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unprovided with ammunition; never was wilder firing in the history of

warfare. It was a battle of amateurs, a hideous experimental warfare,

armed rioters fighting armed rioters, armed rioters swept forward by

the words and fury of a song, by the tramping sympathy of their numbers,

pouring in countless myriads towards the smaller ways, the disabled

lifts, the galleries slippery with blood, the halls and passages choked

with smoke, beneath the flying stages, to learn there when retreat was

hopeless the ancient mysteries of warfare. And overhead save for a few

sharpshooters upon the roof spaces and for a few bands and threads of

vapour that multiplied and darkened towards the evening, the day was a

clear serenity. Ostrog it seems had no bombs at command and in all

the earlier phases of the battle the aeropiles played no part. Not the

smallest cloud was there to break the empty brilliance of the sky. It

seemed as though it held itself vacant until the aeroplanes should come.

Ever and again there was news of these, drawing nearer, from this

Mediterranean port and then that, and presently from the south of

France. But of the new guns that Ostrog had made and which were known to

be in the city came no news in spite of Graham's urgency, nor any report

of successes from the dense felt of fighting strands about the flying

stages. Section after section of the Labour Societies reported itself

assembled, reported itself marching, and vanished from knowledge into

the labyrinth of that warfare What was happening there? Even the busy

ward leaders did not know. In spite of the opening and closing of

doors, the hasty messengers, the ringing of bells and the perpetual

clitter-clack of recording implements, Graham felt isolated, strangely

inactive, inoperative.

Their isolation seemed at times the strangest, the most unexpected of

all the things that had happened since his awakening. It had something

of the quality of that inactivity that comes in dreams. A tumult, the

stupendous realisation of a world struggle between Ostrog and himself,

and then this confined quiet little room with its mouthpieces and bells

and broken mirror!

Now the door would be closed and they were alone together; they seemed

sharply marked off then from all the unprecedented world storm that

rushed together without, vividly aware of one another, only concerned

with one another. Then the door would open again, messengers would

enter, or a sharp bell would stab their quiet privacy, and it was like

a window in a well built brightly lit house flung open suddenly to a

hurricane. The dark hurry and tumult, the stress and vehemence of the

battle rushed in and overwhelmed them. They were no longer persons

but mere spectators, mere impressions of a tremendous convulsion.

They became unreal even to themselves, miniatures of personality,

indescribably small, and the two antagonistic realities, the only

realities in being were first the city, that throbbed and roared yonder

in a belated frenzy of defence and secondly the aeroplanes hurling

inexorably towards them over the round shoulder of the world.

At first their mood had been one of exalted confidence, a great pride

had possessed them, a pride in one another for the greatness of the

issues they had challenged. At first he had walked the room eloquent

with a transitory persuasion of his tremendous destiny. But slowly

uneasy intimations of their coming defeat touched his spirit. There came

a long period in which they were alone. He changed his theme, became

egotistical, spoke of the wonder of his sleep, of the little life of his

memories, remote yet minute and clear, like something seen through an

inverted opera-glass, and all the brief play of desires and errors that

had made his former life. She said little, but the emotion in her face

followed the tones in his voice, and it seemed to him he had at last a

perfect understanding. He reverted from pure reminiscence to that sense

of greatness she imposed upon him. "And through it all, this destiny was

before me," he said; "this vast inheritance of which I did not dream."

Insensibly their heroic preoccupation with the revolutionary struggle

passed to the question of their relationship. He began to question

her. She told him of the days before his awakening, spoke with a brief

vividness of the girlish dreams that had given a bias to her life, of

the incredulous emotions his awakening had aroused. She told him too

of a tragic circumstance of her girlhood that had darkened her life,

quickened her sense of injustice and opened her heart prematurely to

the wider sorrows of the world. For a little time, so far as he

was concerned, the great war about them was but the vast ennobling

background to these personal things.

In an instant these personal relations were submerged. There came

messengers to tell that a great fleet of aeroplanes was rushing between

the sky and Avignon. He went to the crystal dial in the corner and

assured himself that the thing was so. He went to the chart room and

consulted a map to measure the distances of Avignon, New Arawan, and

London. He made swift calculations. He went to the room of the Ward

Leaders to ask for news of the fight for the stages--and there was no

one there. After a time he came back to her.

His face had changed. It had dawned upon him that the struggle was

perhaps more than half over, that Ostrog was holding his own, that

the arrival of the aeroplanes would mean a panic that might leave him

helpless. A chance phrase in the message had given him a glimpse of the

reality that came. Each of these soaring giants bore its thousand

half savage negroes to the death grapple of the city. Suddenly his

humanitarian enthusiasm showed flimsy. Only two of the Ward Leaders were

in their room, when presently he repaired thither, the Hall of the Atlas

seemed empty. He fancied a change in the bearing of the attendants in

the outer rooms. A sombre disillusionment darkened his mind. She looked

at him anxiously when he returned to her.

"No news," he said with an assumed carelessness in answer to her eyes.

Then he was moved to frankness. "Or rather--bad news. We are losing. We

are gaining no ground and the aeroplanes draw nearer and nearer."

He walked the length of the room and turned.

"Unless we can capture those flying stages in the next hour--there will

be horrible things. We shall be beaten.

"No!" she said. "We have justice--we have the people. We have God on our

side."

"Ostrog has discipline--he has plans. Do you know, out there just now I

felt--. When I heard that these aeroplanes were a stage nearer. I felt

as if I were fighting the machinery of fate."

She made no answer for a while. "We have done right," she said at last.

He looked at her doubtfully. "We have done what we could. But does this

depend upon us? Is it not an older sin, a wider sin?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"These blacks are savages, ruled by force, used as force. And they have

been under the rule of the whites two hundred years. Is it not a race

quarrel? The race sinned--the race pays."

"But these labourers, these poor people of London--!"

"Vicarious atonement. To stand wrong is to share the guilt."

She looked keenly at him, astonished at the new aspect he presented.

Without came the shrill ringing of a bell, the sound of feet and the

gabble of a phonographic message. The man in yellow appeared. "Yes?"

said Graham.

"They are at Vichy."

"Where are the attendants who were in the great Hall of the Atlas?"

asked Graham abruptly.

Presently the Babble Machine rang again. "We may win yet," said the man

in yellow, going out to it. "If only we can find where Ostrog has hidden

his guns. Everything hangs on that now. Perhaps this--"

Graham followed him. But the only news was of the aeroplanes. They had

reached Orleans.

Graham returned to Helen. "No news," he said "No news."

"And we can do nothing?"

"Nothing."

He paced impatiently. Suddenly the swift anger that was his nature swept

upon him. "Curse this complex world!" he cried, "and all the inventions

of men! That a man must die like a rat in a snare and never see his foe!

Oh, for one blow!..."

He turned with an abrupt change in his manner. "That's nonsense," he

said. "I am a savage."

He paced and stopped. "After all London and Paris are only two cities.

All the temperate zone has risen. What if London is doomed and Paris

destroyed? These are but accidents." Again came the mockery of news to

call him to fresh enquiries. He returned with a graver face and sat down

beside her.

"The end must be near," he said. "The people it seems have fought and

died in tens of thousands, the ways about Roehampton must be like a

smoked beehive. And they have died in vain. They are still only at the

sub stage. The aeroplanes are near Paris. Even were a gleam of success

to come now, there would be nothing to do, there would be no time to do

anything before they were upon us. The guns that might have saved us are

mislaid. Mislaid! Think of the disorder of things! Think of this foolish

tumult, that cannot even find its weapons! Oh, for one aeropile--just

one! For the want of that I am beaten. Humanity is beaten and our cause

is lost! My kingship, my headlong foolish kingship will not last a

night. And I have egged on the people to fight--."

"They would have fought anyhow."

"I doubt it. I have come among them--"

"No," she cried, "not that. If defeat comes--if you die--. But even that

cannot be, it cannot be, after all these years."

"Ah! We have meant well. But--do you indeed believe--?"

"If they defeat you," she cried, "you have spoken. Your word has gone

like a great wind through the world, fanning liberty into a flame. What

if the flame sputters a little! Nothing can change the spoken word. Your

message will have gone forth...."

"To what end? It may be. It may be. You know I said, when you told me

of these things dear God! but that was scarcely a score of hours ago!--I

said that I had not your faith. Well--at any rate there is nothing to do

now...."

"You have not my faith! Do you mean--? You are sorry?"

"No," he said hurriedly, "no! Before God--no!" His voice changed.

"But--. I think--I have been indiscreet. I knew little--I grasped too

hastily...."

He paused. He was ashamed of this avowal. "There is one thing that makes

up for all. I have known you. Across this gulf of time I have come to

you. The rest is done. It is done. With you, too, it has been something

more--or something less--"

He paused with his face searching hers, and without clamoured the

unheeded message that the aeroplanes were rising into the sky of Amiens.

She put her hand to her throat, and her lips were white. She stared

before her as if she saw some horrible possibility. Suddenly her

features changed. "Oh, but I have been honest!" she cried, and then,

"Have I been honest? I loved the world and freedom, I hated cruelty and

oppression. Surely it was that."

"Yes," he said, "yes. And we have done what it lay in us to do. We have

given our message, our message! We have started Armageddon! But now--.

Now that we have, it may be our last hour, together, now that all these

greater things are done...."

He stopped. She sat in silence. Her face was a white riddle.

For a moment they heeded nothing of a sudden stir outside, a running

to and fro, and cries. Then Helen started to an attitude of tense

attention. "It is--," she cried and stood up, speechless, incredulous,

triumphant. And Graham, too, heard. Metallic voices were shouting

"Victory!" Yes it was "Victory!" He stood up also with the light of a

desperate hope in his eyes.

Bursting through the curtains appeared the man in yellow, startled and

dishevelled with excitement. "Victory," he cried, "victory! The people

are winning. Ostrog's people have collapsed."

She rose. "Victory?" And her voice was hoarse and faint.

"What do you mean?" asked Graham. "Tell me! What?"

"We have driven them out of the under galleries at Norwood, Streatham

is afire and burning wildly, and Roehampton is ours. Ours!--and we have

taken the aeropile that lay thereon."

For an instant Graham and Helen stood in silence, their hearts were

beating fast, they looked at one another. For one last moment there

gleamed in Graham his dream of empire, of kingship, with Helen by his

side. It gleamed, and passed.

A shrill bell rang. An agitated grey-headed man appeared from the room

of the Ward Leaders. "It is all over," he cried.

"What matters it now that we have Roehampton? The aeroplanes have been

sighted at Boulogne!"

"The Channel!" said the man in yellow. He calculated swiftly. "Half an

hour."

"They still have three of the flying stages," said the old man.

"Those guns?" cried Graham.

"We cannot mount them--in half an hour."

"Do you mean they are found?"

"Too late," said the old man.

"If we could stop them another hour!" cried the man in yellow.

"Nothing can stop them now," said the old man, "they have near a hundred

aeroplanes in the first fleet."

"Another hour?" asked Graham.

"To be so near!" said the Ward Leader. "Now that we have found those

guns. To be so near--. If once we could get them out upon the roof

spaces."

"How long would that take?" asked Graham suddenly.

"An hour--certainly."

"Too late," cried the Ward Leader, "too late."

"Is it too late?" said Graham. "Even now--. An hour!"