When the Sleeper Wakes Page 6

  CHAPTER VI. THE HALL OF THE ATLAS

  From the moment when the tailor had bowed his farewell to the momentwhen Graham found himself in the lift, was altogether barely fiveminutes. And as yet the haze of his vast interval of sleep hung abouthim, as yet the initial strangeness of his being alive at all inthis remote age touched everything with wonder, with a sense of theirrational, with something of the quality of a realistic dream. He wasstill detached, an astonished spectator, still but half involved inlife. What he had seen, and especially the last crowded tumult, framedin the setting of the balcony, had a spectacular turn, like a thingwitnessed from the box of a theatre. "I don't understand," he said."What was the trouble? My mind is in a whirl. Why were they shouting?What is the danger?"

  "We have our troubles," said Howard. His eyes avoided Graham's enquiry."This is a time of unrest. And, in fact, your appearance, your wakingjust now, has a sort of connexion--"

  He spoke jerkily, like a man not quite sure of his breathing. He stoppedabruptly.

  "I don't understand," said Graham.

  "It will be clearer later," said Howard.

  He glanced uneasily upward, as though he found the progress of the liftslow.

  "I shall understand better, no doubt, when I have seen my way abouta little," said Graham puzzled. "It will be--it is bound to beperplexing. At present it is all so strange. Anything seems possible.Anything. In the details even. Your counting, I understand, isdifferent."

  The lift stopped, and they stepped out into a narrow but very longpassage between high walls, along which ran an extraordinary number oftubes and big cables.

  "What a huge place this is!" said Graham. "Is it all one building? Whatplace is it?"

  "This is one of the city ways for various public services. Light and soforth."

  "Was it a social trouble--that--in the great roadway place? How are yougoverned? Have you still a police?" "Several," said Howard.

  "Several?"

  "About fourteen."

  "I don't understand."

  "Very probably not. Our social order will probably seem very complex toyou. To tell you the truth, I don't understand it myself very clearly.Nobody does. You will, perhaps--bye and bye. We have to go to theCouncil."

  Graham's attention was divided between the urgent necessity of hisinquiries and the people in the passages and halls they were traversing.For a moment his mind would be concentrated upon Howard and the haltinganswers he made, and then he would lose the thread in response to somevivid unexpected impression. Along the passages, in the halls, half thepeople seemed to be men in the red uniform. The pale blue canvasthat had been so abundant in the aisle of moving ways did not appear.Invariably these men looked at him, and saluted him and Howard as theypassed.

  He had a clear vision of entering a long corridor, and there were anumber of girls sitting on low seats and as though in a class. He sawno teacher, but only a novel apparatus from which he fancied a voiceproceeded. The girls regarded him and his conductor, he thought, withcuriosity and astonishment. But he was hurried on before he could form aclear idea of the gathering. He judged they knew Howard and not himself,and that they wondered who he was. This Howard, it seemed, was a personof importance. But then he was also merely Graham's guardian. That wasodd.

  There came a passage in twilight, and into this passage a footway hungso that he could see the feet and ankles of people going to and frothereon, but no more of them. Then vague impressions of galleries andof casual astonished passers-by turning round to stare after the two ofthem with their red-clad guard.

  The stimulus of the restoratives he had taken was only temporary. He wasspeedily fatigued by this excessive haste. He asked Howard to slackenhis speed. Presently he was in a lift that had a window upon the greatstreet space, but this was glazed and did not open, and they were toohigh for him to see the moving platforms below. But he saw people goingto and fro along cables and along strange, frail-looking ridges.

  And thence they passed across the street and at a vast height above it.They crossed by means of a narrow bridge closed in with glass, so clearthat it made him giddy even to remember it. The floor of it also was ofglass. From his memory of the cliffs between New Quay and Boscastle, soremote in time, and so recent in his experience, it seemed to him thatthey 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 towardsthe little balcony far below, a little toy balcony, it seemed, where hehad so recently been standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mightyglobes of light obscured everything. A man seated in a little open-workcradle shot by from some point still higher than the little narrowbridge, rushing down a cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling.Graham stopped involuntarily to watch this strange passenger vanish ina great circular opening below, and then his eyes went back to thetumultuous struggle.

  Along one of the swifter ways rushed a thick crowd of red spots. Thisbroke up into individuals as it approached the balcony, and went pouringdown the slower ways towards the dense struggling crowd on the centralarea. These men in red appeared to be armed with sticks or truncheons;they seemed to be striking and thrusting. A great shouting, cries ofwrath, screaming, burst out and came up to Graham, faint and thin. "Goon," cried Howard, laying hands on him.

  Another man rushed down a cable. Graham suddenly glanced up to seewhence he came, and beheld through the glassy roof and the network ofcables and girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vans ofwindmills, and between them glimpses of a remote and pallid sky. ThenHoward had thrust him forward across the bridge, and he was in a littlenarrow passage decorated with geometrical patterns.

  "I want to see more of that," cried Graham, resisting.

  "No, no," cried Howard, still gripping his arm.

  "This way. You must go this way." And the men in red following themseemed ready to enforce his orders.

  Some negroes in a curious wasp-like uniform of black and yellow appeareddown the passage, and one hastened to throw up a sliding shutter thathad seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham foundhimself in a gallery overhanging the end of a great chamber. Theattendant in black and yellow crossed this, thrust up a second shutterand stood waiting.

  This place had the appearance of an ante-room. He saw a number of peoplein the central space, and at the opposite end a large and imposingdoorway at the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but giving aglimpse of some still larger hall beyond. He perceived white men inred and other negroes in black and yellow standing stiffly about thoseportals.

  As they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below, "TheSleeper," and was aware of a turning of heads, a hum of observation.They entered another little passage in the wall of this ante-chamber,and then he found himself on an iron-railed gallery of metal thatpassed round the side of the great hall he had already seen through thecurtains. He entered the place at the corner, so that he receivedthe fullest impression of its huge proportions. The black in the waspuniform stood aside like a well-trained servant, and closed the valvebehind him.

  Compared with any of the places Graham had see thus far, this secondhall appeared to be decorate with extreme richness. On a pedestal atthe remote end, and more brilliantly lit than any other object, was agigantic white figure of Atlas, strong and strenuous, the globe upon hisbowed shoulders. It was the first thing to strike his attention, it wasso vast, so patiently and painfully real, so white and simple. Save forthis figure and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the placewas 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 for the groupof seven men who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of itsproportions. They were all dressed in white robes, they seemed to havearisen that moment from their seats, and they were regarding Grahamsteadfastly. At the end of the table he perceived the glitter of somemechanical appliances.

  Howard led him along the end gall
ery until they were opposite thismighty labouring figure. Then he stopped. The two men in red who hadfollowed them into the gallery came and stood on either hand of Graham.

  "You must remain here," murmured Howard, "for a few moments," and,without waiting for a reply, hurried away along the gallery.

  "But, _why?_" began Graham.

  He moved as if to follow Howard, and found his path obstructed by one ofthe men in red. "You have to wait here, Sire," said the man in red.

  _"Why?"_

  "Orders, Sire."

  "Whose orders?"

  "Our orders, Sire."

  Graham looked his exasperation.

  "What place is this?" he said presently. "Who are those men?"

  "They are the lords of the Council, Sire."

  "What Council?"

  "_The_ Council."

  "Oh!" said Graham, and after an equally ineffectual attempt at the otherman, went to the railing and stared at the distant men in white, whostood watching him and whispering together.

  The Council? He perceived there were now eight, though how the newcomerhad arrived he had not observed. They made no gestures of greeting; theystood regarding him as in the nineteenth century a group of men mighthave stood in the street regarding a distant balloon that had suddenlyfloated into view. What council could it be that gathered there, thatlittle body of men beneath the significant white Atlas, secluded fromevery eavesdropper in this impressive spaciousness? And why should hebe brought to them, and be looked at strangely and spoken of inaudibly?Howard appeared beneath, walking quickly across the polished floortowards them. As he drew near he bowed and performed certain peculiarmovements, apparently of a ceremonious nature. Then he ascended thesteps of the dais, and stood by the apparatus at the end of the table.

  Graham watched that visible inaudible conversation. Occasionally, oneof the white-robed men would glance towards him. He strained his earsin vain. The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated. Heglanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants.... When helooked again Howard was extending his hands and moving his head likea man who protests. He was interrupted, it seemed, by one of thewhite-robed men rapping the table.

  The conversation lasted an interminable time to Graham's sense. Hiseyes rose to the still giant at whose feet the Council sat. Thence theywandered at last to the walls of the hall. It was decorated in longpainted panels of a quasi-Japanese type, many of them very beautiful.These panels were grouped in a great and elaborate framing of darkmetal, which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries, andthe great structural lines of the interior. The facile grace of thesepanels enhanced the mighty white effort that laboured in the centreof the scheme. Graham's eyes came back to the Council, and Howardwas descending the steps. As he drew nearer his features could bedistinguished, and Graham saw that he was flushed and blowing out hischeeks. His countenance was still disturbed when presently he reappearedalong the gallery.

  "This way," he said concisely, and they went on in silence to a littledoor that opened at their approach. The two men in red stopped on eitherside of this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancingback, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group andlooking at him. Then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, andfor the first time since his awakening he was in silence. The floor,even, was noiseless to his feet.

  Howard opened another door, and they were in the first of two contiguouschambers furnished in white and green. "What Council was that?" beganGraham. "What were they discussing? What have they to do with me?"Howard closed the door carefully, heaved a huge sigh, and said somethingin an undertone. He walked slanting ways across the room and turned,blowing out his cheeks again. "Ugh!" he grunted, a man relieved.

  Graham stood regarding him.

  "You must understand," began Howard abruptly, avoiding Graham's eyes,"that our social order is very complex. A half explanation, a bareunqualified statement would give you false impressions. As a matter offact--it is a case of compound interest partly--your small fortune, andthe fortune of your cousin Warming which was left to you--and certainother beginnings--have become very considerable. And in other waysthat will be hard for you to understand, you have become a person ofsignificance--of very considerable significance--involved in the world'saffairs."

  He stopped.

  "Yes?" said Graham.

  "We have grave social troubles."

  "Yes?"

  "Things have come to such a pass that, in fact, is advisable to secludeyou here."

  "Keep me prisoner!" exclaimed Graham.

  "Well--to ask you to keep in seclusion."

  Graham turned on him. "This is strange!" he said.

  "No harm will be done you."

  "No harm!"

  "But you must be kept here--"

  "While I learn my position, I presume."

  "Precisely."

  "Very well then. Begin. Why _harm?_"

  "Not now."

  "Why not?"

  "It is too long a story, Sire."

  "All the more reason I should begin at once. You say I am a person ofimportance. What was that shouting I heard? Why is a great multitudeshouting and excited because my trance is over, and who are the men inwhite in that huge council chamber?"

  "All in good time, Sire," said Howard. "But not crudely, not crudely.This is one of those flimsy times when no man has a settled mind. Yourawakening. No one expected your awakening. The Council is consulting."

  "What council?"

  "The Council you saw."

  Graham made a petulant movement. "This is not right," he said. "I shouldbe told what is happening.

  "You must wait. Really you must wait."

  Graham sat down abruptly. "I suppose since I have waited so long toresume life," he said, "that I must wait a little longer."

  "That is better," said Howard. "Yes, that is much better. And I mustleave you alone. For a space. While I attend the discussion in theCouncil. I am sorry."

  He went towards the noiseless door, hesitated and vanished.

  Graham walked to the door, tried it, found it securely fastened insome way he never came to understand, turned about, paced the roomrestlessly, made the circuit of the room, and sat down. He remainedsitting for some time with folded arms and knitted brow, biting hisfinger nails and trying to piece together the kaleidoscopic impressionsof this first hour of awakened life; the vast mechanical spaces, theendless series of chambers and passages, the great struggle that roaredand splashed through these strange ways, the little group of remoteunsympathetic men beneath the colossal Atlas, Howard's mysteriousbehaviour. There was an inkling of some vast inheritance already inhis mind--a vast inheritance perhaps misapplied--of some unprecedentedimportance and opportunity. What had he to do? And this room's secludedsilence was eloquent of imprisonment!

  It came into Graham's mind with irresistible conviction that this seriesof magnificent impressions was a dream. He tried to shut his eyes andsucceeded, but that time-honoured device led to no awakening.

  Presently he began to touch and examine all the unfamiliar appointmentsof the two small rooms in which he found himself.

  In a long oval panel of mirror he saw himself and stopped astonished. Hewas clad in a graceful costume of purple and bluish white, with a littlegreyshot beard trimmed to a point, and his hair, its blackness streakednow with bands of grey, arranged over his forehead in an unfamiliar butgraceful manner. He seemed a man of five-and-forty perhaps. For a momenthe did not perceive this was himself.

  A flash of laughter came with the recognition. "To call on old Warminglike this!" he exclaimed, "and make him take me out to lunch!"

  Then he thought of meeting first one and then another of the fewfamiliar acquaintances of his early manhood, and in the midst of hisamusement realised that every soul with whom he might jest had diedmany score of years ago. The thought smote him abruptly and keenly;he stopped short, the expression of his face changed to a whiteconsternation.

  The tumultuous memory of the
moving platforms and the huge facade ofthat wonderful street reasserted itself. The shouting multitudes cameback clear and vivid, and those remote, inaudible, unfriendly councilorsin white. He felt himself a little figure, very small and ineffectual,pitifully conspicuous. And all about him, the world was--strange.