第 31 页

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 doing to the

Master?" "The Master is betrayed!"

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 dais--men 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 Ostrog.

He was lugged a dozen yards before he realised that they were not

friends--that 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

with all his strength. And this time there were answering cries.

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 him from them yet."

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 came, and surely,

irresistibly, that black, yawning opening came nearer.

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 about him.

He saw a man in pale blue stabbing one of the black and yellow

attendants not three yards from his face. Then hands were upon him

again.

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 carried away from that devouring panel.

Ten thousand throats were cheering.

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 him. They were looking at him and

cheering.

He became aware that a sort of body-guard 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

ante-chamber was revealed densely crowded. He could scarcely make the

man near him hear for the tumult about them. "Where has Ostrog gone?" he

asked.

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 came back in a welter of cries.

"The Master is on our side!"

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 ribs. It vanished beyond

the skyline of the ruins.

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

away, coming round in a wide curve and going slower.

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 him--the 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, pointing

and blatent.

"They are grounding!" cried the man in yellow. "They are grounding. Tell

the people to fire at him. Tell them to fire at him!"

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 stem.

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

open passage.

And suddenly the aeropile slipped over the edge of the Council House

and fell. It dropped, tilting at an angle of forty-five degrees, and

dropping so steeply that it seemed to Graham, it seemed perhaps to most

of these below, that it could not possibly rise again.

It fell so closely past him that he could see Ostrog clutching the

guides of the seat, with his grey hair streaming; see the white-faced

aeronaut wrenching over the lever that drove the engine along its

guides. He heard the apprehensive vague cry of innumerable men below.

Graham clutched the railing before him and gasped. The second seemed an

age. The lower fan of the aeropile passed within an ace of touching the

people, who yelled and screamed and trampled one another below.

And then it rose.

For a moment it looked as if it could not possibly clear the opposite

cliff, and then that it could not possibly clear the wind-wheel that

rotated beyond.

And behold! it was clear and soaring, still heeling sideways, upward,

upward into the wind-swept 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 flying stage from which it had so

lately risen. Ostrog had escaped.

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 that swaying sea of men.

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, 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 there--the 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 orders. He was King indeed. His puppet reign was at an end.

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 stages, meant Ostrog; against Ostrog he was fighting

for the world.