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indignant and vociferous, a high penetrating voice under his red

aquiline nose and bushy moustache. "No one expected you to wake. No one

expected you to wake. They were cunning. Damned tyrants! But they were

taken by surprise. They did not know whether to drug you, hypnotise you,

kill you."

Again the hall dominated everything.

"Ostrog is at the wind-vane offices ready--. Even now there is a rumour

of fighting beginning."

The man who had called himself Lincoln came close to him. "Ostrog has it

planned. Trust him. We have our organisations ready. We shall seize the

flying stages--. Even now he may be doing that. Then--"

"This public theatre," bawled the man in yellow, "is only a contingent.

We have five myriads of drilled men--"

"We have arms," cried Lincoln. "We have plans. A leader. Their police

have gone from the streets and are massed in the--" (inaudible). "It

is now or never. The Council is rocking--They cannot trust even their

drilled men--"

"Hear the people calling to you!"

Graham's mind was like a night of moon and swift clouds, now dark and

hopeless, now clear and ghastly. He was Master of the Earth, he was a

man sodden with thawing snow. Of all his fluctuating impressions the

dominant ones presented an antagonism; on the one hand was the White

Council, powerful, disciplined, few, the White Council from which he

had just escaped; and on the other, monstrous crowds, packed masses of

indistinguishable people clamouring his name, hailing him Master.

The other side had imprisoned him, debated his death. These shouting

thousands beyond the little doorway had rescued him. But why these

things should be so he could not understand.

The door opened, Lincoln's voice was swept away and drowned, and a 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 bawling for "Order! Silence!"

Graham glanced towards the open doorway, and saw a tall, oblong picture

of the hall beyond, a waving, incessant confusion of crowded, shouting

faces, men and women together, waving pale blue garments, extended

hands. Many were standing, one man in rags of dark brown, a gaunt

figure, stood on the seat and waved a black cloth. He met the wonder and

expectation of the girl's eyes. What did these people expect from him.

He was dimly aware that the tumult outside had changed its character,

was in some way beating, marching. His own mind, too, changed for a

space he did not recognise the influence that was transforming him.

But a moment that was near to panic passed. He tried to make audible

inquiries of what was required of him.

Lincoln was shouting in his ear, but Graham was deafened to that. All

the others save the woman gesticulated towards the hall. He perceived

what had happened to the uproar. The whole mass of people was chanting

together. It was not simply a song, the voices were gathered together

and upborne by a torrent of instrumental music, music like the music of

an organ, a woven texture of sounds, full of trumpets, full of flaunting

banners, full of the march and pageantry of opening war. And the feet of

the people were beating time--tramp, tramp.

He was urged towards the door. He obeyed mechanically. The strength

of that chant took hold of him, stirred him, emboldened him. The hall

opened to him, a vast welter of fluttering colour swaying to the music.

"Wave your arm to them," said Lincoln. "Wave your arm to them."

"This," said a voice on the other side, "he must have this." Arms were

about his neck detaining him in the doorway, and a black subtly-folding

mantle hung from his shoulders. He threw his arm free of this and

followed Lincoln. He perceived the girl in grey close to him, her face

lit, her gesture onward. For the instant she became to him, flushed and

eager as she was, an embodiment of the song. He emerged in the alcove

again. Incontinently the mounting waves of the song broke upon his

appearing, and flashed up into a foam of shouting. Guided by Lincoln's

hand he marched obliquely across the centre of the stage facing the

people.

The hall was a vast and intricate space--galleries, balconies, broad

spaces of amphitheatral steps, and great archways. Far away, high up,

seemed the mouth of a huge passage full of struggling humanity. The

whole multitude was swaying in congested masses. Individual figures

sprang out of the tumult, impressed him momentarily, and lost definition

again. Close to the platform swayed a beautiful fair woman, carried by

three men, her hair across her face and brandishing a green staff. Next

this group an old careworn man in blue canvas maintained his place in

the crush with difficulty, and behind shouted a hairless face, a

great cavity of toothless mouth. A voice called that enigmatical word

"Ostrog." All his impressions were vague save the massive emotion

of that trampling song. The multitude were beating time with their

feet--marking time, tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The green weapons waved,

flashed and slanted. Then he saw those nearest to him on a level space

before the stage were marching in front of him, passing towards a great

archway, shouting "To the Council!" Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. He

raised his arm, and the roaring was redoubled. He remembered he had to

shout "March!" His mouth shaped inaudible heroic words. He waved his arm

again and pointed to the archway, shouting "Onward!" They were no longer

marking time, they were marching; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. In that

host were bearded men, old men, youths, fluttering robed bare-armed

women, girls. Men and women of the new age! Rich robes, grey rags

fluttered together in the whirl of their movement amidst the dominant

blue. A monstrous black banner jerked its way to the right. He perceived

a blue-clad negro, a shrivelled woman in yellow, then a group of tall

fair-haired, white-faced, blue-clad men pushed theatrically past him.

He noted two Chinamen. A tall, sallow, dark-haired, shining-eyed youth,

white clad from top to toe, clambered up towards the platform shouting

loyally, and sprang down again and receded, looking backward. Heads,

shoulders, hands clutching weapons, all were swinging with those

marching cadences.

Faces came out of the confusion to him as he stood there, eyes met his

and passed and vanished. Men gesticulated to him, shouted inaudible

personal things. Most of the faces were flushed, but many were ghastly

white. And disease was there, and many a hand that waved to him was

gaunt and lean. Men and women of the new age! Strange and incredible

meeting! As the broad stream passed before him to the right, tributary

gangways from the remote uplands of the hall thrust downward in an

incessant replacement of people; tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. The unison

of the song was enriched and complicated by the massive echoes of arches

and passages. Men and women mingled in the ranks; tramp, tramp, tramp,

tramp. The whole world seemed marching. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; his

brain was tramping. The garments waved onward, the faces poured by more

abundantly.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp; at Lincoln's pressure he turned towards the

archway, walking unconsciously in that rhythm, scarcely noticing his

movement for the melody and stir of it. The multitude, the gesture and

song, all moved in that direction, the flow of people smote downward

until the upturned faces were below the level of his feet. He was aware

of a path before him, of a suite about him, of guards and dignities, and

Lincoln on his right hand. Attendants intervened, and ever and again

blotted out the sight of the multitude to the left. Before him went the

backs of the guards in black--three and three and three. He was marched

along a little railed way, and crossed above the archway, with the

torrent dipping to flow beneath, and shouting up to him. He did not

know whither he went; he did not want to know. He glanced back across a

flaming spaciousness of hall. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

CHAPTER X. THE BATTLE OF THE DARKNESS

He was no longer in the hall. He was marching along a gallery

overhanging one of the great streets of the moving platforms that

traversed the city. Before him and behind him tramped his guards. The

whole concave of the moving ways below was a congested mass of people

marching, tramping to the left, shouting, waving hands and arms, pouring

along a huge vista, shouting as they came into view, shouting as they

passed, shouting as they receded, until the globes of electric light

receding in perspective dropped down it seemed and hid the swarming bare

heads. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp.

The song roared up to Graham now, no longer upborne by music, but coarse

and noisy, and the beating of the marching feet, tramp, tramp, tramp,

tramp, interwove with a thunderous irregularity of footsteps from the

undisciplined rabble that poured along the higher ways.

Abruptly he noted a contrast. The buildings on the opposite side of the

way seemed deserted, the cables and bridges that laced across the aisle

were empty and shadowy. It came into Graham's mind that these also

should have swarmed with people.

He felt a curious emotion--throbbing--very fast! He stopped again. The

guards before him marched on; those about him stopped as he did. He saw

the direction of their faces. The throbbing had something to do with the

lights. He too looked up.

At first it seemed to him a thing that affected the lights simply, an

isolated phenomenon, having no bearing on the things below. Each huge

globe of blinding whiteness was as it were clutched, compressed in a

systole that was followed by a transitory diastole, and again a systole

like a tightening grip, darkness, light, darkness, in rapid alternation.

Graham became aware that this strange behaviour of the lights had to

do with the people below. The appearance of the houses and ways, the

appearance of the packed masses changed, became a confusion of vivid

lights and leaping shadows. He saw a multitude of shadows had sprung

into aggressive existence, seemed rushing up, broadening, widening,

growing with steady swiftness--to leap suddenly back and return

reinforced. The song and the tramping had ceased. The unanimous march,

he discovered, was arrested, there were eddies, a flow sideways, shouts

of "The lights!" Voices were crying together one thing. "The lights!"

cried these voices. "The lights!" He looked down. In this dancing death

of the lights the area of the street had suddenly become a monstrous

struggle. The huge white globes became purple-white, purple with a

reddish glow, flickered, flickered faster and faster, fluttered between

light and extinction, ceased to flicker and became mere fading specks

of glowing red in a vast obscurity. In ten seconds the extinction

was accomplished, and there was only this roaring darkness, a black

monstrosity that had suddenly swallowed up those glittering myriads of

men.

He felt invisible forms about him; his arms were gripped. Something

rapped sharply against his shin. A voice bawled in his ear, "It is all

right--all right."

Graham shook off the paralysis of his first astonishment. He struck his

forehead against Lincoln's and bawled, "What is this darkness?"

"The Council has cut the currents that light the city. We must

wait--stop. The people will go on. They will--"

His voice was drowned. Voices were shouting, "Save the Sleeper. Take

care of the Sleeper." A guard stumbled against Graham and hurt his hand

by an inadvertent blow of his weapon. A wild tumult tossed and whirled

about him, growing, as it seemed, louder, denser, more furious each

moment. Fragments of recognisable sounds drove towards him, were whirled

away from him as his mind reached out to grasp them. Voices seemed to be

shouting conflicting orders, other voices answered. There were suddenly

a succession of piercing screams close beneath them.

A voice bawled in his ear, "The red police," and receded forthwith

beyond his questions.

A crackling sound grew to distinctness, and 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. He wore a red uniform.

Graham's eyes fell to the ways again. A wedge of red a little way along

the vista caught his eye. He saw it was a dense mass of red-clad men

jammed the higher further way, their backs against the pitiless cliff

of building, and surrounded by a dense crowd of antagonists. They were

fighting. Weapons flashed and rose and fell, heads vanished at the edge

of the contest, and other heads replaced them, the little flashes from

the green weapons became little jets of smoky grey while the light

lasted.

Abruptly the flare was extinguished and the ways were an inky darkness

once more, a tumultuous mystery.

He felt something thrusting against him. He was being pushed along the

gallery. Someone was shouting--it might be at him. He was too confused

to hear. He was thrust against the wall, and a number of people

blundered past him. It seemed to him that his guards were struggling

with one another.

Suddenly the cable-hung star-holder appeared again, and the whole scene

was white and dazzling. The band of red-coats seemed broader and nearer;