THE STRUGGLE IN THE COUNCIL HOUSE
As Asano and Graham hurried along to the ruins about the Council House,
they saw everywhere the excitement of the people rising. "To your wards!
To your wards!" Everywhere men and women in blue were hurrying from
unknown subterranean employments, up the staircases of the middle path;
at one place Graham saw an arsenal of the revolutionary committee
besieged by a crowd of shouting men, at another a couple of men in the
hated yellow uniform of the Labour Police, pursued by a gathering crowd,
fled precipitately along the swift way that went in the opposite
direction.
The cries of "To your wards!" became at last a continuous shouting as
they drew near the Government quarter. Many of the shouts were
unintelligible. "Ostrog has betrayed us," one man bawled in a hoarse
voice, again and again, dinning that refrain into Graham's ear until it
haunted him. This person stayed close beside Graham and Asano on the
swift way, shouting to the people who swarmed on the lower platforms as
he rushed past them. His cry about Ostrog alternated with some
incomprehensible orders. Presently he went leaping down and disappeared.
Graham's mind was filled with the din. His plans were vague and unformed.
He had one picture of some commanding position from which he could
address the multitudes, another of meeting Ostrog face to face. He was
full of rage, of tense muscular excitement, his hands gripped, his lips
were pressed together.
The way to the Council House across the ruins was impassable, but Asano
met that difficulty and took Graham into the premises of the central
post-office. The post-office was nominally at work, but the blue-clothed
porters moved sluggishly or had stopped to stare through the arches of
their galleries at the shouting men who were going by outside. "Every man
to his ward! Every man to his ward!" Here, by Asano's advice, Graham
revealed his identity.
They crossed to the Council House by a cable cradle. Already in the brief
interval since the capitulation of the Councillors a great change had
been wrought in the appearance of the ruins. The spurting cascades of the
ruptured sea-water mains had been captured and tamed, and huge temporary
pipes ran overhead along a flimsy looking fabric of girders. The sky was
laced with restored cables and wires that served the Council House, and a
mass of new fabric with cranes and other building machines going to and
fro upon it projected to the left of the white pile.
The moving ways that ran across this area had been restored, albeit for
once running under the open sky. These were the ways that Graham had seen
from the little balcony in the hour of his awakening, not nine days
since, and the hall of his Trance had been on the further side, where now
shapeless piles of smashed and shattered masonry were heaped together.
It was already high day and the sun was shining brightly. Out of their
tall caverns of blue electric light came the swift ways crowded with
multitudes of people, who poured off them and gathered ever denser over
the wreckage and confusion of the ruins. The air was full of their
shouting, and they were pressing and swaying towards the central
building. For the most part that shouting mass consisted of shapeless
swarms, but here and there Graham could see that a rude discipline
struggled to establish itself. And every voice clamoured for order in the
chaos. "To your wards! Every man to his ward!"
The cable carried them into a hall which Graham recognised as the
ante-chamber to the Hall of the Atlas, about the gallery of which he had
walked days ago with Howard to show himself to the Vanished Council, an
hour from his awakening. Now the place was empty except for two cable
attendants. These men seemed hugely astonished to recognise the Sleeper
in the man who swung down from the cross seat.
"Where is Ostrog?" he demanded. "I must see Ostrog forthwith. He has
disobeyed me. I have come back to take things out of his hands." Without
waiting for Asano, he went straight across the place, ascended the steps
at the further end, and, pulling the curtain aside, found himself facing
the perpetually labouring Titan.
The hall was empty. Its appearance had changed very greatly since his
first sight of it. It had suffered serious injury in the violent
struggle of the first outbreak. On the right hand side of the great
figure the upper half of the wall had been torn away for nearly two
hundred feet of its length, and a sheet of the same glassy film that had
enclosed Graham at his awakening had been drawn across the gap. This
deadened, but did not altogether exclude the roar of the people outside.
"Wards! Wards! Wards!" they seemed to be saying. Through it there were
visible the beams and supports of metal scaffoldings that rose and fell
according to the requirements of a great crowd of workmen. An idle
building machine, with lank arms of red painted metal stretched gauntly
across this green tinted picture. On it were still a number of workmen
staring at the crowd below. For a moment he stood regarding these
things, and Asano overtook him.
"Ostrog," said Asano, "will be in the small offices beyond there." The
little man looked livid now and his eyes searched Graham's face.
They had scarcely advanced ten paces from the curtain before a little
panel to the left of the Atlas rolled up, and Ostrog, accompanied by
Lincoln and followed by two black and yellow clad negroes, appeared
crossing the remote corner of the hall, towards a second panel that was
raised and open. "Ostrog," shouted Graham, and at the sound of his voice
the little party turned astonished.
Ostrog said something to Lincoln and advanced alone.
Graham was the first to speak. His voice was loud and dictatorial. "What
is this I hear?" he asked. "Are you bringing negroes here--to keep the
people down?"
"It is none too soon," said Ostrog. "They have been getting out of hand
more and more, since the revolt. I under-estimated--"
"Do you mean that these infernal negroes are on the way?"
"On the way. As it is, you have seen the people--outside?"
"No wonder! But--after what was said. You have taken too much on
yourself, Ostrog."
Ostrog said nothing, but drew nearer.
"These negroes must not come to London," said Graham. "I am Master and
they shall not come."
Ostrog glanced at Lincoln, who at once came towards them with his two
attendants close behind him. "Why not?" asked Ostrog.
"White men must be mastered by white men. Besides--"
"The negroes are only an instrument."
"But that is not the question. I am the Master. I mean to be the Master.
And I tell you these negroes shall not come."
"The people--"
"I believe in the people."
"Because you are an anachronism. You are a man out of the Past--an
accident. You are Owner perhaps of the world. Nominally--legally. But you
are not Master. You do not know enough to be Master."
He glanced at Lincoln again. "I know now what you think--I can guess
something of what you mean to do. Even now it is not too late to warn
you. You dream of human equality--of some sort of socialistic order--you
have all those worn-out dreams of the nineteenth century fresh and vivid
in your mind, and you would rule this age that you do not understand."
"Listen!" said Graham. "You can hear it--a sound like the sea. Not
voices--but a voice. Do _you_ altogether understand?"
"We taught them that," said Ostrog.
"Perhaps. Can you teach them to forget it? But enough of this! These
negroes must not come."
There was a pause and Ostrog looked him in the eyes.
"They will," he said.
"I forbid it," said Graham.
"They have started."
"I will not have it."
"No," said Ostrog. "Sorry as I am to follow the method of the
Council--. For your own good--you must not side with--Disorder. And now
that you are here--. It was kind of you to come here."
Lincoln laid his hand on Graham's shoulder. Abruptly Graham realised the
enormity of his blunder in coming to the Council House. He turned
towards the curtains that separated the hall from the ante-chamber. The
clutching hand of Asano intervened. In another moment Lincoln had
grasped Graham's cloak.
He turned and struck at Lincoln's face, and incontinently a negro had him
by collar and arm. He wrenched himself away, his sleeve tore noisily, and
he stumbled back, to be tripped by the other attendant. Then he struck
the ground heavily and he was staring at the distant ceiling of the hall.
He shouted, rolled over, struggling fiercely, clutched an attendant's leg
and threw him headlong, and struggled to his feet.
Lincoln appeared before him, went down heavily again with a blow under
the point of the jaw and lay still. Graham made two strides, stumbled.
And then Ostrog's arm was round his neck, he was pulled over backward,
fell heavily, and his arms were pinned to the ground. After a few violent
efforts he ceased to struggle and lay staring at Ostrog's heaving throat.
"You--are--a prisoner," panted Ostrog, exulting. "You--were rather a
fool--to come back."
Graham turned his head about and perceived through the irregular green
window in the walls of the hall the men who had been working the building
cranes gesticulating excitedly to the people below them. They had seen!
Ostrog followed his eyes and started. He shouted something to Lincoln,
but Lincoln did not move. A bullet smashed among the mouldings above the
Atlas. The two sheets of transparent matter that had been stretched
across this gap were rent, the edges of the torn aperture darkened,
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 bodyguard 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 antechamber 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 monoplane
beat up from the central stage as if to meet the coming aeroplanes.
"What has 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 monoplane 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 were busy breaking down the wall beside him. In
another moment the monoplane 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 monoplane 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 little monoplane had passed. Ostrog had
vanished. The man in yellow thrust before him, zealous and perspiring,
pointing and blatant.
"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 he saw the prow of the monoplane come gliding over the edge of
the ruins 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 monoplane slipped over the edge of the Council House and
fell like a diving swallow. It dropped, tilting at an angle of forty-five
degrees, so steeply that it seemed to Graham, it seemed perhaps to most
of those 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 turned the machine upward. 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 vane of the monoplane 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 flying machine 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 be should be
paralysed by the sense of its intricacy.
Over there those square blue shapes, the flying stages, meant Ostrog;
against Ostrog, who was so clear and definite and decisive, he who was so
vague and undecided, was fighting for the whole future of the world.