When the Sleeper Wakes Page 5
CHAPTER V. THE MOVING WAYS
He went to the railings of the balcony and stared upward. An exclamationof surprise at his appearance, and the movements of a number of peoplecame from the spacious area below.
His first impression was of overwhelming architecture. The place intowhich he looked was an aisle of Titanic buildings, curving spaciously ineither direction. Overhead mighty cantilevers sprang together across thehuge width of the place, and a tracery of translucent material shut outthe sky. Gigantic globes of cool white light shamed the pale sunbeamsthat filtered down through the girders and wires. Here and there agossamer suspension bridge dotted with foot passengers flung across thechasm and the air was webbed with slender cables. A cliff of edificehung above him, he perceived as he glanced upward, and the oppositefacade was grey and dim and broken by great archings, circularperforations, balconies, buttresses, turret projections, myriads of vastwindows, and an intricate scheme of architectural relief. Athwart theseran inscriptions horizontally and obliquely in an unfamiliar lettering.Here and there close to the roof cables of a peculiar stoutness werefastened, and drooped in a steep curve to circular openings on theopposite side of the space, and even as Graham noted these a remoteand tiny figure of a man clad in pale blue arrested his attention.This little figure was far overhead across the space beside the higherfastening of one of these festoons, hanging forward from a little ledgeof masonry and handling some well-nigh invisible strings dependent fromthe line. Then suddenly, with a swoop that sent Graham's heart into hismouth, this man had rushed down the curve and vanished through a roundopening on the hither side of the way. Graham had been looking up as hecame out upon the balcony, and the things he saw above and opposed tohim had at first seized his attention to the exclusion of anything else.Then suddenly he discovered the roadway! It was not a roadway at all,as Graham understood such things, for in the nineteenth century theonly roads and streets were beaten tracks of motionless earth, jostlingrivulets of vehicles between narrow footways. But this roadway was threehundred feet across, and it moved; it moved, all save the middle,the lowest part. For a moment, the motion dazzled his mind. Then heunderstood.
Under the balcony this extraordinary roadway ran swiftly to Graham'sright, an endless flow rushing along as fast as a nineteenth centuryexpress train, an endless platform of narrow transverse overlappingslats with little interspaces that permitted it to follow the curvaturesof the street. Upon it were seats, and here and there little kiosks,but they swept by too swiftly for him to see what might be therein. Fromthis nearest and swiftest platform a series of others descended to thecentre of the space. Each moved to the right, each perceptibly slowerthan the one above it, but the difference in pace was small enough topermit anyone to step from any platform to the one adjacent, and so walkuninterruptedly from the swiftest to the motionless middle way. Beyondthis middle way was another series of endless platforms rushing withvarying pace to Graham's left. And seated in crowds upon the two widestand swiftest platforms, or stepping from one to another down the steps,or swarming over the central space, was an innumerable and wonderfullydiversified multitude of people.
"You must not stop here," shouted Howard suddenly at his side. "You mustcome away at once."
Graham made no answer. He heard without hearing. The platforms ran witha roar and the people were shouting. He perceived women and girlswith flowing hair, beautifully robed, with bands crossing between thebreasts. These first came out of the confusion. Then he perceived thatthe dominant note in that kaleidoscope of costume was the pale blue thatthe tailor's boy had worn. He became aware of cries of "The Sleeper.What has happened to the Sleeper?" and it seemed as though the rushingplatforms before him were suddenly spattered with the pale buff ofhuman faces, and then still more thickly. He saw pointing fingers. Heperceived that the motionless central area of this huge arcade justopposite to the balcony was densely crowded with blue-clad people. Somesort of struggle had sprung into life. People seemed to be pushed up therunning platforms on either side, and carried away against their will.They would spring off so soon as they were beyond the thick of theconfusion, and run back towards the conflict.
"It is the Sleeper. Verily it is the Sleeper," shouted voices. "That isnever the Sleeper," shouted others. More and more faces were turned tohim. At the intervals along this central area Graham noted openings,pits, apparently the heads of staircases going down with peopleascending out of them and descending into them. The struggle it seemedcentred about the one of these nearest to him. People were runningdown the moving platforms to this, leaping dexterously from platform toplatform. The clustering people on the higher platforms seemed to dividetheir interest between this point and the balcony. A number of sturdylittle figures clad in a uniform of bright red, and working methodicallytogether, were employed it seemed in preventing access to thisdescending staircase. About them a crowd was rapidly accumulating.Their brilliant colour contrasted vividly with the whitish-blue of theirantagonists, for the struggle was indisputable.
He saw these things with Howard shouting in his ear and shaking his arm.And then suddenly Howard was gone and he stood alone.
He perceived that the cries of "The Sleeper" grew in volume, and thatthe people on the nearer platform were standing up. The nearer swifterplatform he perceived was empty to the right of him, and far across thespace the platform running in the opposite direction was coming crowdedand passing away bare. With incredible swiftness a vast crowd hadgathered in the central space before his eyes; a dense swaying massof people, and the shouts grew from a fitful crying to a voluminousincessant clamour: "The Sleeper! The Sleeper!" and yells and cheers, awaving of garments and cries of "Stop the ways!" They were also cryinganother name strange to Graham. It sounded like "Ostrog." The slowerplatforms were soon thick with active people, running against themovement so as to keep themselves opposite to him.
"Stop the ways," they cried. Agile figures ran up swiftly from thecentre to the swift road nearest to him, were borne rapidly past him,shouting strange, unintelligible things, and ran back obliquely to thecentral way. One thing he distinguished: "It is indeed the Sleeper. Itis indeed the Sleeper," they testified.
For a space Graham stood without a movement. Then he became vividlyaware that all this concerned him. He was pleased at his wonderfulpopularity, he bowed, and, seeking a gesture of longer range, waved hisarm. He was astonished at the violence of uproar that this provoked. Thetumult about the descending stairway rose to furious violence. Hebecame aware of crowded balconies, of men sliding along ropes, of menin trapeze-like seats hurling athwart the space. He heard voices behindhim, a number of people descending the steps through the archway; hesuddenly perceived that his guardian Howard was back again and grippinghis arm painfully, and shouting inaudibly in his ear.
He turned, and Howard's face was white. "Come back," he heard. "Theywill stop the ways. The whole city will be in confusion."
He perceived a number of men hurrying along the passage of blue pillarsbehind Howard, the red-haired man, the man with the flaxen beard, a tallman in vivid vermilion, a crowd of others in red carrying staves, andall these people had anxious eager faces.
"Get him away," cried Howard.
"But why?" said Graham. "I don't see--"
"You must come away!" said the man in red in a resolute voice. His faceand eyes were resolute, too. Graham's glances went from face to face,and he was suddenly aware of that most disagreeable flavour in life,compulsion. Some one gripped his arm.... He was being dragged away. Itseemed as though the tumult suddenly became two, as if half the shoutsthat had come in from this wonderful roadway had sprung into thepassages of the great building behind him. Marvelling and confused,feeling an impotent desire to resist, Graham was half led, half thrust,along the passage of blue pillars, and suddenly he found himself alonewith Howard in a lift and moving swiftly upward.