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found themselves with a dozen myriads of lions'-worth or more of

property at the very beginning."

"What was his name?"

"Graham."

"No, I mean--that American's."

"Isbister."

"Isbister!" cried Graham. "Why, I don't even know the name."

"Of course not," said the old man. "Of course not. People don't learn

much in the schools nowadays. But I know all about him. He was a rich

American who went from England, and he left the Sleeper even more than

Warming. How he made it? That I don't know. Something about pictures by

machinery. But he made it and left it, and so the Council had its start.

It was just a council of trustees at first."

"And how did it grow?"

"Eh!--but you're not up to things. Money attracts money--and twelve

brains are better than one. They played it cleverly. They worked

politics with money, and kept on adding to the money by working currency

and tariffs. They grew--they grew. And for years the twelve trustees

hid the growing of the Sleeper's estate, under double names and company

titles and all that. The Council spread by title deed, mortgage, share,

every political party, every newspaper, they bought. If you listen to

the old stories you will see the Council growing and growing Billions

and billions of lions at last--the Sleeper's estate. And all growing

out of a whim--out of this Warming's will, and an accident to Isbister's

sons.

"Men are strange," said the old man. "The strange, thing to me is how

the Council worked together so long. As many as twelve. But they worked

in cliques from the first. And they've slipped back. In my young days

speaking of the Council was like an ignorant man speaking of God. We

didn't think they could do wrong. We didn't know of their women and all

that! Or else I've got wiser.

"Men are strange," said the old man. "Here are you, young and

ignorant, and me--sevendy years old, and I might reasonably be

forgetting--explaining it all to you short and clear.

"Sevendy," he said, "sevendy, and I hear and see--hear better than I

see. And reason clearly, and keep myself up to all the happenings of

things. Sevendy!

"Life is strange. I was twaindy before Ostrog was a baby. I remember him

long before he'd pushed his way to the head of the Wind Vanes Control.

I've seen many changes. Eh! I've worn the blue. And at last I've come to

see this crush and darkness and tumult and dead men carried by in heaps

on the ways. And all his doing! All his doing!"

His voice died away in scarcely articulate praises of Ostrog

Graham thought. "Let me see," he said, "if I have it right."

He extended a hand and ticked off points upon his fingers. "The Sleeper

has been asleep--"

"Changed," said the old man.

"Perhaps. And meanwhile the Sleeper's property grew in the hands of

Twelve Trustees, until it swallowed up nearly all the great ownership of

the world. The Twelve Trustees--by virtue of this property have become

virtually masters of the world. Because they are the paying power--just

as the old English Parliament used to be--"

"Eh!" said the old man. "That's so--that's a good comparison. You're not

so--"

"And now this Ostrog--has suddenly revolutionised the world by waking

the Sleeper--whom no one but the superstitious, common people had ever

dreamt would wake again--raising the Sleeper to claim his property from

the Council, after all these years."

The old man endorsed this statement with a cough. "It's strange,"

he said, "to meet a man who learns these things for the first time

tonight."

"Aye," said Graham, "it's strange."

"Have you been in a Pleasure City?" said the old man. "All my life I've

longed--" He laughed. "Even now," he said, "I could enjoy a little

fun. Enjoy seeing things, anyhow." He mumbled a sentence Graham did not

understand.

"The Sleeper--when did he awake?" said Graham suddenly.

"Three days ago."

"Where is he?"

"Ostrog has him. He escaped from the Council not four hours ago. My

dear sir, where were you at the time? He was in the hall of the

markets--where the fighting has been. All the city was screaming about

it. All the Babble Machines! Everywhere it was shouted. Even the fools

who speak for the Council were admitting it. Everyone was rushing off to

see him--everyone was getting arms. Were you drunk or asleep? And even

then! But you're joking! Surely you're pretending. It was to stop the

shouting of the Babble Machines and prevent the people gathering that

they turned off the electricity--and put this damned darkness upon us.

Do you mean to say--?"

"I had heard the Sleeper was rescued," said Graham. "But--to come back a

minute. Are you sure Ostrog has him?"

"He won't let him go," said the old man.

"And the Sleeper. Are you sure he is not genuine? I have never heard--"

"So all the fools think. So they think. As if there wasn't a thousand

things that were never heard. I know Ostrog too well for that. Did

I tell you? In a way I'm a sort of relation of Ostrog's. A sort of

relation. Through my daughter-in-law."

"I suppose--"

"Well?"

"I suppose there's no chance of this Sleeper asserting himself. I

suppose he's certain to be a puppet--in Ostrog's hands or the Council's,

as soon as the struggle is over."

"In Ostrog's hands--certainly. Why shouldn't he be a puppet? Look at his

position. Everything done for him, every pleasure possible. Why should

he want to assert himself?"

"What are these Pleasure Cities?" said Graham, abruptly.

The old man made him repeat the question. When at last he was assured

of Graham's words, he nudged him violently. "That's too much," said he.

"You're poking fun at an old man. I've been suspecting you know more

than you pretend."

"Perhaps I do," said Graham. "But no! why should I go on acting? No, I

do not know what a Pleasure City is."

The old man laughed in an intimate way.

"What is more, I do not know how to read your letters, I do not know

what money you use, I do not know what foreign countries there are. I

do not know where I am. I cannot count. I do not know where to get food,

nor drink, nor shelter."

"Come, come," said the old man, "if you had a glass of drink, now, would

you put it in your ear or your eye?"

"I want you to tell me all these things."

"He, he! Well, gentlemen who dress in silk must have their fun." A

withered hand caressed Graham's arm for a moment. "Silk. Well, well!

But, all the same, I wish I was the man who was put up as the Sleeper.

He'll have a fine time of it. All the pomp and pleasure. He's a queer

looking face. When they used to let anyone go to see him, I've got

tickets and been. The image of the real one, as the photographs show

him, this substitute used to be. Yellow. But he'll get fed up. It's a

queer world. Think of the luck of it. The luck of it. I expect he'll be

sent to Capri. It's the best fun for a greener."

His cough overtook him again. Then he began mumbling enviously of

pleasures and strange delights. "The luck of it, the luck of it! All my

life I've been in London, hoping to get my chance."

"But you don't know that the Sleeper died," said Graham, suddenly.

The old man made him repeat his words.

"Men don't live beyond ten dozen. It's not in the order of things," said

the old man. "I'm not a fool. Fools may believe it, but not me."

Graham became angry with the old man's assurance. "Whether you are a

fool or not," he said, "it happens you are wrong about the Sleeper."

"Eh?"

"You are wrong about the Sleeper. I haven't told you before, but I will

tell you now. You are wrong about the Sleeper."

"How do you know? I thought you didn't know anything--not even about

Pleasure Cities."

Graham paused.

"You don't know," said the old man. "How are you to know? It's very few

men--"

"I _am_ the Sleeper."

He had to repeat it.

There was a brief pause. "There's a silly thing to say, sir, if you'll

excuse me. It might get you into trouble in a time like this," said the

old man. Graham, slightly dashed, repeated his assertion.

"I was saying I was the Sleeper. That years and years ago I did, indeed,

fall asleep, in a little 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 I--I who speak to you--who awakened again these four days since."

"Four days since!--the Sleeper! But they've got the Sleeper. They have

him and they won't let him go. Nonsense! You've been talking sensibly

enough up to now. I can see it as though I was there. There will be

Lincoln like a keeper just behind him; they won't let him go about

alone. Trust them. You're a queer fellow. One of these fun pokers. I see

now why you have been clipping your words so oddly, but--"

He stopped abruptly, and Graham could see his gesture.

"As if Ostrog would let the Sleeper run about alone! No, you're telling

that to the wrong man altogether. Eh! as if I should believe. What's

your game? And besides, we've been talking of the Sleeper."

Graham stood up. "Listen," he said. "I am the Sleeper."

"You're an odd man," said the old man, "to sit here in the dark, talking

clipped, and telling a lie of that sort. But--"

Graham's exasperation fell to laughter. "It is preposterous," he cried.

"Preposterous. The dream must end. It gets wilder and wilder. Here am

I--in this damned twilight--I never knew a dream in twilight before--an

anachronism by two hundred years and trying to persuade an old fool that

I am myself, and meanwhile--Ugh!"

He moved in gusty irritation and went striding. In a moment the old man

was pursuing him. "Eh! but don't go!" cried the old man. "I'm an old

fool, I know. Don't go. Don't leave me in all this darkness."

Graham hesitated, stopped. Suddenly the folly of telling his secret

flashed into his mind.

"I didn't mean to offend you--disbelieving you," said the old man coming

near. "It's no manner of harm. Call yourself the Sleeper if it pleases

you. 'Tis a foolish trick."

Graham hesitated, turned abruptly and went on his way.

For a time he heard the old man's hobbling pursuit and his wheezy cries

receding. But at last the darkness swallowed him, and Graham saw him no

more.

CHAPTER XII. OSTROG

Graham could now take a clearer view of his position. For a long time

yet he wandered, but after the talk of the old man his discovery of this

Ostrog was clear in his mind as the final inevitable decision. One

thing was evident, those who were at the headquarters of the revolt had

succeeded very admirably in suppressing the fact of his disappearance.

But every moment he expected to hear the report of his death or of his

recapture by the Council.

Presently a man stopped before him. "Have you heard?" he said.

"No!" said Graham starting.

"Near a dozand," said the man, "a dozand men!" and hurried on.

A number of men and a girl passed in the darkness, gesticulating and

shouting: "Capitulated! Given up!" "A dozand of men." "Two dozand of

men." "Ostrog, Hurrah! Ostrog, Hurrah!" These cries receded, became

indistinct.

Other shouting men followed. For a time his attention was absorbed

in the fragments of speech he heard. He had a doubt whether all were

speaking English. Scraps floated to him, scraps like Pigeon English,

like 'nigger' dialect, blurred and mangled distortions. He dared

accost no one with questions. The impression the people gave him jarred

altogether with his preconceptions of the struggle and confirmed the

old man's faith in Ostrog. It was only slowly he could bring himself

to believe that all these people were rejoicing at the defeat of the

Council, that the Council which had pursued him with such power and

vigour was after all the weaker of the two sides in conflict. And if

that was so, how did it affect him? Several times he hesitated on the

verge of fundamental questions. Once he turned and walked for a long

way after a little man of rotund inviting outline, but he was unable to

master confidence to address him.

It was only slowly that it came to him that he might ask for the

"wind-vane offices," whatever the "wind-vane offices" might be.

His first enquiry simply resulted in a direction to go on towards

Westminster. His second led to the discovery of a short cut in which

he was speedily lost. He was told to leave the ways to which he had

hitherto confined himself knowing no other means of transit--and

to plunge down one of the middle staircases into the blackness of a

crossway. Thereupon came some trivial adventures; chief of these an

ambiguous encounter with a gruff-voiced invisible creature speaking in

a strange dialect that seemed at first a strange tongue, a thick flow of

speech with the drifting corpses of English words therein, the dialect

of the latter-day vile. Then another voice drew near, a girl's voice

singing, "tralala tralala." She spoke to Graham, her English touched

with something of the same quality. She professed to have lost her