he has sent. He is at the wind-vane offices directing. The people are marching."
"In your name?" shouted the younger man. "They have ruled, crushed, tyrannised. At last even———"
"In my name! My name! Master?"
The younger man suddenly became audible in a pause of the outer thunder, indignant and vociferous, a high penetrating voice under his red aquiline nose and bushy moustache. "No one expected you to wake. No one expected you to wake. They were cunning. Damned tyrants! But they were taken by surprise. They did not know whether to drug you, hypnotise you, kill you."
Again the hall dominated everything.
"Ostrog is at the wind-vane offices ready——— Even now there is a rumour of fighting beginning."
The man who had called himself Lincoln came close to him. "Ostrog has it planned. Trust him. We have our organisations ready. We shall seize the flying stages——— Even now he may be doing that. Then———"
"This public theatre," bawled the man in yellow, "is only a contingent. We have five myriads of drilled men———"
"We have arms," cried Lincoln. "We have plans. A leader. Their police have gone from the streets and are massed in the———" (inaudible). "It is now or never. The Council is rocking——— They cannot trust even their drilled men———"
"Hear the people calling to you!"
Graham's mind was like a night of moon and swift clouds, now dark and hopeless, now clear and ghastly. He was Master of the Earth, he was a man sodden with thawing snow. Of all his fluctuating impressions the dominant ones presented an antagonism; on the one hand was the White Council, powerful, disciplined, few, the White Council from which he had just escaped; and on the other, monstrous crowds, packed masses of
