graham that she expected him to lead these marching people, that that was the thing he had to

do. He made the offer abruptly. He addressed the man in yellow, but he spoke to her. He saw her face

He explained elaborately. He motioned towards the room where Graham must wait, he insisted no other

course was possible. "We must know where you are," he said. "At any moment a crisis may arise needing

your presence and decision. "The room was a luxurious little apartment with news machines and a broken

mirror that had once been en __rapport__ with the crow's nest specula. It seemed a matter of course to

A picture had drifted through his mind of such a vast dramatic struggle as the masses in the ruins had

suggested. But here was no spectacular battlefield such as he imagined. Instead was seclusionand

suspense. It was only as the afternoon wore on that he pieced together a truer picture of the fight that was

raging, inaudibly and invisibly, within four miles of him, beneath the Roehampton stage. A strange and

unprecedented contest it was, a battle that was a hundred thousand little battles, a battle in a sponge of ways

and channels, fought out of sight of sky or sun under the electric glare, fought out in a vast confusion by

multitudes untrained in arms, led chiefly by acclamation, multitudes dulled by mindless labour and enervated

by the tradition of two hundred years of servile security against multitudes demolised by lives of venial

privilege and sensual indulgence. They had no artillery, no differentiation into this force or that; the only

weapon on either side was the little green metal carbine, whose secret manufacture and sudden distribution in

enormous quantities had been one of Ostrog's culminating moves against the Council. Few had had any

experience with this weapon, many had never discharged one, many who carried it came unprovided with

ammunition; never was wilder firing in the history of warfare. It was a battle of amateurs, a hideous

experimental warfare, armed rioters fighting armed rioters, armed rioters swept forward by the words and

fury of a song, by the tramping sympathy of their numbers, pouring in countless myriads towards the smaller

ways, the disabled lifts, the galleries slippery with blood, the halls and passages choked with smoke, beneath

the flying stages, to learn there when retreat was hopeless the ancient mysteries of warfare. And overhead

save for a few sharpshooters upon the roof spaces and for a few bands and threads of vapour that multiplied

and darkened towards the evening, the day was a clear serenity. Ostrog it seems had no bombs at command

and in all the earlier phases of the battle the aeropiles 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

Ever and again there was news of these, drawing nearer, from this Mediterranean port and then that, and

presently from the south of France. But of the new guns that Ostrog had made and which were known to be in

the city came no news in spite of Graham's urgency, nor any report of successes from the dense felt of

fighting strands about the flying stages. Section after section of the Labour Societies reported itself

assembled, reported itself marching, and vanished from knowledge into the labyrinth of that warfare What

was happening there? Even the busy ward leaders did not know. In spite of the opening and closing of doors,

the hasty messengers, the ringing of bells and the perpetual clitterclack of recording implements, Graham

Their isolation seemed at times the strangest, the most unexpected of all the things that had happened since

his awakening. It had something of the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the

stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself, and then this confined quiet little

Now the door would be closed and they were alone together; they seemed sharply marked off then from all

the unprecedented world storm that rushed together without, vividly aware of one another, only concerned

with one another. Then the door would open again, messengers would enter, or a sharp bell would stab their

quiet privacy, and it was like a window in a well built brightly lit house flung open suddenly to a hurricane.

The dark hurry and tumult, the stress and vehemence of the battle rushed in and overwhelmed them. They

were no longer persons but mere spectators, mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion. They became

unreal even to themselves, miniatures of personality, indescribably small, and the two antagonistic realities,

the only realities in being were first the city, that throbbed and roared yonder in a belated frenzy of defence

and secondly the aeroplanes hurling inexorably towards them over the round shoulder of the world.

At first their mood had been one of exalted confidence, a great pride had possessed them, a pride in one

another for the greatness of the issues they had challenged. At first he had walked the room eloquent with a

transitory persuasion of his tremendous destiny. But slowly uneasy intimations of their coming defeat

touched his spirit. There came a long period in which they were alone. He changed his theme, became

egotistical, spoke of the wonder of his sleep, of the little life of his memories, remote yet minute and clear,

like something seen through an inverted opera glass, and all the brief play of desires and errors that had

made his former life. She said little, but the emotion in her face followed the tones in his voice, and it seemed

to him he had at last a perfect understanding. He reverted from pure reminiscence to that sense of greatness

she imposed upon him. "And through it all, this destiny was before me," he said; "this vast inheritance of

Insensibly their heroic preoccupation with the revlutionary struggle passed to the question of their

relationship. He began to question her. She told him of the days before his awakening, spoke with a brief

vividness of the girlish dreams that had given a bias to her life, of the incredulous emotions his awakening

had aroused. She told him too of a tragic circumstance of her girlhood that had darkened her life, quickened

her sense of injustice and opened her heart prematurely to the wider sorrows of the world. For a little time, so

far as he was concerned, the great war about them was but the vast ennobling background to these personal

In an instant these personal relations were submerged. There came messengers to tell that a great fleet of

aeroplanes was rushing between the sky and Avignon. He went to the crystal dial in the corner and assured

himself that the thing was so. He went to the chart room and consulted a map to measure the distances of

Avignon, New Arawan, and London. He made swift calculations. He went to the room of the Ward Leaders

to ask for news of the fight for the stagesand there was no one there. After a time he came back to her.

His face had changed. It had dawned upon him that the struggle was perhaps more than half over, that Ostrog

was holding his own, that the arrival of the aeroplanes would mean a panic that might leave him helpless. A

chance phrase in the message had given him a glimpse of the reality that came. Each of these soaring giants

bore its thousand half savage negroes to the death grapple of the city. Suddenly his humanitarian enthusiasm

showed flimsy. Only two of the Ward Leaders were in their room, when presently he repaired thither, the

Hall of the Atlas seemed empty. He fancied a change in the bearing of the attendants in the outer rooms. A

sombre disillusionment darkened his mind. She looked at him anxiously when he returned to her.

Then he was moved to frankness. "Or rather bad news. We are losing. We are gaining no ground and the

"Unless we can capture those flying stages in the next hourthere will be horrible things. We shall be

"Ostrog has disciplinehe has plans. Do you know, out there just now I felt. When I heard that these

aeroplanes were a stage nearer. I felt as if I were fighting the machinery of fate."

He looked at her doubtfully. "We have done what we could. But does this depend upon us? Is it not an older

"These blacks are savages, ruled by force, used as force. And they have been under the rule of the whites two

Without came the shrill ringing of a bell, the sound of feet and the gabble of a phonographic message. The

"Where are the attendants who were in the great Hall of the Atlas? " asked Graham abruptly.

Presently the Babble Machine rang again. "We may win yet," said the man in yellow, going out to it. "If only

we can find where Ostrog has hidden his guns. Everything hangs on that now. Perhaps this"

Graham followed him. But the only news was of the aeroplanes. They had reached Orleans.

He paced impatiently. Suddenly the swift anger that was his nature swept upon him. "Curse this complex

world!" he cried, "and all the inventions of men! That a man must die like a rat in a snare and never see his

He turned with an abrupt change in his manner. "That's nonsense," he said. "I am a savage."

He paced and stopped. "After all London and Paris are only two cities. All the temperate zone has risen. What

if London is doomed and Paris destroyed? These are but accidents. "Again came the mockery of news to call

"The end must be near," he said. "The people it seems have fought and died in tens of thousands, the ways

about Roehampton must be like a smoked beehive. And they have died in vain. They are still only at the sub

stage. The aeroplanes are near Paris. Even were a gleam of success to come now, there would be nothing to

do, there would be no time to do anything before they were upon us. The guns that might have saved us are

mislaid. Mislaid! Think of the disorder of things! Think of this foolish tumult, that cannot even find its

weapons! Oh, for one aeropilejust one! For the want of that I am beaten. Humanity is beaten and our cause

is lost! My kingship, my headlong foolish kingship will not last a night. And I have egged on the people to

"No," she cried," not that. If defeat comesif you die. But even that cannot be, it cannot be, after all these

"If they defeat you," she cried, "you have spoken. Your word has gone like a great wind through the world,

fanning liberty into a flame. What if the flame sputters a little! Nothing can change the spoken word. Your

"To what end? It may be. It may be. You know I said, when you told me of these things dear God! but that

was scarcely a score of hours ago!I said that I had not your faith. Wellat any rate there is nothing to do

"No," he said hurriedly, "no! Before Godno!" His voice changed. "But. I thinkI have been indiscreet.

He paused. He was ashamed of this avowal. "There is one thing that makes up for all. I have known you.

Across this gulf of time I have come to you. The rest is done. It is done. With you, too, it has been something

He paused with his face searching hers, and without clamoured the unheeded message that the aeroplanes

She put her hand to her throat, and her lips were . white. She stared before her as if she saw some horrible

possibility. Suddenly her features changed. "Oh, but I have been honest!" she cried, and then, "Have I been

honest? I loved the world and freedom, I hated cruelty and oppression. Surely it was that."

"Yes," he said, "yes. And we have done what it lay in us to do. We have given our message, our message! We

have started Armageddon! But now. Now that we have, it may be our last hour, together, now that all these

For a moment they heeded nothing of a sudden stir outside, a running to and fro, and cries. Then Helen

started to an attitude of tense attention. "It is," she cried and stood up, speechless, incredulous, triumphant.

And Graham, too, heard. Metallic voices were shouting "Victory!" Yes it was "Victory!" He stood up also

Bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled and dishevelled with excitement.

"Victory," he cried, "victory! The people are winning. Ostrog's people have collapsed."

"We have driven them out of the under galleries at Norwood, Streatham is afire and burning wildly, and

For an instant Graham and Helen stood in silence, their hearts were beating fast, they looked at one another.

For one last moment there gleamed in Graham his dream of empire, of kingship, with Helen by his side. It

A shrill bell rang. An agitated greyheaded man appeared from the room of the Ward Leaders." It is all

"What matters it now that we have Roehampton? The aeroplanes have been sighted at Boulogne!"

"Nothing can stop them now," said the old man. they have near a hundred aeroplanes in the first fleet."

"To be so near!" said the Ward Leader. "Now that we have found those guns. To be so near. If once we

He had suddenly perceived a possibility. He tried to speak calmly, but his face was white. "There is one

"No. It is Iying crossways to the carrier. It might be got upon the guideseasily. But there is no

Graham glanced at the two men and then at Helen. He spoke after a long pause. "We have no aeronauts? "

"The aeroplanes are clumsy," he said thoughtfully, "compared with the aeropiles."

"I am an aeronaut. After all. Those days for which you reproached me were wasted."

"To fightyes. To fight in the air. I have thought before. An aeroplane is a clumsy thing. A resolute

"There has been no need. But now the time has come. Tell them nowsend them my messageto put it

Helen made a step towards Graham. Her face was white." ButHow can one fight? You will be killed."

He stopped, he could speak no more, he swept the alternative aside by a gesture, and they stood looking at

"You are right," she said at last in a low tone. "You are right. If it can be done. . . must go."

He moved a step towards her, and she stepped back, her white face struggled against him and resisted him.

He extended his hands stupidly. She clenched her fists. "Go now," she cried. "Go now."

He hesitated and understood. He threw his hands up in a queer halftheatrical gesture. He had no word to say.

The man in yellow moved towards the door with clumsy belated tact. But Graham stepped past him. He went

striding through the room where the Ward Leader bawled at a telephone directing that the aeropile should be

The man in yellow glanced at Helen's still figure, hesitated and hurried after him. Graham did not once look

back, he did not speak until the curtain of the antechamber of the great hall fell behind him. Then he turned

Two men in pale blue were Iying in the irregular line that stretched along the edge of the captured

Roehampton stage from end to end, grasping their carbines and peering into the shadows of the stage called

Wimbledon Park. Now and then they spoke to one another. They spoke the mutilated English of their class

and period. The fire of the Ostrogites had dwindled and ceased, and few of the enemy had been seen for some

time. But the echoes of the fight that was going on now far below in the lower galleries of that stage, came

every now and then between the staccato of shots from the popular side. One of these men was describing to

the other how he had seen a man down below there dodge behind a girder, and had aimed at a guess and hit

him cleanly as he dodged too far "He's down there still," said the marksman. "See that little patch. Yes.

Between those bars." A few yards behind them lay a dead stranger, face upward to the sky, with the blue

canvas of his jacket smoldering in a circle about the neat bullet hole on his chest. Close beside him a

wounded man, with a leg swathed about, sat with an expressionless face and watched the progress of that

The marksman became foulmouthed and high voiced in his earnest endeavour to make things plain And

"What's going on now," he said, and raised himself on one arm to stare at the stairheads in the central groove

of the stage. A number of blue figures were coming up these, and swarming across the stage to the aeropile.

"We don't want all these fools," said his friend. "They only crowd up and spoil shots. What are they after? "

The two men listened. The swarming newcomers had crowded densely about the aeropile. Three Ward

Leaders, conspicuous by their black mantles and badges, clambered into the body and appeared above it. The

rank and file flung themselves upon the vans, gripping hold of the edges, until the entire outline of the thing

was manned, in some places three deep. One of the marksmen knelt up. "They're putting it on the

He rose to his feet, his friend rose also. "What's the good? " said his friend. "We've got no aeronauts."

"That's what they're doing anyhow." He looked at his rifle, looked at the struggling crowd, and suddenly

turning to the wounded man. "Mind these, mate," he said, handing his carbine and cartridge belt; and in a

moment he was running towards the aeropile. For a quarter of an hour he was a perspiring Titan, lugging,

thrusting, shouting and heeding shouts, and then the thing was done, and he stood with a multitude of others

cheering their own achievement. By this time he knew, what indeed everyone in the city knew, that the

Master, raw learner though he was, intended to fly this machine himself, was coming even now to take

control of it, would let no other man attempt it. "He who takes the greatest danger, he who bears the heaviest

burden, that man is King," so the Master was reported to have spoken. And even as this man cheered, and

while the beads of sweat still chased one another from the disorder of his hair, he heard the thunder of a

greater tumult, and in fitful snatches the beat and impulse of the revolutionary song. He saw through a gap in

the people that a thick stream of heads still poured up the stairway. "The Master is coming," shouted voices,

"the Master is coming," and the crowd about him grew denser and denser. He began to thrust himself towards

the central groove. "The Master is coming!" "The Sleeper, the Master!" "God and the Master!" roared the

And suddenly quite close to him were the black uniforms o f 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, with a white,

resolute face and eyes fixed steadfastly before him; a man who for all the little things about him held neither

ears nor eyes nor thoughts. . . . For all his days that man remembered the passing of Graham's bloodless face.

In a moment it had gone and he was fighting in the swaying crowd. A lad weeping with terror thrust against

him, pressing towards the stairways, yelling "Clear for the aeropile!" The bell that clears the flying stage

With that clanging in his ears Graham drew near the aeropile, marched into the shadow of its tilting wing. He

became aware that a number of people about him were offering to accompany him, and waved their offers

aside. He wanted to think how one started the engine. The bell clanged faster and faster, and the feet of the

retreating people roared faster and louder. The man in yellow was assisting him to mount through the ribs of

the body. He clambered into the aeronaut's place, fixing himself very carefully and deliberately. What was it?

The man in yellow was pointing to two aeropiles driving upward in the southern sky. No doubt they were

looking for the coming aeroplanes. Thatpresentlythe thing to do now was to start. Things were being

shouted at him, questions, warnings. They bothered him. He wanted to think about the aeropile, to recall

every item of his previous experience. He waved the people from him, saw the man in yellow dropping off

through the ribs, saw the crowd cleft down the line of the girders by his gesture.

For a moment he was motionless, staring at the levers, the wheel by which the engine shifted, and all the

delicate appliances of which he knew so little. His eye caught a spirit level with the bubble towards him, and

he remembered something, spent a dozen seconds in swinging the engine forward until the bubble floated in

the centre of the tube. He noted that the people were not shouting, knew they watched his deliberation. A

bullet smashed on the bar above his head. Who fired? Was the line clear of people? He stood up to see and sat

In another second the propeller was spinning, and he was rushing down the guides. He gripped the wheel and

swung the engine back to lift the stem. Then it was the people shouted. In a moment he was throbbing with

the quiver of the engine, and the shouts dwindled swiftly behind, rushed down to silence. The wind whistled

Throb, throb, throbthrob, 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 aeropiles 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 windscreen shielding him

Throb, throb, throbpausethrob, throb he set his teeth, his face into an involuntary grimace, and crash!

Very slowly the wing of his antagonist seemed to broaden as the impetus of his blow turned it up. He saw the

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

Iying on his back. The machine was reeling and staggering, it seemed to be dancing on its screw. He made a

huge effort, hung for a moment on the levers, and slowly the engine came forward again. He was driving

upward but no longer so steeply. He gasped for a moment and flung himself at the levers again. The wind

whistled about him. One further effort and he was almost level. He could breathe. He turned his head for the

first time to see what had become of his antagonists. Turned back to the levers for a moment and looked

again. For a moment he could have believed they were annihilated. And then he saw between the two stages

to the east was a chasm, and down this something, a slender edge, fell swiftly and vanished, as a sixpence

At first he did not understand, and then a wild joy possessed him. He shouted at the top of his voice, an

inarticulate shout, and drove higher and higher up the sky. Throb, throb, throb, pause, throb, throb, throb.

"Where was the other aeropile?" he thought. "They too." As he looked round the empty heavens he had a

momentary fear that this machine had risen above him, and then he saw it alighting on the Norwood stage.

They had meant shooting. To risk being rammed headlong two thousand feet in the air was beyond their

For a little while he circled, then swooped in a steep descent towards the westward stage. Throb throb throb,

throb throb throb. The twilight was creeping on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had been so

dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves of the moving ways and the translucent roofs

and domes and the chasms between the buildings were glowing softly now, lit by the tempered radiance of

the electric light that the glare of the way overpowered. The three efficient stages that the Ostrogites

heldfor Wimbledon Park was useless because of the fire from Roehampton, and Streatham was a

furnacewere glowing with guide lights for the coming aeroplanes. As he swept over the Roehampton stage

he saw the dark masses of the people thereon. He heard a clap of frantic cheering, heard a bullet from the

Wimbledon Park stage tweet through the air, and went beating up above the Surrey wastes. He felt a breath of

wind from the southwest, and lifted his westward wing as he had learnt to do, and so drove upward heeling

Up he drove and up, to that pulsating rhythm, until the country beneath was blue and indistinct, and London

spread like a little map traced in light, like the mere model of a city near the brim of the horizon. The

southwest was a sky of sapphire over the shadowy rim of the world, and ever as he drove upward the

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 nebulous glow of swiftly driving shapes. Presently he could count them.

There were four and twenty. The first fleet of aeroplanes had come! Beyond appeared a yet greater glow.

He swept round in a half circle, staring at this advancing fleet. It flew in a wedgelike shape, a triangular

flight of gigantic phosphorescent shapes sweeping nearer through the lower air. He made a swift calculation

of their pace, and spun the little wheel that brought the engine forward. He touched a lever and the throbbing

effort of the engine ceased. He began to fall, fell swifter and swifter. He aimed at the apex of the wedge. He

dropped like a stone through the whistling air. It seemed scarce a second from that soaring moment before he

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 airsickness, were

craning their black necks and staring to see the filmy city that was rising out of the haze, the rich and splendid

city to which "Massa Boss" had brought their obedient muscles. Bright teeth gleamed and the glossy faces

shone. They had heard of Paris. They knew they were to have lordly times among the "poor white" trash. And

He had aimed at the body of the aeroplane, but at the very last instant a better idea had flashed into his mind.

He twisted about and struck near the edge of the starboard wing with all his accumulated weight. He was

jerked back as he struck. His prow went gliding across its smooth expanse towards the rim. He felt the

forward rush of the huge fabric sweeping him and his aeropile along with it, and for a moment that seemed an

age he could not tell what was happening. He heard a thousand throats yelling, and perceived that his

machine was balanced on the edge of the gigantic float, and driving down, down; glanced over his shoulder

and saw the backbone of the aeroplane and the opposite float swaying up. He had a vision through the ribs of

sliding chairs, staring faces, and hands clutching at the tilting guide bars. The fenestrations in the further float

flashed open as the aeronaut tried to right her. Beyond, he saw a second aeroplane leaping steeply to escape

the whirl of its heeling fellow. The broad area of swaying wings seemed to jerk upward. He felt his aeropile

had dropped clear, that the monstrous fabric, clean overturned, hung like a sloping wall above him.

He did not clearly understand that he had struck the side float of the aeroplane and slipped off, but he

perceived that he was flying free on the down glide and rapidly nearing earth. What had he done? His heart

throbbed like a noisy engine in his throat and for a perilous instant he could not move his levers because of

the paralysis of his hands. He wrenched the levers to throw his engine back, fought for two seconds against

the weight of it, felt himself righting driving horizontally, set the engine beating again.

He looked upward and saw two aeroplanes glide shouting far overhead, looked back, and saw the main body

of the fleet opening out and rushing upward and . . outward; saw the one he had struck fall edgewise on and

He put down his stern and looked again. He drove up heedless of his direction as he watched. He saw the

windvanes give, saw the huge fabric strike the earth, saw its downward vans crumple with the weight of its

descent, and then the whole mass turned over and smashed, upside down, upon the sloping wheels. Throb,

throb, throb, pause. Suddenly from the heaving wreckage a thin tongue of white fire licked up towards the

zenith. And then he was aware of a huge mass flying through the air towards him, and turned upwards just in

time to escape the chargeif it was a chargeof a second aeroplane. It whirled by below, sucked him down

He became aware of three others rushing towards him, aware of the urgent necessity of beating above them.

Aeroplanes were all about him, circling wildly to avoid him, as it seemed. They drove past him, above,

below, eastward and westward. Far away to the westward was the sound of a collision, and two falling flares.

Far away to the southward a second squadron was coming. Steadily he beat upward. Presently all the

aeroplanes were below him, but for a moment he doubted the height he had of them, and did not swoop again.

And then he came down upon a second victim and all its load of soldiers saw him coming. The big machine

heeled and swayed as the fear maddened men scrambled to the stern for their weapons. A score of bullets

sung through the air, and there flashed a star in the thick glass windscreen that protected him. The aeroplane

slowed and dropped to foil his stroke, and dropped too low. Just in time he saw the windwheels 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

"__Two!__" he cried, with a bomb from overhead bursting as it fell, and forthwith he was beating up again.

A glorious exhilaration possessed him now, a giant activity. His troubles about humanity, about his

inadaquacy, were gone for ever. He was a man in battle rejoicing in his power. Aeroplanes seemed radiating

from him in every direction, intent only upon avoiding him, the yelling of their packed passengers came in

short gusts as they swept by. He chose his third quarry, struck hastily and did but turn it on edge. It escaped

him, to smash against the tall cliff of London wall. FIying from that impact he skimmed the darkling ground

so nearly he could see a frightened rabbit bolting up a slope. He jerked up steeply, and found himself driving

over south London with the air about him vacant. To the right of him a wild riot of signal rockets from the

Ostrogites banged tumultuously in the sky. To the south the wreckage of half a dozen air ships flamed, and

east and west and north the air ships fled before him. They drove away to the east and north, and went about

in the south, for they could not pause in the air. In their present confusion any attempt at evolution would

have meant disastrous collisions. He could scarcely realize the thing he had done. In every quarter aeroplanes

were receding. They were receding. They dwindled smaller and smaller. They were in flight!

He passed two hundred feet or so above the Roehampton stage. It was black with people and noisy with their

frantic shouting. But why was the Wimbledon Park stage black and cheering, too? The smoke and flame of

Streatham now hid the three further stages. He curved about and rose to see them and the northern quarters.

First came the square masses of Shooter's Hill into sight from behind the smoke, lit and orderly with the

aeroplane that had landed and its disembarking negroes. Then came Blackheath, and then under the corner of

the reek the Norwood stage. On Blackheath no aeroplane had landed but an aeropile lay upon the guides.

Norwood was covered by a swarm of little figures running to and fro in a passionate confusion. Why?

Abruptly he understood. The stubborn defence of the flying stages was over, the people were pouring into the

underways of these last strongholds of Ostrog's usurpation. And then, from far away on the northern border

of the city, full of glorious import to him, came a sound, a signal, a note of triumph, the leaden thud of a gun.

He drew an immense breath. "They win," he shouted to the empty air; "the people win!" The sound of a

second gun came like an answer. And then he saw the aeropile on Blackheath was running down its guides to

launch. It lifted clean and rose. It shot up into the air, driving straight southward and away from him.

In an instant it came to him what this meant. It must needs be Ostrog in flight. He shouted and dropped

towards it. He had the momentum of his elevation and fell slanting down the air and very swiftly. It rose

steeply at his approach. He allowed for its velocity and drove straight upon it.

It suddenly became a mere flat edge, and behold! he was past it, and driving headlong down with all the force

He was furiously angry. He reeled the engine back along its shaft and went circling up. He saw Ostrog's

machine beating up a spiral before him. He rose straight towards it, won above it by virtue of the impetus of

his swoop and by the advantage and weight of a man. He dropped headlongdropped 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 himto the south. He realized with a gleam of wrath

how bungling his flight must be. Below he saw the Croyden hills. He jerked upward and once more he gained

He glanced over his shoulder and his attention was arrested by a strange thing. 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 duct,

jerked into the air. For a moment this cowled figure stood motionless, dropping huge masses of metal from its

shoulders, and then it began to uncoil a dense head of smoke. The people had blown it up, aeroplane and all!

As suddenly a second flash and grey shape sprang up from the Norwood stage. And even as he stared at this

came a dead report, and the air wave of the first explosion struck him. He was flung up and sideways.

For a moment the aeropile fell nearly edgewise with her nose down, and seemed to hesitate whether to

overset altogether. He stood on his windshield wrenching the wheel that swayed up over his head. And then

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

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. he was

The thought had a quality of utter unreality. Who was he? Why was he holding so tightly with his hands?

Why could he not leave go? In such a fall as this countless dreams have ended. But in a moment he would

His thoughts ran swifter and swifter. He wondered if he should see Helen again. It seemed so unreasonable

that he should not see her again. It __must__ be a dream! Yet surely he would meet her. She at least was real.

Although he could not look at it, he was suddenly aware that the earth was very near.