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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."

"And none are destitute in the city?"

"None. They are either in blue canvas or in prison."

"If they will not work?"

"Most people will work at that pitch, and the Company has powers. There

are stages of unpleasantness in the work--stoppage of food--and a man or

woman who has refused to work once is known by a thumb-marking system

in the 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 prisons--dark and miserable--out of sight below. There are

prisons now for many things."

"And a third of the people wear this blue canvas?"

"More than a third. Toilers, living without pride or delight or hope,

with the stories of Pleasure Cities ringing in their ears, mocking their

shameful lives, their privations and hardships. Too poor even for the

Euthanasy, the rich man's refuge from life. Dumb, crippled millions,

countless millions, all the world about, ignorant of anything but

limitations and unsatisfied desires. They are born, they are thwarted

and they die. That is the state to which we have come."

For a space Graham sat downcast.

"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 age--it is to

you the people look. To you."

He looked at her face. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He felt

a rush of emotion. For a moment he forgot this city, he forgot the race,

and all those vague remote voices, in the immediate humanity of her

beauty.

"But what am I to do?" he said with his eyes upon her.

"Rule," she answered, bending towards him and speaking in a low tone.

"Rule the world as it has never been ruled, for the good and happiness

of men. For you might rule it--you could rule it.

"The people are stirring. All over the world the people are stirring. It

wants but a word--but a word from you--to bring them all together. Even

the middle sort of people are restless unhappy.

"They are not telling you the things that are happening. The people will

not go back to their drudgery--they refuse to be disarmed. Ostrog has

awakened something greater than he dreamt of--he has awakened hopes."

His heart was beating fast. He tried to seem judicial, to weigh

considerations.

"They only want their leader," she said.

"And then?"

"You could do what you would;--the world is yours."

He sat, no longer regarding her. Presently he spoke. "The old dreams,

and the thing I have dreamt, liberty, happiness. Are they dreams? Could

one man--one man--?" His voice sank and ceased.

"Not one man, but all men--give them only a leader to speak the desire

of their hearts."

He shook his head, and for a time there was silence.

He looked up suddenly, and their eyes met. "I have not your faith,"

he said. "I have not your youth. I am here with power that mocks me.

No--let me speak. I want to do--not right--I have not the strength

for that--but something rather right than wrong. It will bring no

millennium, but I am resolved now that I will rule. What you have said

has awakened me.... You are right. Ostrog must know his place. And I

will learn--.... One thing I promise you. This Labour slavery shall

end."

"And you will rule?"

"Yes. Provided--. There is one thing."

"Yes?"

"That you will help me."

"I!--a girl!"

"Yes. Does it not occur to you I am absolutely alone?"

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

indeed," he said slowly. "I will rule-" He paused. "With you."

There came a tense silence, and then the beating a clock striking the

hour. She made him no answer. Graham rose.

"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 which

you have spoken. And when I return--?"

"I shall know of your going and coming. I will wait for you here again."

He stood for a moment regarding her.

"I knew," she said, and stopped.

He waited, but she said no more. They regarded one another steadfastly,

questioningly, and then he turned from her towards the Wind Vane office.

CHAPTER XIX. OSTROG'S POINT OF VIEW

Graham found Ostrog waiting to give a formal account of his day's

stewardship. On previous occasions he had passed over this ceremony as

speedily as possible, in order to resume his aerial experiences, but now

he began to ask quick short questions. He was very 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 police--was 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. They are

satisfied with the overthrow of the Council For the time."

"Why should you expect trouble?" asked Graham abruptly.

"There is a lot of discontent--social discontent."

"The Labour Company?"

"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 overthrow--that and your awakening."

"Yes?"

Ostrog smiled. He became explicit. "We had to stir up their discontent,

we had to revive the old ideals of universal happiness--all men

equal--all men happy--no luxury that everyone may not share--ideas that

have slumbered for two hundred years. You know that? We had to revive

these ideals, impossible as they are--in order to overthrow the Council.

And now--"

"Well?"

"Our 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 out-of-date humanitarianism has revived

and spread. We who sowed the seed even, have been astonished. In Paris,

as I say--we have had to call in a little external help."

"And here?"

"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 and order. We must keep the grip tight; that is all."

Graham thought. He perceived a way of asserting himself. But he spoke

with restraint.

"Even to the pitch of bringing a negro police," he said.

"They are useful," said Ostrog. "They are fine loyal brutes, with no

wash of ideas in their heads--such as our rabble has. The Council

should have had 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 leaders--only 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 frank--that may happen. But it won't interrupt your aeronautics. The

days when the People could make revolutions are past."

"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

equal and happy."

Ostrog looked at him steadfastly. "The day of democracy is past," he

said. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of 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. To-day 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. To-day it has

only one believer--a multiplex, silly one--the mall in the Crowd."

Graham did not answer immediately. He stood lost in sombre

preoccupations.

"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 tempered--tempered. 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 organisation complex beyond his understanding."

"Yet," said Graham, "there is something resists, something you are

holding down--something that stirs and presses."

"You will see," said Ostrog, with a forced smile that would brush these

difficult questions aside. "I have not roused the force to destroy

myself--trust me."

"I wonder," said Graham.

Ostrog stared.

"Must the world go this way?" said Graham, with his emotions at the

speaking point. "Must it indeed go in this way? Have all our hopes been

vain?"

"What do you mean?" said Ostrog. "Hopes?"

"I came from a democratic age. And I find an aristocratic tyranny!"

"Well,--but you are the chief tyrant."

Graham shook his head.

"Well," said Ostrog, "take the general question. It is the way that

change has always travelled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of the

best--the suffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to better

things."

"But aristocracy! those people I met--"

"Oh! not those!" said Ostrog. "But for the most part they go to their

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 improve the race!"

"Pleasant extinction," said Graham. "Yet--." He thought for an instant.

"There is that other thing--the Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Will

that die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its suffering is a

force that even you--"

Ostrog moved impatiently, and when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenly

than before.

"Don't 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. To-day--they are already murmuring against those who have

overthrown the Council."

"No, no," said Graham. "They shouted because their lives were dreary,

without joy or pride, and because in me--in me--they hoped."

"And what was their hope? What is their hope? What right have they to

hope? They work ill and they want the reward of those who work well. The