第 13 页

A man came running towards him. His self-control returned. "What have

they blown up?" asked the man breathlessly. "That was an explosion," and

before Graham could speak he had hurried on.

The great buildings rose dimly, veiled by a perplexing twilight, albeit

the rivulet of sky above was now bright with day. He noted many strange

features, understanding none at the time; he even spelt out many of the

inscriptions in Phonetic lettering. But what profits it to decipher a

confusion of odd-looking letters resolving itself, after painful strain

of eye and mind, into "Here is Eadhamite," or, "Labour Bureau--Little

Side?" Grotesque thought, that in all probability some or all of these

cliff-like houses were his!

The perversity of his experience came to him vividly. In actual fact he

had made such a leap in time as romancers have imagined again and again.

And that fact realised, he had been prepared, his mind had, as it were,

seated itself for a spectacle. And no spectacle, 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 desire to see, a great longing to

know, arose in him.

He became fearful of corners. It seemed to him that there was safety

in concealment. Where could he hide to be inconspicuous when the lights

returned? At last he sat down upon a seat in a recess on one of the

higher ways, conceiving he was alone there.

He squeezed his knuckles into his weary eyes. Suppose when he looked

again he found the dark 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.

"It is no dream," he said, "no dream." And he bowed his face upon his

hands.

CHAPTER XI. THE OLD MAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING

He was startled by a cough close at hand.

He turned sharply, and peering, saw a small, hunched-up figure sitting a

couple of yards off in the shadow of the enclosure.

"Have ye any news?" asked the high-pitched wheezy voice of a very old

man.

Graham hesitated. "None," he said.

"I stay here till the lights come again," said the old man. "These blue

scoundrels are everywhere--everywhere."

Graham's answer was inarticulate assent. He tried to see the old man but

the darkness hid his face. He wanted very much to respond, to talk, but

he did not know how to begin.

"Dark and damnable," said the old man suddenly. "Dark and damnable.

Turned out of my room among all these dangers."

"That's hard," ventured Graham. "That's hard on you."

"Darkness. An old man lost in the darkness. And all the world gone mad.

War and fighting. The police beaten and rogues abroad. Why don't they

bring some negroes to protect us?... No more dark passages for me. I

fell over a dead man."

"You're safer with company," said the old man, "if it's company of

the right sort," and peered frankly. He rose suddenly and came towards

Graham.

Apparently the scrutiny was satisfactory. The old man sat down as if

relieved to be no longer alone. "Eh!" he said, "but this is a terrible

time! War and fighting, and the dead lying there--men, strong men, dying

in the dark. Sons! I have three sons. God knows where they are tonight."

The voice ceased. Then repeated quavering: "God knows where they are

tonight."

Graham stood revolving a question that should not betray his ignorance.

Again the old man's voice ended the pause.

"This Ostrog will win," he said. "He will win. And what the world will

be like under him no one can tell. My sons are under the wind-vanes,

all three. One of my daughters-in-law was his mistress for a while.

His mistress! 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 the

dark!"

His wheezy breathing could be heard.

"Ostrog!" said Graham.

"The greatest Boss the world has ever seen," said the voice.

Graham ransacked his mind. "The Council has few friends among the

people," he hazarded.

"Few friends. And poor ones at that. They've had their time. Eh! They

should have kept to the clever ones. But twice they held election. And

Ostrog. And now it has burst out and nothing can stay it, nothing can

stay it. Twice they rejected Ostrog--Ostrog the Boss. I heard of his

rages at the time--he was terrible. Heaven save them! For nothing on

earth can now, he has raised the Labour Companies upon them. No one else

would have dared. All the blue canvas armed and marching! He will go

through with it. He will go through."

He was silent for a little while. "This Sleeper," he said, and stopped.

"Yes," said Graham. "Well?"

The senile voice sank to a confidential whisper, the dim, pale face came

close. "The real Sleeper--"

"Yes," said Graham.

"Died years ago."

"What?" said Graham, sharply.

"Years ago. Died. Years ago."

"You don't say so!" said Graham.

"I do. I do say so. He died. This Sleeper who's woke up--they changed in

the night. A poor, drugged insensible creature. But I mustn't tell all I

know. I mustn't tell all I know."

For a little while he muttered inaudibly. His secret was too much for

him. "I don't know the ones that put him to sleep--that was before my

time--but I know the man who injected the stimulants and woke him again.

It was ten to one--wake or kill. Wake or kill. Ostrog's way."

Graham was so astonished at these things that he had to interrupt, to

make the old man repeat his words, to re-question vaguely, before he was

sure of the meaning and folly of what he heard. And his awakening had

not been natural! Was that an old man's senile superstition, too, or

had it any truth in it? Feeling in the dark corners of his memory, he

presently came on something that might conceivably be an impression of

some such stimulating effect. It dawned upon him that he had happened

upon a lucky encounter, that at last he might learn something of the

new age. The old man wheezed a while and spat, and then the piping,

reminiscent voice resumed:

"The first time they rejected him. I've followed it all."

"Rejected whom?" said Graham. "The Sleeper?"

"Sleeper? No. Ostrog. He was terrible--terrible! And he was promised

then, promised certainly the next time. Fools they were--not to be more

afraid of him. Now all the city's his millstone, and such as we dust

ground upon it. Dust ground upon it. Until he set to work--the workers

cut each other's throats, and murdered a Chinaman or a Labour policeman

at times, and left the rest of us in peace. Dead bodies! Robbing!

Darkness! Such a thing hasn't been this gross of years. Eh!--but 'tis

ill on small folks when the great fall out! It's ill."

"Did you say--there had not been what?--for a gross of years?"

"Eh?" said the old man.

The old man said something about clipping his words, and made him repeat

this a third time. "Fighting and slaying, and weapons in hand, and fools

bawling freedom and the like," said the old man. "Not in all my life has

there been that. These are like the old days--for sure--when the Paris

people broke out--three gross of years ago. That's what I mean hasn't

been. But it's the world's way. It had to come back. I know. I know.

This five years Ostrog has been working, and there has been trouble and

trouble, and hunger and threats and high talk and arms. Blue canvas and

murmurs. No one safe. Everything sliding and slipping. And now here we

are! Revolt and fighting, and the Council come to its end."

"You are rather well-informed on these things," said Graham.

"I know what I hear. It isn't all Babble Machine with me."

"No," said Graham, wondering what Babble Machine might be. "And you are

certain this Ostrog--you are certain Ostrog organised this rebellion and

arranged for the waking of the Sleeper? Just to assert himself--because

he was not elected to the Council?

"Everyone knows that, I should think," said the old man. "Except--just

fools. He meant to be master somehow. In the Council or not. Everyone

who knows anything knows that. And here we are with dead bodies lying

in the dark! Why, where have you been if you haven't heard all about

the trouble between Ostrog and the Verneys? And what do you think the

troubles are about? The Sleeper? Eh? You think the Sleeper's real and

woke of his own accord--eh?"

"I'm a dull man, older than I look, and forgetful," said Graham. "Lots

of things that have happened--especially of late years--. If I was the

Sleeper, to tell you the truth, I couldn't know less about them."

"Eh!" said the voice. "Old, are you? You don't sound so very old! But

its not everyone keeps his memory to my time of life--truly. But these

notorious things! But you're not so old as me--not nearly so old as me.

Well! I ought not to judge other men by myself, perhaps. I'm young--for

so old a man. Maybe you're old for so young."

"That's it," said Graham. "And I've a queer history. I know very little.

And history! Practically I know no history. The Sleeper and Julius

Caesar are all the same to me. It's interesting to hear you talk of

these things."

"I know a few things," said the old man. "I know a thing or two. But--.

Hark!"

The two men became silent, listening. There was heavy thud, a concussion

that made their seat shiver. The passers-by stopped, shouted to one

another. The old man was full of questions; he shouted to a man who

passed near. Graham, emboldened by his example, got up and accosted

others. None knew what had happened.

He returned to the seat and found the old man muttering vague

interrogations in an undertone. For a while they said nothing to one

another.

The sense of this gigantic struggle, so near and yet so remote oppressed

Graham's imagination. Was this old man right, was the report of the

people right, and were the revolutionaries winning? Or were they all in

error, and were the red guards driving all before them? At any time the

flood of warfare might pour into this silent quarter of the city and

seize upon him again. It 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 speech again.

"Eh! but how things work together!" said the old man. "This Sleeper that

all the fools put their trust in! I've the whole history of it--I was

always a good one for histories. When I was a boy--I'm that old--I

used to read printed books. You'd hardly think it. Likely you've seen

none--they rot and dust so--and the Sanitary Company burns them to make

ashlarite. But they were convenient in their dirty way. Oh I learnt a

lot. These new-fangled Babble Machines--they don't seem new-fangled to

you, eh?--they're easy to hear, easy to forget. But I've traced all the

Sleeper business from the first."

"You will scarcely believe it," said Graham slowly, "I'm so

ignorant--I've been so preoccupied in my own little affairs, my

circumstances have been so odd--I know nothing of this Sleeper's

history. Who was he?"

"Eh!" said the old man. "I know. I know. He was a poor nobody, and set

on a playful woman, poor soul! And he fell into a trance. There's the

old things they had, those brown things--silver photographs--still

showing him as he lay, a gross and a half years ago--a gross and a half

of years."

"Set on a playful woman, poor soul," said Graham softly to himself, and

then aloud, "Yes--well! go on."

"You must know he had a cousin named Warming a solitary man without

children, who made a big fortune speculating in roads--the first

Eadhamite roads. But surely you've heard? No? Why? He bought all the

patent rights and made a big company. In those days there were grosses

of grosses of separate businesses and business companies. Grosses of

grosses! His roads killed the railroads--the old things--in two dozen

years; he bought up and Eadhamited' the tracks. And because he didn't

want to break up his great property or let in shareholders, he left it

all to the Sleeper, and put it under a Board of Trustees that he had

picked and trained. He knew then the Sleeper wouldn't wake, that he

would go on sleeping, sleeping till he died. He knew that quite well!

And plump! a man in the United States, who had lost two sons in a boat

accident, followed that up with another great bequest. His trustees