When the Sleeper Wakes

ze of his vast interval of sleep hung about him, as yet the initial strangeness of his being alive at all in this remote age touched everything with wonder, with

ad a spectacular turn, like a thing witnessed from the box of a theatre. "I don't understand," he

m's enquiry. "This is a time of unrest. And, in fact, your

n not quite sure of his bre

derstand,"

learer later,

d, as though he found the

puzzled. "It will be-it is bound to be perplexing. At present it is all so strange. Anythin

but very long passage between high walls, along which

said Graham. "Is it all one

ays for various public ser

roadway place? How are you governed? Have y

ver

t fou

t under

you. To tell you the truth, I don't understand it myself very clearly. N

Howard and the halting answers he made, and then he would lose the thread in response to some vivid unexpected impression. Along the passages, in the halls, half the people seemed to be men

fancied a voice proceeded. The girls regarded him and his conductor, he thought, with curiosity and astonishment. But he was hurried on before he could form a clear idea of the gathering. H

ankles of people going to and fro thereon, but no more of them. Then vague impressions of galleries and

en his speed. Presently he was in a lift that had a window upon the great street space, but this was glazed and did not open, and they were

hey must be near four hundred feet above the moving ways. He stopped, looked down between his legs upon the swarming blue and red multitudes, minute and fore-shortened, struggling and gesticulating still towards the little balcony far below, a little toy balcony, it seemed, where he had so recently been standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mighty globe

ower ways towards the dense struggling crowd on the central area. These men in red appeared to be armed with sticks or truncheons; they seemed to be strik

k of cables and girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vans of windmills, and between them glimpses of a remote and pallid

e of that," cried

Howard, still

And the men in red following them

sliding shutter that had seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham found himself in a gallery overhangin

a large and imposing doorway at the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but giving a glimpse of some still larg

is ante-chamber, and then he found himself on an iron-railed gallery of metal that passed round the side of the great hall he had already seen through the curtains. He entered the place

thing to strike his attention, it was so vast, so patiently and painfully real, so white and simple. Save for this figure and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the place was a shining vacancy. The dais was remote in the greatness of the area; it would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been fo

ghty labouring figure. Then he stopped. The two men in red who had fo

for a few moments," and, without waiting f

y?" bega

path obstructed by one of the men in red. "Yo

hy

rs, S

e ord

rders,

ked his ex

" he said presently.

lords of the C

Coun

Cou

t the other man, went to the railing and stared at the distan

enly floated into view. What council could it be that gathered there, that little body of men beneath the significant white Atlas, secluded from every eavesdropper in this impressive spaciousness? And why should he be brought to them, and be looked at strangely and spoken of inaud

The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated. He glanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants.... When he looked again Howard

e panels were grouped in a great and elaborate framing of dark metal, which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries, and the great structural lines of the interior. The facile grace of these panels enhanced the mighty white effort that laboured in the centre of the sch

this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing back, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group and looking at him. The

egan Graham. "What were they discussing? What have they to do with me?" Howard closed the door carefully, heaved a huge sigh, and said som

ood regar

ions. As a matter of fact-it is a case of compound interest partly-your small fortune, and the fortune of your cousin Warming which was left to you-and certain other beginnings-have becom

sto

said

rave socia

es

pass that, in fact, is adv

soner!" excl

you to keep i

him. "This is s

will be d

ha

must be k

n my position

cise

then. Begin

t n

y n

long a st

What was that shouting I heard? Why is a great multitude shouting and excited beca

This is one of those flimsy times when no man has a settled mind. Your

coun

uncil y

"This is not right," he said. "I

it. Really y

I have waited so long to resume life," he

tter. And I must leave you alone. For a space. While

noiseless door, he

trying to piece together the kaleidoscopic impressions of this first hour of awakened life; the vast mechanical spaces, the endless series of chambers and passages, the great struggle that roared and splashed through these strange ways, the little group of remote unsympathetic men benea

ries of magnificent impressions was a dream. He tried to shut his ey

all the unfamiliar appointments of the t

ith a little greyshot beard trimmed to a point, and his hair, its blackness streaked now with bands of grey, arranged over his forehe

n. "To call on old Warming like this!" he ex

the midst of his amusement realised that every soul with whom he might jest had died many score of years ago. The t

houting multitudes came back clear and vivid, and those remote, inaudible, unfriendly councilors in white. He felt